GREENFIELD — The three adults involved in a man’s near-fatal beating have been sentenced, two and half years after the attack in Millers Falls.
Brendon Collette and Jennica Chapin will serve four to six years, while Xavier Chadwell was handed two and half years that will be followed by two years of probation. All three waived their right to jury trials in Franklin County Superior Court and their verdicts were rendered by Judge Jeremy Bucci, who found each of them guilty of two counts of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury.
All charges stemmed from a Dec. 26, 2023, assault that left a young man with a traumatic brain injury and serious facial injuries. Two juveniles were also involved in the attack, but their names and information about their cases were impounded due to their age.
Collette, 27, was sentenced in April, while Chapin, 27, and Chadwell, 23, received their sentences on Wednesday, when Family Service Advocate Julia Wallace twice read a victim impact statement from the victim, who chose not to be present.
“My whole family has changed because of this,” the statement read.
According to a probable cause statement filed by Montague Police Detective Sgt. Joshua Hoffman, Collette and Chadwell went to a Mormon Hollow Road home with Chapin and two minors to buy marijuana and a psilocybin mushroom chocolate bar. A man who was with the victim told police that a black BMW pulled into the driveway and masked people got out, two of them armed with weapons (a steel pipe and a machete), and started attacking the victim.
The man who was with the victim reportedly told police he ran to the house to arm himself with a knife after the masked individuals ran toward them. The man said he went back outside with a box cutter and the vehicle fled, heading toward Wendell. According to Hoffman’s statement, the man said he told someone nearby to call 911.
Sgt. Jacob Dlugosz, of the Montague Police Department, was on patrol in downtown Turners Falls when he stopped a vehicle occupied by people he later identified as Collette, Chadwell and the two juveniles, one of whom eventually admitted the four had been involved with the assault in Millers Falls.
One of the minors reportedly told Dlugosz that the victim and the other man had approached the vehicle armed with knives. He said Collette at one point grabbed the victim from behind and threw him to the ground. The juvenile also admitted to punching the victim while Collette was holding him down.
Collette told police he grabbed the victim because, even though he saw no weapon, he believed the man was going to stab one of the juveniles.
Montague Police Officer Christopher Smerz reportedly found a machete in a backpack that one of the juveniles eventually admitted to owning. At least one black face mask was found in the BMW’s front compartment and a baseball bat was on the floor.
On Dec. 28, 2023, Chadwell agreed to be interviewed by police and said the altercation was self-defense. He also said he never tried to stop anyone from attacking the victim, and admitted to chasing after the victim’s friend with the two juveniles. His defense attorney, R. David DeHerdt said on Wednesday that his client briefly wielded the machete to keep a distance between the fighting parties.
Through his impact statement, the victim detailed his injuries, which he said included 147 stitches and two broken vertebrae. He wrote that he now struggles with his mental health, often waking up in the middle of the night with headaches and night sweats.
“I cry often for no clear reason,” he wrote. “I no longer feel safe the way I did.”
The victim reported that he also deals with paranoia and memory loss. However, he wrote that he forgives Chapin and Chadwell. The victim’s father read his own impact statement and also said he harbors no ill will toward the perpetrators.
He detailed being informed of his son’s attack at 3 a.m. and racing to the intensive care unit at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where doctors told him to call his loved ones because his son would likely die.
“It was a night that I will never forget,” he said. “I just felt helpless.”
The victim’s father said he called his wife, who was in a separate hospital for her own medical emergency, and her screams of grief still live with him. He said, though, the situation allowed “God to show His healing power.”
Chapin gave a tearful statement in which she apologized to the victim and his family.
“No one should ever have to endure such suffering,” she said.
Bucci said he will recommend that Chapin serve the majority of her sentence in a house of correction instead of a state prison. Assistant District Attorney Tom Robinson said Chapin lured the victim out of a house the night of the assault, but her defense attorney, Stephen Shea, reminded the court that she never touched the victim. Shea also said his client’s behavior has been exemplary since the assault.
“She is someone who has a bright future, if the opportunity is given,” he said.
Chadwell did not speak at this sentencing, though he submitted a letter of apology for his actions. DeHerdt said his client had a challenging childhood and has worked diligently to rehabilitate himself.
“If he could take that day back, he absolutely would,” DeHerdt said.
The attorney said Chadwell had no idea what others had planned for that fateful day and was listening to music via headphones when the vehicle pulled up. Bucci told Chadwell he was lucky to be alive, because the victim and his friend would have been justified in killing the perpetrators to protect themselves.
