Defense requests denied in Peabody murder case

SALEM – A Superior Court judge has ruled against a defense lawyer’s attempt to prevent key evidence and a statement from the suspect from being introduced at the trial of accused murderer Ashley Fernandes.In her motions, defense lawyer Aviva E. Jeruchim challenged the validity of Fernandes’ consent for police to search the 7 Oak St., Apt. #9 Peabody apartment, where the body of his live-in girlfriend, Jessica Herrera, was found strangled and wrapped in a blanket hidden under a pile of construction material in an empty room.Jeruchim also argued that the search warrant was not properly signed by the clerk-magistrate who issued the application to search the apartment where a computer and camera containing images of the victim’s body were found.Jeruchim further challenged that police had no proper authority to stop Fernandes in his Jeep Liberty after a concerned witness told Beverly police that he had a conversation with Fernandes at an Indian restaurant in Beverly where he allegedly told him his girlfriend was dead inside his apartment and that the witness would soon be seeing him in the news.After hearing from the witness, authorities began staking out the Oak Street apartment.Fernandes, 31, who worked at Bostik in Middleton, is facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of Herrera, 25, a mother of two whose body was found on the morning of April 6, 2008.Fernandes led police to the body after the traffic stop.He is also charged with attempted murder and assault and battery in connection with another attack on Herrera three months prior, during which she allegedly sustained a significant bruise under her left eye and bruises to her right upper leg.In his 31-page decision, Judge Timothy Q. Feeley ruled that police had “reasonable and articulable suspicion” to stop Fernandes as he drove away from his apartment to inquire about the legality of his operation of the vehicle without a Massachusetts license. Police knew that Fernandes was not licensed in Massachusetts, but did not know if he possessed an out-of-state driver’s license.Police knew he lived at his Oak Street apartment for at least three months and those facts supported a reasonable conclusion that Fernandes was a resident of the state and needed a valid license to drive.”Thus an investigative stop of Fernandes was justified,” Feeley ruled.The issue of whether Fernandes gave consent to search the apartment freely, Feeley said, was after Fernandes signed the Miranda card voluntarily after being given his rights twice by police.Feeley also ruled that Fernandes made statements voluntarily during a 70-minute interview with police in which he admitted killing Herrera. Those statements can be used by the prosecutor at his upcoming trial.Although the search warrants were not signed by the clerk magistrate, Feeley concluded that the clerk magistrate “intended to issue” valid warrants to detectives and her failure to sign the actual warrants was no more than a “clerical error.”The law requires that only a judge, court clerk or an assistant clerk magistrate has the authority to grant police a search warrant.Assistant District Attorney Kate B. MacDougall maintained throughout the hearings that police conducted the search, stop and interview according to the regulations required.Fernandes, who was born in India, but is of Hispanic descent, has pleaded innocent to the charges lodged against him.A conviction on the first-degree murder charge carries a life sentence in state prison, with no chance of parole.