Fatal Jamaica Plain Double Shooting: Man Indicted On New Charges

JAMAICA PLAIN, MA — A Dorchester man was indicted Tuesday for killing 23-year-old Christopher Joyce and 58-year-old Clayborn Blair and injuring a 4-year-old child at the old Bromley Heath housing development in JP last month, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

A Suffolk County grand jury today indicted Wilvin Guity-Beckels, 28, with two counts of first-degree murder and single counts of armed assault with intent to murder and unlawful possession of a firearm in connection with the May 4 shooting at the Mildred C. Hailey Apartment complex (formerly known as the Bromley Heath development) near the Jackson Square MBTA stop.

“This act of senseless violence claimed a young man with his life ahead of him and a grandfather with everything to live for,” Conley said. “It could very easily have killed an utterly innocent child. There is no excuse, no possible reason, for conduct like this or the availability of firearms that make it possible.”

Guity-Beckels has been held without bail since his arraignment May 14 on two counts of murder in Roxbury Municipal Court on May 14, two days after his arrest by Boston Police.

According to prosecutors, Guity-Beckels was in the rear passenger’s seat of a car that arrived in the area of Chestnut Avenue shortly before 9:45 p.m. on May 4. He got out of the car and walked into the Mildred C. Hailey Apartments complex, where he opened fire on a group of people standing in the courtyard.

Joyce and Blair, who were among approximately 15 people standing in the park, were fatally struck in the spray of gunfire. Boston Police homicide detectives and Suffolk prosecutors later received information that a bullet had also grazed a 4-year-old boy; he was not seriously injured and received treatment for a graze wound to his ear at an area health center.

Among the evidence collected during the course of an investigation into the shooting was footage from more than a dozen surveillance cameras captured the assailant’s movements before, during, and after the shooting. The footage depicts the shooter wearing distinctively patterned sneakers, which were later recovered during the execution of a search warrant at Guity-Beckels’ home, prosecutors said.

Next up will be a Superior Court arraignment.

Previously on Patch:

JP Shooting Victims Were Innocent Bystanders Of Gang Violence

Boston Police: Arrest In Murder Of Salem State University

Fatal Jamaica Plain Violence: Shooting Leaves 2 Dead

Jamaica Plain Shooting Caught On Video, Accused Held Without Bail

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