No Bail in Teen’s Fatal Shooting

BOSTON, Dec. 10, 2014— The man who fatally shot 17-year-old Evens Archer was held without bail at his arraignment today, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

JOHNNIE BONNIE (D.O.B. 6/28/92) of Jamaica Plain was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court today on charges of first-degree murder, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and unlawfully carrying a loaded firearm, all in connection Archer’s shooting death.  He was also arraigned on a separate, unrelated case charging unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm, and receiving a firearm with a defaced serial number.

At the request of Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Walsh, Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson ordered Bonnie held without bail.

According to prosecutors, Bonnie and the Dorchester teen both attended a large party at a Castle Court residence on the night of June 28 and remained there into the early hours of June 29. Shortly before 2:00 a.m., as Archer stood in the home’s backyard, Bonnie shot him in the back of the head from a short distance away.

Archer was rushed to Boston Medical Center and was initially able to communicate with family and others, but he slipped into a coma days later and succumbed to his injuries three weeks after being shot.

Bonnie fled down East Berkeley Street onto Shawmut, where he was captured on surveillance camera disposing of the murder weapon in a sewer drain.  That weapon – a Jennings model J-22 semiautomatic pistol, was later recovered, and ballistics testing showed it to be the same firearm that killed Archer.

Bonnie was arrested by Boston Police on unrelated firearms charges on Sept. 20 and has been held since then. In the meantime, the investigation into Archer’s homicide was unfolding with detectives on the street and prosecutors behind the closed doors of the Suffolk County Grand Jury, which indicted Bonnie on Nov. 14.

Jassie Senwah is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate.  Bonnie was represented by Edward Hayden.  He will return to court Jan. 29.

 

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