Suspect held without bail in connection with Worcester shootings

A 27-year-old man who spent five days as a fugitive earlier this month was arraigned Friday on murder charges in connection with the March 5 shooting deaths of a mother and her 11year-old daughter in Worcester, according to legal filings.

Dejan Belnavis, of Worcester, appeared in Worcester District Court where he pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and was ordered held without bail, records show. His next court date is scheduled for May 2.

Tom Vukmirovits, a lawyer for Belnavis, said his client denies the allegations.

Belnavis had been wanted in connection with the fatal shootings of Chasity M. Nuñez and her daughter, Zella Aria Nuñez, who were killed on March 5 shortly after 3 p.m. as they sat in a parked vehicle on Englewood Avenue.

Another suspect in the shootings, Karel S. Mangual, 28, is also being held without bail on first-degree murder charges, according to legal filings.

On the day of the shooting, the two men allegedly drove around the Worcester neighborhood in a white sedan before parking on Hobson Avenue, officials said. The men allegedly opened fire on the mother and child before returning to their car and driving away, they said.

A witness provided the car’s license plate number to investigators, who were able to track the car using its onboard electronics and located it in Hartford, where a relative of Belnavis lived, police wrote in an application for an arrest warrant.

Video allegedly showed Mangual getting out of the vehicle near the relative’s home with his face fully visible, and an officer who has known Mangual since childhood identified him in the video, police wrote. He was arrested in Worcester on March 6.

Chasity Nuñez was a member of the Connecticut National Guard and worked for the MIT Health system as a patient safety and clinical quality program coordinator. Zella Nuñez was a sixth grader at Columbus Park School, according to her family.