BOSTON, Oct. 16, 2015—One month to the day after Luis Bodden-Maximo was shot dead, three men were ordered held without bail in connection with his Mission Hill homicide, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
LEE GILL (D.O.B. 8/19/91) of Natick, JEROME MEADE (D.O.B. 1/21/94) of Lynn, and JAVIER SMITH (D.O.B. 3/9/96) of Roxbury were arraigned on murder charges today in West Roxbury Municipal Court. Meade was additionally arraigned on a count of unlawful possession of a firearm. The charges relate to Bodden-Maximo’s Sept. 16 shooting death in the parking lot of 1620 Tremont St.
Assistant District Attorney Craig Iannini of the DA’s Senior Trial Unit recommended that all three be held without bail on the murder charges and that Gill’s open bail in an unrelated gun case out of Wrentham be revoked. Judge Kathleen Coffey granted those requests.
Based on evidence developed in the course of a still-active investigation, Boston Police homicide detectives yesterday arrested Smith and took custody of Gill after his lawyer surrendered him. Meade was already in custody on a Sept. 25 gun charge for which he is held on $25,000 cash bail.
Iannini told the court that Bodden-Maximo was with a friend eating at a restaurant near the scene when a man later identified as Smith entered, spotted him, and left. Apparently recognizing him, Bodden-Maximo told his friend that the man was from the H-Block street gang and that they had to leave.
As they did, Iannini said, another man approached Bodden-Maximo and briefly chased him through the parking lot. This man, wearing a black and gray hooded sweatshirt with a bright yellow shirt underneath, drew and fired a handgun at the victim, hitting him multiple times and fleeing the scene on foot.
Bodden-Maximo was rushed to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead of his injuries.
Through witness statements and the recovery of video evidence from the area, investigators learned that the gunman ran up nearby Calumet Street, tossing his sweatshirt and a .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun along the way. The firearm was recovered and analyzed; it contained traces of DNA that matched Meade’s genetic profile.
Investigators also learned that a red Jeep Cherokee registered to Gill’s mother was seen in the area, dropping off Smith just before the shooting and traveling in the same direction up Calumet Street when Meade fled there on foot afterward. In a post-Miranda statement to detectives, Gill allegedly acknowledged that he alone was using the vehicle that day.
Meade was arrested on Sept. 24 in connection with a report of shots fired and the nearby recovery of two firearms. In the course of investigating that incident, Boston Police obtained a search warrant for his phone and found photographs of him wearing the same clothing as that worn by the gunman who shot Bodden-Maximo and showing off a .40 caliber handgun similar to the one used in the homicide.
Cell phone records show Smith in the area of the shooting at the time it occurred, Iannini said, and show Meade and Gill in close proximity to one another beginning shortly after the shooting.
Gill, Meade, and Smith were represented by attorneys John Swomley, Stephen Weymouth, and Robert Wheeler. They will return to court on Dec. 15.
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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
