BOSTON, April 15, 2016—The South End man charged with fatally stabbing Santo Bernabel in 2014 and then setting fire to the victim’s Roxbury home will remain held without bail, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

VICTOR MONTES-SEVERINO (D.O.B. 3/23/94) was arraigned today in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of first-degree murder and arson of a building.  At the request of Assistant District Attorney Craig Iannini of the DA’s Homicide Unit, Clerk Magistrate Lisa Medeiros ordered Montes-Severino to remain held without bail, as he has been since his Roxbury Municipal Court arraignment in connection with the case in February.

The Boston Fire Department responded to the scene of a fire at a Winthrop Street apartment building shortly before 9:00 p.m. on Oct. 10, 2014.  While there, firefighters discovered Bernabel dead at the  scene with multiple stab wounds inside his first-floor apartment inside the building. Firefighters notified Boston Police of the discovery, and detectives responded to the residence.

Boston Police detectives also responded that night to Boston Medical Center, where Montes-Severino had checked himself in with a reported stab wound.  He allegedly made statements to officers that he had been stabbed during the course of a robbery in Chinatown.  However, a GPS monitoring device that Montes-Severino was wearing at that time showed that he had not been in the area of Chinatown at all that evening, and instead placed him in the area of the victim’s home shortly before 911 calls reporting the blaze were placed, Iannini said.

In addition, blood evidence collected inside the victim’s apartment was submitted to the Combined DNA Indexing System – or CODIS – and “hit” on Montes-Severino’s unique genetic profile, which had been uploaded following his conviction on a 2012 robbery for which he served two and a half years behind bars.

Eliana Builes is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate.  Montes-Severino is represented by Steven Sack.  He returns to court May 26.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.