VIDEO PAINTS GRUESOME IMAGE
Suspect seen carrying lifeless body of young mom into Providence apartment
Jassy Correia’s limp body was slung over her alleged kidnapper’s shoulder and jostled with each step he took toward the rear door of his Providence apartment building.
This is the sight, shown through grainy surveillance camera footage of the building’s parking lot at 4:23 a.m. Feb. 24, 2019, that finally broke the composure of her mother, father and grandmother in federal court in Boston Thursday.
Jassy Correia’s mother got up and left the courtroom to grieve privately for a time but the others continued, through muffled sobs, to watch the gruesome footage.
The next camera angle came from the elevator bay facing that rear door. Correia’s still legs appeared on the pavement as her alleged kidnapper Louis D. Coleman III opened the door and then reached over to drag her in by the arms.
At this point, Correia’s orange jumpsuit — so familiar to the jury now from hours worth of surveillance footage in the two previous days of Coleman’s kidnapping resulting in death trial — had slipped down to her waist, leaving her body half nude as Coleman dragged her by both arms between his legs to the elevator and then to his sixth-floor apartment.
The Uber driver of the van that Correia tried to enter testified that he didn’t want to give her a ride outside Venu nightclub in downtown Boston because he was waiting for a larger group, which commands a higher fare, and pushed her out of the car when she entered it despite him telling her he wouldn’t drive her. He said he saw her walk away with Coleman.
Prosecutor Kenneth Shine asked rapid-fire questions of Boston Police Sgt. Detective Richard Lewis as the jury took in a nearly minute-byminute survey of Coleman’s actions within the building and its parking lot that night. Footage from the next few days shows Coleman coming into his apartment building with shopping bags and some visible items like an air purifier machine and a Tyvek-type clean suit.
A retired Providence Police detective with a forensic unit testified to finding packaging for all kinds of odor-eliminating products, from candles to a car freshener, among other evidence like plastic sheeting, a clean suit, and a pair of jeans with apparent bleach stains.
A Providence officer who had been there at 7 a.m. that Feb. 28 — after Coleman and the body were already gone — testified the windows were open and the scrubbed-clean apartment was cold. Police tried a check 6 hours earlier, while
Correia’s still legs appeared on the pavement as her alleged kidnapper opened the door and then reached over to drag her in by the arms.
the body was still there and Coleman stood at the street corner, but were unable to access the building.
A Providence police captain narrated surveillance footage from a Walmart — one of four Coleman visited for supplies until departing — where Coleman had purchased, among other things, the black suitcase with blue piping in which Delaware police would eventually find Correia’s body.