Woman’s ’14 murder conviction reinstated
State high court: There was enough proof at trial
WORCESTER — The highest court in Massachusetts Monday reinstated the first-degree murder conviction of a woman for the 2009 murder of Darlene Haynes and for stealing Haynes’s unborn baby from her abdomen.
In 2014, Julie A. Corey, 49, was found guilty in Worcester Superior Court of killing Haynes, who had been a friend. In 2019, Superior Court Judge Janet Kenton-Walker vacated the verdict after finding insufficient evidence to convict.
In 2009, Haynes was found in a bedroom closet in her Southgate Street apartment. She was eight months pregnant when she was killed and her fetus was missing when her body was discovered.
An autopsy determined Haynes had died from skull fractures caused by blunt force trauma, asphyxiation by strangulation with an electrical cord found wrapped around her neck and a 9-inch incision in her abdomen.
Corey, who also lived in Worcester, was identified as the last person seen with Haynes.
Two days after Haynes’s body was found, Corey and her boyfriend, Alex Dion, were located in a homeless shelter in Plymouth, New Hampshire. The couple had a newborn baby girl with them who was determined to be Haynes’ child. In 2019, it was reported that the child taken by Haynes’ killer was 10 and was residing with her biological father.
Kenton-Walker oversaw the case in Superior Court.
Following the initial verdict, Corey filed a motion for a new trial. The motion argued trial counsel had failed to call a cellphone expert to testify about Corey’s location on the night of the murder. The motion requested the judge enter a required finding of not guilty.
Kenton-Walker denied the motion for a new trial, but vacated the murder conviction on the theory that the evidence was insufficient to prove the predicate felony of aggravated kidnapping.
Monday, the Supreme Judicial Court released an opinion reinstating the conviction. The higher court ruled that Corey had not received insufficient counsel and evidence was enough to convict her.