By Ryan Haggerty, Globe Correspondent | September 1, 2007
Two men were arrested and charged with murder yesterday in the 2005 killings of two homeless men found in an old military bunker just outside a Hingham park.
Eric J. Snow, 25, of Bridgewater, and James S. Winquist, 23, of Weymouth, are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Hingham District Court, the Plymouth district attorney's office said in a statement.
The suspects are accused of killing William P. Chrapan, 44, and David P. Lyons, 46, Weymouth natives who lived in the abandoned bunker outside Bare Cove Park.
The victims' partially decomposed bodies were found May 9, 2005.
Autopsies conducted the next day determined that both men died of head trauma, including skull fractures, the district attorney's office said.
Hingham police and State Police detectives assigned to the Plymouth district attorney's office investigated the death for more than two years.
"I want to commend the hard work of the investigators in this case," Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said in a statement. "They have worked tirelessly on this case for the past two years, and as a result of their hard work, the murderers of David Lyons and William Chrapan will be brought to justice."
Bridget Norton Middleton, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said she could not comment on what led investigators to Snow and Winquist until after their arraignment.
Two reputed South Shore skinheads pleaded not guilty today to charges they savagely beat two homeless men to death and chopped off one of the man’s hands in a Hingham park in 2005.
Eric Snow, 25, of Bridgewater and James Winquist, 23, of Weymouth allegedly beat the two men with baseball bats in Bare Cove Park. The bodies of William Chrapan, 47, and David Lyons, 49, were found in the park in May 2005.
Witnesses said Snow and Winquist told partygoers stories about the brutal murder weeks after the homeless men were killed, according to police.
“Witnesses told (police) that they had seen and heard Eric Snow and James Winquist mock the two murder victims by making gurgling sounds to imitate the death of the two homeless men. Snow and Winquist had also made crunching sounds to imitate the sound of the damage done to the victims as well as mocking their pleas to have the killers stop,” a police report stated.
Snow and Winquist also showed off Chrapan’s severed hand to witnesses at the party, according to the police report.
The hand was discovered in 2005, buried near some power lines in Bridgewater near a house belonging to Snow’s mother.
Winquist and Snow were arrested Friday.
The men met in jail, according to law enforcement authorities. Both have violent criminal histories.
One witness told police that Snow and Winquist formed a “brotherhood of blood” while in prison together and are white supremacists.
In Hingham District Court today, both suspects sported short, shaved heads. Winquist’s nickname, “Twisted” is tattooed on his back. Snow’s nickname, “Killa,” and the words “Thug life,” are tattooed on his neck.
Winquist is also facing stautory rape charges for allegedly sexual assaulting his then-high school girlfriend’s classmate in the basement of his mother’s home in 2005. He also allegedly gave the girl a tattoo on her buttocks.
After court today, Winquist’s mother, Lisa Winquist, said her son was set up.
“My son doesn’t know anything,” she said.
Family members of the victims were also in court yesterday and one woman wept loudly as a prosecutor described the grisly murder. Both suspects are being held without bail.
State Police Sgt. Leonard Coppenrath consoles Leslie Barbosa in Hingham District Court on Tuesday. The bodies of Barbosa’s brother, William Chrapan, and David Lyons were discovered on May 9, 2005. (GREG DERR/The Patriot Ledger)
By KAREN GOULART The Patriot Ledger
HINGHAM - William Chrapan and David Lyons were struggling. In their mid-40s, they found themselves homeless and dealing with addiction. They tried to help each other out.
Those who cared for them hoped they would somehow find their way back to lives that once held so much promise. Chrapan was a wiz with technology and a Navy veteran. Lyons was funny and irreverent with a large circle of friends.
They were beloved brothers, sons and friends.
But to alleged killers and reputed white supremacists Eric J. Snow and James S. Winquist, they were a couple of ‘‘bums’’ to be mocked, tormented and dispensed of in a way police describe as ‘‘senseless’’ and ‘‘heinous.’’
On May 9, 2005, a person walking in Bare Cove Park, a state wildlife preserve in Hingham, discovered Chrapan and Lyons’ bodies in a former military ammunition bunker.
The bodies were decomposing and Chrapan was missing his right hand, which had been severed.
In Hingham District Court on Tuesday, members of Chrapan’s family clutched hands, his mother and sister staring at the alleged killers with tears in their eyes. Lyons’ sister cried out upon hearing details of her brother’s death and the alleged callous bragging that followed.
Snow, 25, and Winquist, 23, were arrested Aug. 31 and charged with murder. Both pleaded not guilty Tuesday. Judge Patrick Hurley ordered them held without bail. Both men have extensive criminal records and have spent time in jail.
It took police two years to make arrests in the case, but Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz called the time span understandable and necessary.
‘‘This is taking an extreme effort when you’re dealing with a remote homicide that happened in a remote area in which we have a date of death that occurred sometime prior to May 9, when they were discovered,’’ Cruz said. ‘‘When you get to a crime scene, the fresher the better. They started from the position of trying to find out what happened and completely followed all the information they had from the hand to... trying to get information.’’
Asked if more arrests could come in the case, Cruz said he had no comment.
‘‘We’re always investigating, in this case as in any other,’’ he said.
According to police, the night Snow and Winquist beat Chrapan and Lyons to death with a baseball bat was not the first encounter the four men had.
A witness told police that prior to the alleged murders, Snow and Winquist said they threw a lighted flare into a tent in a bunker that the homeless men shared, burning the tent and some of their belongings. On April 21, 2005, the Hingham police and fire departments responded to a fire at a bunker next to one where the homeless men’s bodies were found weeks later.
Chrapan and Lyons shouted expletives at them, the witness said. Some time later, police claim Snow and Winquist returned to the scene and killed them.
The witness was with Snow at Winquist’s home one night in April 2005, when Snow took the witness’s car and went with Winquist to drive ‘‘down the street to do something.’’
The witness awoke to their laughter - Snow’s described as ‘‘real,’’ Winquist’s as ‘‘forced’’ - about an hour later. They said they had ‘‘beat up some bums up the street.’’
Later Snow and the witness drove to Snow’s mother’s house in Bridgewater. He told the witness to drive past the house and down two dirt roads, where he allegedly buried a human hand next to a utility pole.
In July 2005, police went to the site and found the hand. But it hadn’t been there the entire time. At some point during that summer, the hand was dug up.
Two unidentified witnesses told police that Snow and Winquist bragged about killing the homeless men at a party at Winquist’s Rhodes Circle home.
‘‘These witnesses stated that at this party, James Winquist - while in the presence of Eric Snow - produced what appeared to the witnesses to be a human hand from a plastic bag and/or cooler,’’ wrote State Police Sgt. Leonard Coppenrath in probable cause report filed Tuesday.
They said Winquist and Snow mocked the murder victims by making gurgling sounds to ‘‘imitate the death of the two homeless men.’’
‘‘Eric Snow and James Winquist had also made crunching sounds to imitate the sound of the damage done to the victims as well as mocking their pleas to have the killers stop,’’ Coppenrath wrote.
The witnesses said Snow and Winquist bragged about killing Chrapan and Lyons, ‘‘stating that they had ‘made their bones’ and that others needed to do the same.’’
As they listened to the report read aloud in court, Snow made hand gestures and appeared to mouth words to people in the courtroom. Winquist stared straight ahead, occasionally looking at the court room or at his feet.
Witnesses knew Snow by the nickname ‘‘Killa’’ and Winquist as ‘‘Twisted.’’ Snow wore a jacket in the courtroom that covered the moniker that is tattooed across his throat. Winquist’s nickname is tattooed on his back.
The suspects are thought to be white supremacists, and witnesses who knew the men described them as ‘‘skinheads.’’ Reviewing phone conversations from the Plymouth County Correctional Facility and the Norfolk County House of Correction, investigators learned Snow, Winquist and others had formed a group they called the ‘‘Brotherhood of Blood.’’
Another witness identified as William Sylvester said Snow bragged about killing people and beating people with baseball bats. Sylvester said Snow claimed Winquist ‘‘killed people with me before.’’
Cruz would not comment about possible other homicides committed by Snow or Winquist. He said the focus now is on Chrapan and Lyons.
‘‘We will certainly look at every bit of information that exists,’’ Cruz said. ‘‘And if anybody has any information regarding any other events, please bring them to us. We’re not done.’’
Members of Chrapan’s and Lyons’ family did not comment after the hearing.
Lisa Winquist, James Winquist’s mother, said her son was innocent and the depiction of him as a white supremacist is untrue. She said his head is shaved because he likes having a bald head.
She said James met Snow in jail and was ‘‘manipulated’’ by him.
‘‘They’ve got the wrong guy, as far as my son goes,’’ Lisa Winquist said. ‘‘He has nothing against anybody.’’
She said someone else is responsible, adding that her son could never commit such a crime. Snow’s relatives did not speak to reporters.
Snow and Winquist are scheduled to return to court Oct. 5 for a probable cause hearing.
Cruz said prosecutors would fight attempts to set bail for Snow and Winquist ‘‘very aggressively.’’
James Winquist’s mother, Lisa Winquist, and his brother Jonathan listen to the arraignment Tuesday. (GREG DERR/The Patriot Ledger)
By KAREN GOULART The Patriot Ledger
For such young men, Eric J. Snow, 25, and James S. Winquist, 23, have a long criminal history, some of it violent.
Winquist’s adult offenses began to pile up not long after he graduated from Hingham High School in 2001. A state Department of Mental Health report on his competency to stand trial for a 2001 assault case states he ‘‘has been court involved since he was eight years old.’’
Winquist has three open cases in Hingham District Court and was scheduled to appear for pre-trial hearings Oct. 5 for charges of statutory rape and illegal tattooing - crimes that allegedly occurred in April 2005. An Oct. 12 date was set for a hearing on a charge of carrying a dangerous weapon.
Winquist’s record also includes the following:
—2001: Ordered to serve to 30 days of a one-year jail sentence on four counts of breaking and entering in the daytime, four counts of breaking and entering at night, seven counts of larceny over $250, five counts of malicious property damage over $250 and two counts of larceny under $250. A marijuana possession charge was continued without a finding.
— 2001: Probation on one count of assault.
— 2001: Probation, 50 hours of community service, random drug testing on one count of assault.
—2002: Sentenced to 11 months in jail on five counts of breaking and entering at night with the intent to commit a crime.
— 2005: Got a six-month suspended sentence for larceny of property over $250.
— April 2006: Sentenced to one-year probation after being found guilty of breaking and entering into a motor vehicle.
— December 2006: Found not guilty of larceny of more than $250 following a bench trial.
At Tuesday’s arraignment the prosecution said Snow has an ‘‘extensive’’ criminal record. These are some of Snow’s crimes:
—2002: One year probation for assaulting a fellow prisoner.
— 2003: Sentenced to 60 days in jail for probation violations stemming from an arrest in Fall River for accessory before and after the fact and carrying a dangerous weapon.
—2006: Guilty finding filed on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, driving with a suspended license, leaving the scene of an accident after property damage, failure to stop for police and driving to endanger.
— 2006: Ordered to serve one year of a two-year sentence for entering a home at night and putting a person in fear, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of larceny less than $250.
The commonwealth decided not to prosecute Snow on a home invasion charge in connection with the same case.
HINGHAM - The Anti-Defamation League praised the arrests of two suspected white supremacists for the murders of two homeless men, calling local ‘‘home-grown Aryan supremacy groups ... a growing menace.’’
‘‘We commend the Hingham police and the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office for their relentless pursuit of these two members of the so-called Brotherhood of Blood,’’ Andrew H. Tarsy, Anti-Defamation League New England regional director, said Tuesday, referring to the group that a witness said the two murder suspects belonged to.
Tarsy said local white supremacist groups are not only an increasing problem, but are ‘‘in some cases becoming more dangerous than the better known national hate groups.’’
Eric Jeremy Snow, 25, of Bridgewater and James S. Winquist, 23, of Weymouth were arraigned Tuesday in Hingham District Court for the two-year-old slayings of David Lyons and William Chrapan. Prosecutors allege the suspects bragged about killing the two men, even showing off Chapran’s severed hand at a party.
The two homeless men were found bludgeoned to death in a bunker near Bare Cove Park in Hingham on May 9, 2005.
Tarsy said the homeless are often targets of hate groups who believe authorities won’t aggressively try to solve the crime.
A 34-year-old Pennsylvania man who belonged to a racist group known as the Keystone State Skinheads pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder and racketeering charges in connection with the beating deaths of two homeless men in Tampa, Fla., in 1998.
Florida prosecutors said the victims were killed as part of a race war and targeted because they were considered inferior. Their murders were also part of an initiation for the racist skinhead group Tampa Blood and Honour.
In 2004, a Tacoma, Wash., jury convicted a 20-year-old racist skinhead for aggravated first-degree murder for his role in the killing of a homeless man.
The victim was kicked and hit with a baseball bat before a boulder was dropped on his head.
Lyons, 46, and Chrapan, 44, were also allegedly beaten with a baseball bat, according to authorities.
The National Coalition for the Homeless reported 20 fatal attacks on homeless people were linked to hate crimes last year.
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