The state’s highest court today upheld the convictions of a man and woman convicted of murdering a 21-year-old mother and her two-year-old son in an East Boston apartment six years ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously affirmed the convictions of JIMS BENECHE (D.O.B. 7/31/83) and JESSICA LYNN DEANE, 23 (D.O.B. 9/16/83), both found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder at separate trials. Jurors at both proceedings found that Beneche and Deane beat and suffocated Kayla Ravenell, Beneche’s ex-girlfriend, and Xavier Ravenell, the son she bore him, on the night of May 22, 2004.

“It’s hard to imagine a crime as heartless as the cold-blooded murder of a young mother and her two-year-old child,” Conley said. “The evidence at both trials proved that these defendants did just that, with their bare hands.”

Conley said that his office had spoken with members of the Ravenell family after learning of the decisions this morning and that they were “very, very relieved” at the news.

Evidence and testimony established that Beneche and Deane were involved in a romantic relationship after Beneche’s 2002 break-up with Kayla Ravenell. In 2003, Beneche was ordered to pay Ravenell $57 per week in child support for their son, Xavier; by 2004, he owed about $3000. Deane, the evidence showed, was seething with jealousy over the occasional contact Beneche still had with Kayla and Xavier.

Evidence and testimony also proved that Beneche lured the victims to Beneche’s mother’s Border Street apartment late on the night of May 22 to discuss child support payments. Instead, they beat and suffocated the victims to death. Early in the morning of May 23, witnesses saw the defendants transporting a large trash bag down the building stairs. Later on the same day, an off-duty State trooper discovered the bag, which contained Kayla Ravenell’s remains, at the edge of the Great Pond Reservoir in Braintree.

Police identified Ravenell’s remains and undertook a search for her son. As they approached Beneche’s apartment, a second trash bag was thrown from Beneche’s window. That bag contained Xavier Ravenell’s remains.

The defendants were tried in separate, back-to-back proceedings in the same courtroom in early 2007, a fact that became an issue in Beneche’s appeal. Deane was tried first, and her jury returned its verdicts while testimony was ongoing in Beneche’s trial.

Beneche argued on appeal that the instruction given to his jury about Deane’s conviction was unfairly prejudicial, despite the fact that it was delivered with his trial attorney’s approval and consistent with his defense that he was an accessory after the fact to, and not a principal in, the murders.

“[I]n this case, the defendant recommended that this information be presented to the jury in the form of an instruction from the judge,” Justice Robert J. Cordy wrote in the 13-page decision. “This stipulation was consistent with – and may even have bolstered – the defense’s theory that Deane was solely responsible for the killings. In closing arguments, defense counsel relied on this stipulation …. In the unusual circumstances of this case, the judge’s instruction, which should not ordinarily be given, was not in error.”

Assistant District Attorney Anna Kalluri of Conley’s Appeals Division argued the cases with Chief Trial Counsel Patrick Haggan, who prosecuted both defendants at trial. Michael Coffey was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. On appeal, Beneche was represented by attorney Greg Schubert and Deane by attorney Chauncy Wood.