SALEM — An FBI agent and an eyewitness testified at the murder trial of Marcus Carlisle, of Lynn, and Tyrell Berberena, of Everett, Thursday morning at Salem Superior Court.
Carlisle and Berberena are accused of murdering Lynn man Noe Hernandez and injuring four other individuals in a drive-by shooting on July 4, 2020 at a cookout on 134 Fayette St.
The Commonwealth alleges that Carlisle and Berberena are members of the Tiny Rascals Gang and fired 20 shots at a crowd from the passenger side of a white Ford rental pickup truck, believing that the partygoers were members of rival gang Los Trinitarios.
Thursday morning, prosecutor Susan Dolhun called two new witnesses to the stand— FBI Agent Kevin Hoyland and eyewitness Heury Baldera, a former Kettle Cuisine, Inc. employee who attended the July 4 cookout.
Baldera testified that he had never been affiliated with any gangs, nor had any of his Kettle Cuisine coworkers, to the best of his knowledge. He said that he drove his car to the party alone, where he met with a woman he was dating at the time.
When Dolhun asked Baldera where he was at the time of the shooting, he said that he had crossed the street to help look for someone’s phone. From across the street, Baldera said that he saw a white truck roll up to the driveway with three individuals inside.
“When they were shooting, I could see three people inside — the driver, the [front] passenger and another person sitting in the back behind the passenger on the right hand side,” Baldera said through an interpreter. “I could see the one that was shooting, the guy in the back, because he was shooting and he was sticking his hand out the window.”
Examining a photo of the crime scene with Dolhun, Baldera pointed to a section of the road perpendicular to the house’s driveway. He told Dolhun that the truck stopped there and fired multiple rounds. He said the car then inched forward to the front of the house, stopped, fired more rounds, and fled.
When Dolhun asked Baldera if he could describe any of the men inside the truck, he replied that the men he saw wore black masks and hoodies. The truck’s rear passenger, he said, had two strands dangling from the bottom of his mask, which Baldera believed to be dreadlocks.
He added that the man’s gun was long at the bottom. When Dolhun asked him to clarify his response, he said that the gun was long “in … the part that holds the bullets.”
Baldera said that he crossed the street back to the party as the truck fled. He said that he found his then-girlfriend inside his friend Erisson Carrera-Moya’s car. She had been shot twice.
“She already had two shots, and she was sitting inside Erisson’s car,” Baldera said through an interpreter. “I picked her up and drove her to the hospital.”
Hoyland is an expert witness in the trial who works for the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team, where he helps the FBI find fugitives or missing persons by tracking their cell phone records to find out where, generally speaking, a phone made or received a call or text.
Hoyland said that he examined which cell towers were used to transfer calls and text messages from the defendants’ phone numbers and the phone numbers of two other men believed to be in the truck the day of the shooting — alleged driver Elijah Fontes-Wilson and Josue Cespedes.
“While your phone is on and sitting in your pocket, it is constantly scanning its environment,” Hoyland said. “And it’s looking for and taking measurements from cell towers in the area. It’s taking measurements of the signal strength and the quality of the signal that that phone sees.”
Records from particular cell towers to cell phones, Hoyland said, are recorded in billing statements, and can later be examined. He said that since cell phones search for the nearest cell tower with the best possible signal, that data could be used to track a cell phone’s approximate location at the time of the call or text.
In a presentation to the jury, Hoyland pointed to a map of Lynn and to the cell towers that picked up phone calls and texts from the numbers associated with the defendants on the night of the shooting.
Most of the defendants’ cell records the night of the shooting, Hoyland said, correspond to cell towers in close proximity to areas of interest in the case — 134 Fayette St.; 24-26 Union Court, where the defendants allegedly drove after the shooting; and 20 Brook St., where Fontes-Wilson allegedly attended a baby shower after the drive-by.
“You can see each individual’s phone usage relative to one another both by incoming and outgoing calls between some of these devices during this time (9:21 p.m. to 9:26 p.m.),” Hoyland said. “They’re clearly in the Lynn area, and in many cases, facing back towards locations of interest.”
Between 10:10 p.m. and 10:25 p.m. on the day of the shooting, Hoyland said that all four of the men’s cell phones were using the same tower, which faces towards locations of interest. The incoming and outgoing calls, he said, were made between unrecognized phone numbers.
“All of these calls that were taking place with these numbers, the incoming and outgoing calls, none of them are with any of these four numbers,” Hoyland said. “They’re all with numbers unknown to me, in my analysis during this time period.”
Hoyland also noted that within those fifteen minutes, he could not see any activity from Berberena’s phone.
“During this 15-minute window, Berberena’s device still did not have any activity,” he said.
Between 10:30 p.m. and 10:45 p.m., Hoyland said Berberena’s device showed activity for the first time since 8:02 p.m. and all four devices used the same cell tower, which was close to 134 Fayette St.
Hoyland also told Dolhun that messaging apps that use data, such as iMessage, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger could not be tracked through cell tower phone records.
When Carlisle’s attorney, James Krasnoo, cross-examined Hoyland, he asked him whether or not he could actually determine who called who by examining phone records.
When Hoyland responded it was correct, Krasnoo said that what Hoyland said wasn’t true.
Hoyland clarified that while he could not determine who specifically was using the phone through phone records, he knew which numbers were active.
“Yes, I don’t know who this person is behind each call,” Hoyland said.
Krasnoo also asked Hoyland whether he could determine the content of text messages or calls recorded in the previous logs, to which Hoyland responded that he could not.
Bereberena’s attorney, Brian Kelley, cross-examined Hoyland and asked him to confirm that Berberena’s phone last showed activity at 8:02 p.m., which Hoyland confirmed.
When Kelley asked Hoyland whether or not changes in the cell tower data could be the result of reception hand-off while traveling, Kelley said that that was the “most likely cause.”
The trial will resume at 9:30 a.m. Friday at Salem Superior Court.
