Murder charge against Lynn teenager dropped

SALEM – A Superior Court judge has tossed out a second-degree murder indictment against Javon Walczak, a Lynn teenager who had been charged with stabbing and killing another teen during a drug rip-off last summer.The judge ruled there was insufficient evidence presented to the Grand Jury when dismissing the case.Walczak, who was 16 at the time of the incident and now is 17, of 208 Edgemere Road, Lynn, had been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the stabbing death of Rene Valdez, 16, of Medford, on the night of Aug. 9, 2010.Valdez was reportedly stabbed once in the neck and twice in the back in the Highlands, at the intersection of High Rock Street and Lawton Avenue in Lynn.Valdez, who had bought marijuana previously from Walczak, arranged again to buy more marijuana from him, but instead was going to rob him of marijuana and possibly his money, according to prosecutors.In his decision, Judge Timothy Feeley pointed out that it was shortly before 11 p.m., when Valdez and another person, Darren Colucci, arrived on bicycles at the designated area with a gun.They approached Walczak and told him they were going to take the marijuana without paying for it, and demanded he give it up.A fight ensued between Walczak and the other two men in which Walczak pulled a knife out and Valdez was stabbed.Colucci, 18, of Swampscott, was also stabbed in the left side of his chest, but did not realize it until he had left the scene.Three witnesses testified about their observations of the confrontation.Feeley pointed out that prosecutor?s evidence showing that Colucci had a gun at the time of the robbery changes the method for determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support an indictment for second degree.Earlier, Colucci said they did not have a gun, but recanted his story later.The evidence that Colucci possessed a gun “significantly strengthens” the case that Walczak was “acting in the heat of passion upon reasonable provocation and makes even more apparent that the commonwealth failed to present any evidence of the absence of mitigating circumstances and the presence of malice,” stated Feeley in his decision.A second-degree murder indictment is “an intentional killing without justification or excuse is indeed an unlawful killing without malice aforethought and is murder,” Feeley wrote.Feeley also wrote that “Walczak carried a knife, but there was no evidence that Walczak had any intention to rob Valdez and Colucci of the money or otherwise to use the knife. There is no evidence that Walczak drew his knife until after the assault and attempted robbery was initiated by Valdez and Colucci, Feeley stated in his decision.?The evidence heard by the grand jury showed unequivocally that Valdez and Colucci planned to rob Walczak of his money and or marijuana and that they were the aggressors, initiating the assault and robbery before Walczak drew his knife,” Feeley decided.Defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro, reached by telephone, said, “I?m glad that the judge saw it our way and concluded, as we had argued, that there was insufficient evidence to support the second-degree murder indictment.”Shapiro did not know if prosecutors would seek a different indictment against his client.?There is no comment from the district attorney?s office at this time,” said Jonathan W. Blodgett?s spokesman, Keri Kimball Moynihan.