Jassy kidnap-death trial opens
Extensive video evidence to be shown
The trial of Louis D. Coleman III, charged with kidnapping resulting in death in the 2019 slaying of Jassy Correia, has begun in federal court in Boston.
The freshly empaneled jury heard opening arguments in the grisly death of the young mother who was out to celebrate her 23rd birthday with three friends at a downtown Boston nightclub in the early morning of Feb. 24, 2019.
While she walked out of the club — Venu on Warrenton Street — with her friends at 2 a.m. closing time, she didn’t leave with them. Instead, she entered a car with Coleman. Coleman is accused of kidnapping Correia outside the club and bringing her to his Providence apartment.
She was reported missing on Feb. 26. Two days later, at around 2:45 p.m., Delaware State Police stopped the red Buick sedan that they had been told to look out for on I-95 south, according to the affidavit. Coleman, the driver, allegedly told them something to the effect of “She’s in the trunk.”
It’s what happened — and why — during the car ride from the club that is at the heart of the opening statements the jury heard from both the prosecution and the defense.
That story will largely be told from a glut of surveillance footage — the vast majority of the 10-page-long exhibit list spreadsheet is surveillance footage — and how both sides frame its interpretation. Defense attorney David Hoose argued that he and his team believe evidence will show Coleman is not guilty of kidnapping Correia, the action central to the charge against him. Footage begins at around 12:40 a.m. that cold February night showing Correia and three friends waiting to enter the club and ends with footage that prosecutors say shows Coleman stuffing a black suitcase with bright blue piping into the back of the red sedan in the parking lot of his apartment building.
Nested like Russian dolls inside that black suitcase, prosecutors say, was a black trash bag, a couch cushion cover from Coleman’s apartment and, finally, the body of Correia.
Earlier footage entered as evidence will show a red sedan entering the parking lot of the Chestnut Street apartment building in Providence, and then the driver, who prosecutors say is Coleman, carrying the limp, lifeless body of Correia from his car and up to his sixth-floor apartment.
Aja Hiltz, the only witness to take the stand Tuesday morning, said that she and their friend Reggie McThomas drove to pick Correia up from her Dorchester home, a present and birthday balloons in tow. She said an unexpected guest, “Niah,” was waiting with Correia and went with them to the club. Upon arrival, the four shared champagne and two tequila shots each.
Surveillance footage played in court showed the quartet entering the club and then a series of altercations between Correia and Niah, including at least two instances of Niah pushing Correia over.
At least one person in the gallery behind the prosecution ahead of the opening arguments sported a “Justice for Jassy” sweatshirt and was admonished by a court officer.