WORCESTER—Two suspects in the shooting death of Chasity Nunez and her 11-year-old daughter, Zella, will be charged with murder – one of them tomorrow, the other when he is brought back to Worcester after he was captured Monday in San Diego, CA.
Worcester County District Attorney Joe Early Jr. made the announcement at a press conference inside Worcester Police Department Monday night, just hours after the capture and arrest in San Diego of a second suspect in the brazen daylight shooting on March 5 at Lisbon Street and Englewood Ave.
As reported in The Worcester Guardian, 27-year-old Dejan Dante Belnavis was arrested Monday in San Diego, almost a week after the horrific incident that shook the residents of the Columbus Park Neighborhood and the entire city of Worcester. Early said Belnavis was arrested near the San Diego Zoo but did not provide details as to why he was there, whether he might have been attempting to flee the country, and exactly how he was captured.
Belnavis will be charged with murder once he is returned to Worcester. Early said that date is not yet known, as details were still being arranged.
A co-defendant, 28-year-old Karel Mangual, was captured not long after the incident last week and charged with armed assault to murder and carrying a firearm without a license. He also was to be arraigned in court on a preexisting arrest warrant. Early said the murder charge will be added in court on Tuesday.
Details of the investigation and the resulting arrest of Belnavis were scarce during the press conference, where several Worcester police officers and city officials, including Mayor Joe Petty, flanked Early and Interim Police Chief Paul Saucier as they spoke to more than a dozen members of the news media.
WPD Lt. David Doherty did say the Nunez family had been notified of Belnavis’s arrest shortly before a press release went out Monday. He said they were grateful for the hard work put in by police. While he said they would talk to the family again, he said, “We’re going to give them time to grieve.”
While the arrest of Belnavis was front and center at the press conference, there was a persistent theme throughout: the collaboration of law enforcement agencies and Worcester being a safe city despite the shocking scene that played out March 5.
“This,” Saucier said of Belnavis’s arrest, “is a great example of how when local law enforcement, federal partners, and state police come together, they were able to bring this to a successful conclusion.”
Saucier rattled off a litany of law enforcement agencies and divisions that played a part in the nearly weeklong investigation, including state police, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut, and San Diego police, as well as U.S. Marshals in Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island. Worcester police officers, he and Early said, worked 24/7.
“They weren’t going to stop until this person was in custody,” the interim chief said.
Early noted Belnavis was arrested without violence.
“People are always looking to knock the cops,” Early said. “It shows you how great they are, and how much they did together to [resolve this situation] without violence.”
At-Large City Councilor Kate Toomey, who chairs the city’s Public Safety Committee, praised the professionalism of the Worcester Police Department and the collaboration shown between all agencies during the investigation. Expressing pride in the men and women of WPD, Toomey said now it’s time to think of the family.
“I think it’s incredibly important now that we pray for the family that they are able to have some closure, some peace, some healing as we move forward,” Toomey said.
Expressing the relief many no doubt feel now that the second suspect has been caught, City Manager Eric Batista called it “a great moment for the city and a great moment for our Police Department under the leadership of Paul Saucier.”
“This is a time of celebration because we’ve been hard at work collaborating with many partners to come to this moment,” Batista continued. “Again, at a moment where the city is mourning the loss of two individuals, we come to a place where we can at least have some peace and support the family moving forward.”
Saucier assured residents what happened last week was not the norm for Worcester. Earlier Monday, speaking to The Worcester Guardian, Saucier said the shooting was “totally a surprise in a neighborhood where there’s not much violent crime.”
He declined to confirm speculation that the shooting was gang-related.
“This is not something that happens all the time in Worcester,” he said at the press conference. “This is a very safe community. We do have a low violence rate here compared to other cities comparable to us. We just want to make sure people in those neighborhoods know we’re there. Obviously, we’ve increased patrols. That’s the reason we knew we had to bring this to a successful conclusion. This isn’t Worcester. This is not a violent city. We have our challenges, but the men and women of the WPD are out there every day so we can live safely.”
With more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, Walter Bird is a former editor of Worcester Magazine, former executive editor of Stonebridge Press Newspapers, and a two-time Weekly Reporter of the Year through the New England Newspaper & Press Association. He can be reached at walterbirdjr@gmail.com
