Trial in 2010 killing ends in a hung jury
A murder trial seven years in the making ended with a deadlocked jury due to a single juror who could not decide beyond a reasonable doubt that a now 23-year-old Roxbury man killed a beloved elderly bodega clerk in 2010.
The jury had been mulling whether Onyx White shot and killed Geraldo Serrano, 71, during an armed robbery at the Hermanos Unidos store in Dorchester, a crime that shocked the neighborhood at the time and inspired then-Mayor Thomas M. Menino to promise to help small stores buy better security equipment.
“We are unable to come to a unanimous decision in this case,” the jury foreman wrote in a letter to Suffolk Superior Court Judge Edward Leibensperger.
“One juror does not believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of two of the charges, murder-first degree, and robbery, armed and masked,” the letter stated.
The panel did find White guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm, but on the two more serious charges, the foreman wrote, “We do not believe further deliberations will result in a unanimous decision.”
The jury began deliberating mid-day on Monday, and worked through yesterday and into today before declaring itself at an impasse.
Arrested days after Serrano was killed on Feb. 21, 2010, White has been in jail since he was 16 years old awaiting trial as various motions and an evidence dispute that went all the way to the Supreme Judicial Court stalled the case for the better part of a decade.
Two other then-teenagers involved in the robbery, Martin Freels and Roy Wilson, pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified during the trial, which began April 27, that White pulled the trigger and killed Serrano. White’s attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., argued during the trial that Freels and Wilson were wrongly trying to pin the murder on his client.
“The authors of our Constitution were wise to require a unanimous verdict by the jury,” Carney told the Herald yesterday. “This is an essential protection against wrongful convictions.”
White returns to court May 18 for sentencing on the gun conviction and Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said the office expects to retry the case and a new trial date could be set as early as next week.