Case Profiles #87
Jephthe Chery
29-year-old Jephthe Chery was an immigrant from Haiti who, along with his family, made Boston his home. In 1999 at the age of 13, he had moved with his mother and two little siblings to Boston to be with his dad. At the age of 16, after his dad had lost his job, Jephthe got a job at Burger King to help support his family. He got an associates degree in business after attending Bunker Hill Community College, and shortly after he got a job cleaning train cars with the MBTA, or the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Jephthe was fascinated with the train and subway system in Boston. His goal was to become a locomotive engineer, and his dedication to the job and being the main provider for his family as well as his work ethic resulted in him quickly moving up from cleaning the train cars to becoming a conductor on the commuter rail, or the “T” as they call it in Boston. He was working anywhere from 60-70 hours a week as a conductor.
On November 26th, 2015, Thanksgiving Day, just after 2:00 a.m. and just one day shy of his 30th birthday, police responded to an area outside a bar near Fenway Park where violence was unfortunately becoming more common. When police arrived to the bar called “Who’s on First” located on Yawkey Way, it was discovered that four men had been shot. All were in their 20’s, but the one who stood out was Jephthe. He was found dead outside of the bar. While the other victims of the shooting all survived, they were known to police and seemed to have been the intended target of the shooting. Jephthe was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when he had stopped by the bar to visit a friend.
In March of 2016, 26-year-old Dominique Carpenter-Grady was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm as a second offense, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm, discharging a loaded firearm within 500 feet of a building, and three counts of attempted assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Dominique was also one of the three other men shot and injured outside of the bar. Prosecutors said Dominique was seen on video surveillance placing a gun under a parked car on Yawkey Way where the bar is located before running away on foot. He was arrested on December 2nd at his home in Dorchester, Massachusetts after police found him hiding in the crawl space of the house. He has prior convictions for unlawful possession of a firearm.
Anyone with any information on the murder of Jephthe Chery is asked to please contact Boston Police homicide detectives at 617-343-4470 or anonymously through the Boston Police CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS.
John Lima
On May 21st, 2007, an 18-year-old man named John Lima was driving his sister’s car, a Nissan Altima, through the streets of Brockton, Massachusetts. With him, John had his buddy, Jorell Archer. It was at one point in their evening drive that a car suddenly became very close to theirs, riding the bumper and blaring their high beams. This understandably aggravated John, and he supposedly hit the brakes briefly, performing what is known as a “brake check” or a “brake job.” After this, the car that had been tailing John sped up again and now drove parallel to the passenger’s side of his car. Then, several gunshots rang out, and this unknown car sped away. John, who had been driving, tried to duck but couldn’t, so he jerked the wheel to the side and the car went into a parking lot of an apartment building where it slowed down and eventually crashed into the apartments. When emergency personnel arrived, they found John unresponsive and they quickly transported him to the nearest hospital, where he died shortly thereafter. Luckily, there was an eyewitness at the scene who claimed that he had seen a Chevy Malibu turn onto his street, hit a curb, and speed off. The very next day after the murder, police officers stopped a Chevy Malibu that had three men inside. The car was towed to the police station and confirmed to be the one seen. On June 1st, barely a week after the murder, Paulo Tavares was arrested in connection with John’s murder. His eventual trial led to a guilty conviction and a sentence of life without parole. However, an appeal was made by Tavares and his legal team which ended with his convictions being vacated in 2019. A new trial was ordered to be held but has not happened yet.
Image sources:
wcvb.com - “Man charged in shooting death of MBTA conductor”
russellpicafuneralhome.com - “John Peter Lima”