Colella case goes to jury

SALEM – Jurors deliberated for roughly two-and-one-half hours Thursday, but failed to reach a decision in the trial of Blake Colella, the 25-year-old Swampscott native charged with stabbing a Lynn man in 2006.Salem Superior Court Judge David A. Lowy sent the deliberating jury, comprised of five women and seven men, home at 3 p.m. because of the weather and ordered them to return Friday morning to continue their deliberations.Jurors now only have to decide one charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection with the May 19, 2006 stabbing of Richard Dalton, 21, at the 7-Eleven convenience store located at 264 Essex St., in Lynn.Prior to jury deliberations, Lowy directed out the second charge of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury against Colella because the injuries to Dalton were not severe enough to fit the charge under that statue, according to Assistant District Attorney Michael P. Hickey.Defense lawyer Ronald J. Ranta in his final summation told the jury Thursday that the “evidence falls short,” while insisting there is “reasonable doubt” in the government’s case.He pointed out that the incident that night was very “confusing” with a lot of pushing, shoving and people coming and going from the store, while reminding jurors that no one testified how – or who – inflicted the wounds to Dalton that night.Dalton took the stand Monday and said he could not recall the events that night, nor could his brother or their female cousin, who had initially picked out Colella in a photo array, but testified that wasn’t the picture she had chosen.Ranta acknowledged that Colella ran from the scene, but maintained his client “panicked,” with all the confusion, explaining that there was a “mob” there that night.But Hickey reminded the jury of the five taped, monitored conversations from the Middleton Jail they heard earlier this week in which Colella is reaching out to his father and asking him if he’s talked to the victim’s father, about how he was “just hanging around and just panicked, and saying “You know how I am. I’m used to being jumped from behind.”Hickey insisted that Colella ran and didn’t come back to get his car that he left behind at the scene because he didn’t want his identity to be known.Instead, Hickey said, he went back to his apartment at 164 Essex St., and convinced a female friend to pick up his car at the 7-Eleven, so he would not be associated with being at the crime scene.Hickey directed attention to the fact that Colella never considered that the incident was captured on the video store camera and showed a man wearing a jacket in a confrontation, the same jacket Colella had with him when he was arrested hours later at an apartment at 30 Franklin St.He focused on the “vivid” memories of the victim, brother and their cousin at trial, while indicating that his father may have colluded with witnesses in the case.Hickey reminded the jury about the three female witnesses who testified that Colella had later told them about the stabbing and even demonstrated to two of them how he did it, while recalling how one of them testified that Colella had said that Dalton was “afraid of me” and is not going to testify.Colella never took the stand in his own defense, but has maintained his innocence from the onset.He faces up to 10 years in state prison, if convicted on the one charge.In the meantime, he remains held in custody at the Middleton Jail.