A Worcester Superior Court jury has convicted a Worcester man of second-degree murder in the 2020 stabbing death of a man who confronted him while he was vandalizing vehicles in the city’s Grafton Hill neighborhood.
Benjamin Willie, 26, was found guilty Thursday in the fatal stabbing of 29-year-old Josue Rios, according to the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said the violence unfolded on June 30, 2020, as Willie was slashing the tires of parked vehicles in Grafton Hill. Rios confronted him, and the encounter escalated into an altercation during which Willie stabbed him.
Rios was taken to UMass Memorial Hospital, where he later died from his injuries.
In addition to the murder conviction, the jury found Willie guilty of two counts of malicious destruction of a motor vehicle.
Willie was arrested the day after the stabbing and initially charged in Worcester District Court with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, along with property destruction charges. After Rios died, prosecutors upgraded the assault charge to second-degree murder. A Worcester County grand jury indicted Willie in November 2020.
“Assistant District Attorneys Joseph Simmons, Rose-Ellen El Khoury and Alexander Van Den Eynde, and victim witness advocate Maria Deyette, did an outstanding job on this case,” Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said in the release. “I also want to thank the Worcester Police Department for their thorough investigative work and unwavering commitment to this case. Their efforts, together with those of our prosecutors, made today’s conviction possible. I am equally grateful to the members of the jury for their careful attention to the evidence and thoughtful deliberations.”
Willie is scheduled to be sentenced July 28.
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