Tempest wants indictment dropped
Request to dismiss murder charges from 1991 comes ahead of retrial, set to start Oct. 10
WOONSOCKET — The promised retrial of accused murderer Raymond D. “Beaver” Tempest Jr. is now set for Oct. 10 before Superior Court Judge Robert D. Krause, but the veteran jurist is scheduled to hear a defense motion to dismiss the case today.
Tempest’s lawyers from the New England Innocence Project want the court to throw out the 1991 indictment accusing Tempest of bludgeoning to death 22-yearold Bellingham prom queen Doreen Picard nearly a decade earlier.
Echoing the arguments that led a different Superior Court judge to overturn his conviction on the same indictment in July 2015, Tempest’s lawyers now assert that former Woonsocket Police Chief Rodney C. Remblad used improper interrogation techniques to massage witnesses and bolster the state’s theory that he and his brother Gordon Tempest, a lieutenant on the Woonsocket police force at the time of the murder, conspired to cover up Beaver’s involvement in the crime by concealing evidence.
In a rebuttal argument, state prosecutors say that the defense’s request is built on mere speculation. They say the veracity of the coverup theory deserves to be tested through cross-examination at a
new trial.
Amy Kempe, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, said the motion to dismiss was originally scheduled to be heard later this month, but Krause recently moved it up for a hearing today.
“We don’t know if the judge will make a decision from the bench tomorrow or issue a written decision later,” Kempe said yesterday via email.
She said other pretrial motions are still scheduled for Sept. 25. The newest was filed by the defense – to post- pone the start of the trial – just yesterday afternoon, Kempe said, but it’s unclear when that will be heard.
Tempest, now 64, was convicted of strangling Picard and pummeling her to death with a length of pipe in the basement of 409 Providence St. in February 1982. The jury found him guilty of seconddegree murder after a monthlong trial in April 1992 and he was later sentenced to serve 85 years at the Adult Correctional Institutions.
Tempest has steadfastly denied any involvement in the crime, however, and several years ago, a team of lawyers from the Boston-based New England Innocence Project, working at no cost to Tempest, persuaded Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini to grant him a hearing for post-conviction relief.
In July 2015, after hearing from about two dozen witnesses, Procaccini vacated the 1992 conviction on grounds of police and prosecutorial misconduct. The state Supreme Court later affirmed Procaccini’s decision, which pivoted around the trial prosecutor’s decision to withhold certain statements from the defense on the eve of the trial.
The statements in question were provided to the defense by Donna Carrier – one of nine witnesses who testified against Tempest in 1992 who have since died. During the trial, some of those witnesses testified that Tempest bragged about killing Picard but that he would get away with it because of his connections to the police department.
“I’m a Tempest…I’ll slide,” one quoted him as saying.
Tempest, who did not testify in his own defense during the trial, did so for the first time during the 2015 hearing for post-conviction relief. He acknowledged that back in the first days of the investigation, he gave police a series of four sworn statements – including one to his brother – that contained false alibis, but he testified that he did so to conceal from family members his true whereabouts at the time of the murder: He didn’t want his relatives in law enforcement to know he was riding around with his brother-in-law doing drugs.
In addition to his police officer brother, Tempest’s father was the high sheriff for Providence County at the time of the crime and former chief inspector for the Woonsocket police, giving him the rank of second-incommand.
Though Procaccini declared that Tempest did not receive a fair trial and vacated the conviction, the judge stopped short of declaring him innocent. The decision left intact the original 1991 indictment accusing him of the crime, leaving the door open for a new trial.
After serving more than 23 years at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Tempest was released to home confinement in September 2015, following Procaccini’s ruling. He is believed to be living with family members in another part of the state.