SALEM — Eyewitness Stephany Mejia recalled watching her boyfriend, Noe Hernandez, get shot and killed at a July 4, 2020 drive-by shooting, on the ninth day of the Marcus Carlisle and Tyrell Berberena trial.
Carlisle, of Lynn, and Berberena, of Everett, are on trial for allegedly murdering Hernandez and injuring four others at the shooting.
The Commonwealth alleges that Elijah Fontes-Wilson rented a white pickup truck, which he used to drive Carlisle, Berberena, and alleged co-conspirator Josue Cespedes to a 134 Fayette St. cookout. Berberena and Carlisle, accused of being members of the Tiny Rascals Gang with Fonted-Wilson and Cespedes, allegedly opened fire on the partygoers under the belief that they were members of a rival gang, Los Trinitarios.
When prosecutor Susan Dolhun called Mejia to the stand, she said that she and Hernandez lived together in Lynn at the time of shooting. Meija said that Hernandez, the father of an eight-year-old boy, gave her a ride to her job at Caffè Nero in Boston early that morning, picked her up in the afternoon, and drove her to the cookout.
Mejia testified that she was sitting on a lawn chair in front of the house facing Hernandez and went inside to use the bathroom. When she went back outside and sat down, she said that somebody pushed her to the ground for cover. When she got up, she saw someone pointing a gun out of the back passenger seat of a white truck.
After she got up, Mejia said she saw Hernandez lying on the ground face down, with blood flowing out of his mouth.
“He [Hernandez] was on the floor in front of me … he landed on my feet,” Mejia said.
Mejia said that she called 911 and stayed on the line with operators while waiting for the ambulance. When Dolhun asked Mejia if Herandez said anything, she made a soft popping sound to describe what she heard from Hernandez.
Mejia responded “no” when Dolhun asked her if Hernandez, to her knowledge, had ever been affiliated with any gang, and if she noticed any partygoers carrying weapons.
When Carlisle’s attorney Benjamin Falkner cross-examined Mejia, she testified that she could not see the shooters that well, since they were wearing black ski masks and she was focused on Hernandez. She said, however, that the shooter’s hands were a darker complexion than her own skin.
Falkner asked Mejia to describe her own skin tone, to which she replied “caramel-colored.”
Following Mejia’s testimony, Dolhun called Lynn Police Detective Roger Tinkham to the stand before she played a video of Tinkham interviewing Fontes-Wilson on July 7.
In the video, Tinkham shows Fontes-Wilson a series of photos in a double blind photo array, each one depicting the headshot of a different person. When Fontes-Wilson sees a photo of Berberena, he identifies him as one of the truck’s passengers.
“That’s Rel [Berberena’s nickname]. Rel is the one that was in the backseat. He went along with me, J.C., and Marcus Carlisle,” Fontes-Wilson told Tinkham.
When Berberena’s attorney Brian Kelley cross-examined Tinkham, he asked him how many photo arrays he conducted over the course of his career. Tinkham replied that he likely has conducted over 100.
Kelley then asked whether or not the department’s double blind procedure, meant to remove police suggestibility, would hold up in a case where the questioned individual knows the suspects personally.
“When the witness knows the parties and they’re coming in a line, there’s no procedure around that, correct?” Kelley asked.
“Correct,” Tinkham replied.
Later in the day, Massachusetts State Trooper Brendan Carnes took the stand. Carnes was assigned to the State Police Detective Unit and served as the assigned investigator for the July 4 shooting before being deployed to Afghanistan in December 2020.
Dolhun examined Carnes for the entirety of the afternoon session and had him recall his role in the investigation. He said that on the night of the shooting, he was notified around 10:30 p.m. that there had been a shooting in Lynn, with one person murdered and four others injured.
Though he was not able to identify a license plate number or suspect names that evening, he said that based on the evening’s interviews, a white pickup truck was the suspect vehicle.
Carnes and other investigators on the scene began to collect video footage from homes along Fayette Street and any other pieces of evidence that could be associated with the incident. He stated that Mejia went to the police station to report that there were teeth next to the stairs leading to the front door of 134 Fayette St. Dolhun then presented pictures of teeth that appeared to be scattered in some vegetation outside of the building and had Carnes open a coin envelope containing the teeth seen in the photo. He testified that he was notified Hernandez was missing teeth after an autopsy was performed.
Dolhun asked him if he went to Union Place the afternoon of July 5, 2020.
Carnes said that he did after Lynn police received a call from a woman who lived on the street.
“After 3 o’clock there was a call made to the Lynn Police Department from a resident that couldn’t get out of her driveway,” he said. “She reported that there was a pickup truck blocking her driveway and asking for assistance from the Lynn Police Department.”
Earlier in the trial, video evidence showed a truck parked at Union Place, where Fontes-Wilson allegedly abandoned it and reported it stolen to police.
The truck was seized by police, pending a search warrant, and was towed to the Lynn Police Department. The warrant was obtained and executed at 8:47 p.m. Among the items taken from the truck were the vehicle’s infotainment system, a Michael Kors jacket, and receipts from multiple restaurants including a Sonic Drive-In in Peabody from July 2, the Walmart on Broadway in Saugus from July 3, a CambridgeSide parking stub from July 3, and a Dunkin’ Donuts on July 4. Video surveillance was gathered from all of the locations except for the Dunkin’ Donuts. No guns, ammo, or masks were found in the truck, however, shell casings were found in the bed of the pickup truck.
Later in the testimony, Carnes recalled the multiple instances that Fontes-Wilson came in to speak with police.
After reporting the truck missing, Fontes-Wilson agreed to come in for an interview at the Lynn Police Station prior to the truck being searched.
Dolhun asked Carnes what he was trying to determine during that initial interview.
“At that time we were trying to identify if he was driving the vehicle at the time of the incident, if he had lent the vehicle to someone, if he knew someone that was driving the vehicle, or if he had any other information as to who may have been in the vehicle,” he responded.
Fontes-Wilson filed a stolen vehicle report, though the truck had been recovered at that point, and Carnes said it was in his best interest to talk to police about the incident.
“At the time, he needed to come clean and talk to us about what had occurred,” he said.
Fontes-Wilson later said he was the driver of the truck during the shooting and identified Carlisle and Cespedes in a later police interview.
On July 6, a search warrant was executed at Fontes-Wilson’s mother’s house, where the clothes that he was allegedly wearing the night of the shooting were recovered. Carnes also testified that a mask was found but not taken at the time of the search.
The trial will resume Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. at Salem Superior Court.
