Waltham Man Back On Trial In Newton Murder-For-Hire Case

WALTHAM, MA — The Waltham man whose conviction was overturned in the 2006 murder-for-hire slaying of an estranged wife's boyfriend in a Newton parking lot was back in court Thursday for a retrial.

Massachusetts' highest court granted a new trial for James Brescia, 59, of Waltham who was first sentenced to life in prison when he was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill another man.

The Supreme Judicial Court granted Brescia a new trial, citing a stroke Brescia suffered while testifying. A lower court judge said the stroke's effects may have damaged Brescia's credibility.

Thursday morning jurors took a trip out to see the scene of the crime in Newton and returned to the courtroom to hear opening statements. Brescia sat wearing a light sweater over a button down shirt and dark glasses at the defendant desk farthest away from the jury. He looked at the jury a couple times but mostly looked forward or down at the desk in front of him.

"He was ambushed in that parking garage," said Adrienne Lynch the District Attorney in charge of all aspects of homicide investigations and prosecutions for the Middlesex Superior Court in her opening statements. "The murder of Edward Schiller was the result of a joint venture."

The murder was premised on the defendant's desire that the murder not be tied to him, she said.

On Jan. 13, 2006 after the body of a Schiller was found outside his office in Newton state police and investigators talked to dozens of witnesses, examined phone, business and bank records and looked through trash over the course of several months. During the investigation, police pieced together what happened, Lynch said.

On that January day, Shiller was on his way to work at 345 Boylston St. in Newton. He left his home in Newton and on the way called the defendant's then-estranged wife with whom he was having a romantic relationship with and chatted for about 10 minutes. She was the last person to have spoken with the man before he was killed, found later in the covered parking garage at his work.

A coworker noticed an older model sedan that may have been an orange or red Ford Taurus as she pulled in to park in her space, said Lynch during the opening statements. The coworker went in to work and a few minutes later heard a loud bang near the parking garage. The woman and a couple others on the fourth floor went to a window to see what happened before returning to work, the lawyer for the Commonwealth told the jury.

After two coworkers found the body just after 9:30 a.m., according to court records. Police went back and found the owners of all cars except for one car, the Red Ford Taurus, she said. It was later determined that the car belonged to Scott Foxworth who was convicted of shooting Schiller.

During the opening statements, the attorney for the Commonwealth linked Brescia to Foxworth through a receipt for a prepaid phone card number that was used at a pay phone to call Foxworth repeatedly leading up to the murder.

"Initially it was a plan to beat up Ed," she said.

But in the fall and early winter, anger and frustration as his wife left him was being directed at Schiller. "At some point Mr. Brescia decided it was no longer enough to beat him up," she said.

Brescia had worked at Raytheon for nearly two dozen years and lived in Waltham with his mother during the time.

Brescia's attorney Alan Black asked the jurors during his opening statement to judge the witnesses carefully, to watch their body language and how they spoke and to judge them on those merits.

"That's where the case begins, not now, not before," he said. "Make no mistake about it we are contending that Mr. Brescia is not guilty. Not guilty of the charges."

Black said there was DNA testing on the shell casings found at the crime scene.

"Mr. Brescia's DNA wasn't on the casing. Mr Foxworth's DNA wasn't. You're not going to hear any DNA work linking Mr. Brescia or Mr. Foxworth. Or fingerprints."

"There is no forensic evidence in this case," he said.

He also told jurors would not hear any of the content of the phone calls. He asked the jury "hearken back to reasonable doubt."

Witnesses called

Annette Bloodworth of Milton was the first witness called. In January she worked for the same agency Schiller worked for in 2006 and considered him like a brother.

On Friday, Jan. 13, 2006 she had come into work but didn't notice anything unusual. About 15 or 20 minutes after she came into the office, someone asked her if she'd seen him. She called his cell twice and then called a Langley Road deli to see if he was there.

When that didn't work, Bloodworth went down with a colleague to see if Schiller's car was in the garage. Bloodworth remembered talking with a co worker as she went down to the garage and as they went into the garage her coworker stopped but she went into the garage.

"I saw that the back of the window was fogged up and said to myself 'oh he's in there,'" she said. "And then I walked over to the drivers side that's when I saw him."

Lynch asked her what she saw.

"I saw blood and I saw a mark on his face close to his temple. I remember crying and screaming and touching his car to balance myself," said Bloodworth.

Some part of her didn't think it was real so she called her coworker over, the coworker grabbed her and they ran up the stairs back to the office screaming.

Steven Aronson of Newton was the next witness. Aronson was the president of Aronson Insurance firm where Schiller and Bloodworth worked.

Aronson was in early for a client meeting. When he got out of the meeting he saw several employees crying. He went out to ask in a general way what was happening, he said in court.

"I yelled to employees in general, somebody get the gloves," he said "and I yelled for my associate to join me and go down to the parking garage and see what was going on."

"When Michael and I entered the garage it was Ed Schiller's car we were headed toward," he said. "From a distance you couldn't see into the car."

"I saw Ed Schiller slumped in the driver's seat. He was lifeless," he said. "There was blood actively slowly dripping from his mouth and I noticed what appeared to be a pool of blood on his lap."

Michael opened the door and Aronson touched Schiller's shoulder and asked him if he was OK. He got no response, Aaronson said in court.

The first trial

In 2008, Brescia, of Waltham, was convicted of first- degree murder for paying hired hitman, Scott Foxworth, $10,000 to kill 39-year-old Edward Schiller, of Framingham, the lover of Brescia's estranged wife, Stacey Rock.

Schiller was shot in his head on the morning of Jan. 13, 2006 as he sat in his car in a Newton parking garage near his job. Brescia apparently found out that his estranged wife had rekindled a romance with Schiller, her high school sweetheart and became upset, Patch previously reported.

Investigators used phone records between Brescia and Foxworth, as well as witness testimony to link Brescia to the crime. Foxworth is serving life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting.

During Brescia's first and second days of testimony on the witness stand he suffered a small stroke, Patch reported at the time. On the stand, Brescia complained of having a bad headache and seemed confused.

Dateline NBC in November of 2009 featured the case, calling it The Friday the 13th Mystery, asking, "Who would have wanted to kill Ed Schiller?" The episode is available here.

ABC's 20/20 also spotlighted the murder, which it said "captivated the city of Newton," and focused on Stacey Rock, Brescia's wife who had rekindled a relationship with her high school sweetheart, Schiller.

The 16 member jury is sequestered during this case, according to the court. The jury is made of 7 men and 9 women.

This story will be updated

• Special Judge Sought For Waltham Man's Murder-For-Hire
• Man Convicted of Killing Man in Newton Garage Wants ...
• Man Convicted of Hiring Hitman to Kill Wife's Boyfriend
• James E. Brescia was found guilty of..

Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch Staff