GREENFIELD — Attorneys have until March 21 to file post-hearing memoranda pertaining to the case of a former Greenfield man requesting a new trial in Franklin County Superior Court after being behind bars for 25 years following his conviction of a 1994 murder.
Elvio J. Marrero, now 61, was convicted in November 1996 of the murder of Greenfield resident Pernell R. Kimplin and sentenced to life in prison. But the Committee for Public Counsel Services and the Boston College Innocence Program are trying to get Marrero in front of a jury again, citing travel information they say suggests Marrero was out of the country when the killing occurred. A motion hearing concluded on Thursday, and Judge Michael Callan might schedule oral argument after March 21.
Witnesses, including one of Marrero’s defense attorneys in 1996 and former employees of the Holyoke travel agency Marrero frequently used, were called to the stand during the motion hearing, which started on Dec. 6 and was continued to Jan. 28 and then to Thursday morning.
Marrero, who listens to court proceedings through a Spanish language interpreter, was represented by Ira Gant of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, as well as the Innocence Program’s Lauren Jacobs and Charlotte Whitmore. The commonwealth was represented by First Assistant District Attorney Steven Gagne and Assistant District Attorneys Bethany Lynch and Cynthia Von Flatern.
Lori Levinson, one of the defense attorneys in 1996, was the first to take the stand on Dec. 6 and testified that she had investigated an alibi defense for Marrero, who claimed to be in the Dominican Republic when Kimplin was killed. She said the defense team’s paralegals worked tirelessly to get American Airlines — the airline Marrero used to fly to the Dominican Republic — to turn over passenger name records and “ran into brick wall after brick wall” before receiving them in the middle of the trial.
The document, Levinson testified, looks like “codes and initials and things,” including the letters “ADA.” Levinson explained her team fruitlessly tried to determine what these letters stood for during the trial, only for Levinson to learn through Gant’s investigation that they were a capitalization of Ada, the first name of the travel agent who took Marrero’s reservation and who also testified via Zoom from her Florida home on Dec. 6.
The document also contained a phone number with a 413 area code, making it unlikely the reservation belonged to another E. Marrero, as the prosecution had suggested. However, Levinson said, this phone number could not be connected to anyone.
Kimplin was found dead in his Greenfield apartment on Oct. 16, 1994. He had been gagged, and his hands and feet were tied with electrical cords and rope. He had been stabbed once in the chest and once in the back and had been beaten on his head, neck, shoulders and back with a wooden board broken from a dresser drawer. The medical examiner opined that the victim died on or about Oct. 14, 1994, as a result of the stab wounds.
Kimplin, who was 26 at the time, was last seen alive in his apartment on the evening of Oct. 13, 1994.
Marrero has appealed his conviction to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court at least once, in 1998, claiming his trial judge was wrong to admit evidence of Marrero’s previous acts of violence and drug dealing. He also claimed the judge’s instructions to the jury were flawed. However, the court affirmed the conviction and declined to order a new trial or enter a verdict of a lesser degree of guilt.
Marrero has been incarcerated at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Shirley.
Reach Domenic Poli at dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.