Suspect’s guardian upset by teen’s death
The guardian of a Tewksbury teen who is accused of fatally slamming a 15-yearold onto a concrete floor at an underage drinking party said he feels for the victim’s family.
“We’re very upset about the whole thing,” said David Stanizzi, the uncle of 18-year-old Joseph Zagarella, a day after Ethan Costello succumbed to a severe brain bleed.
“We don’t know the whole story about what happened,” he said. “I feel really bad for the family.”
Zagarella has been out on $10,000 cash bail and under house arrest since Monday, when he pleaded not guilty in Lowell District Court to a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
A spokeswoman for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office yesterday said prosecutors are awaiting autopsy results before deciding whether to upgrade the charge against him.
A witness told officers that as many as 75 teenagers were at a party Friday night at a barn on Boylston Street in Lowell, where Zagarella picked Costello up and slammed him into the floor, causing his head to hit the concrete, police said.
Afterward, Costello was seen “vomiting blood, with foam coming out of his mouth,” police said.
Partygoers argued about whether to call 911, witnesses said. A few boys carried him into the house on the property, but when one of them asked the owner where they should put him, the man told them, “Get that kid out of here. I’m not dealing with drunk kids,” witnesses told police.
One of the teens brought Costello into the bathroom and put him in the shower, believing he was merely drunk and the water would sober him up, police said.
By the time a few of the partygoers brought the victim to Lowell General Hospital, he was “unresponsive and in cardiac arrest,” police said.
Costello was transferred to Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where he was pronounced dead Monday.
Police say Zagarella gave officers conflicting accounts before admitting he threw Costello to the floor.
The case is expected to be given to a grand jury, police said.