'Extreme atrocity': Jurors hear opening statements in W. Brookfield quadruple-homicide trial
-Prosecutors highlighted evidence including DNA, that they said showed Locke murdered Sara M. Bermudez, a 38-year-old homemaker, and her three children — 8-year-old daughter, Madison; 6-year-old James and 2-year-old Michael — with “extreme atrocity” inside their home at 10 Old Warren Road Feb. 28, 2018, while Bermudez's husband was away.
Senior First Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Travers alleged that Locke, whom he described as a chronically broke drug and alcohol user jealous of his cousin’s successful family life, went to the house after spending all his money on his vices, then committed horrendous violence.
Travers told jurors that Locke stabbed Sara and Madison Bermudez dozens of times each, and that, as they lay dying, he “sexually assaulted them with a knife.
“They fought for their lives,” Travers said. “And they were killed with extreme atrocity.”
-Travers described in detail what the state alleges happened Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018, when Moses was working in California and his wife had settled their kids into bed on a school night.
Travers alleged that Locke, who spent his days working in a foundry and his nights drinking and injecting cocaine, always had a problem on Wednesdays, as he would spend all his pay on substances.
He alleged that after work that day, Locke spent the day drinking and doing drugs with a male cousin in a car he’d borrowed from a female cousin.
Travers said Locke lived with multiple cousins, as well as his mother, in Ware because they all were hard up for money. That day, Travers alleged, Locke arranged for the female cousin whose car he borrowed to have sex with his male cousin “for money.”
Travers said Locke picked up his female cousin, brought her to his house, shot her up with a syringe and left the home in her borrowed car.
It was about 11:30 p.m., Travers said, and Locke was, at that point, “deep into a day” of drinking and doing drugs.
“His cousins were off having sex and he was alone in the Honda Civic with a crime ahead of him,” he said.
Travers alleged that videos from homes and businesses captured Locke’s cousin’s “particularly distinctive” hatchback Civic — which he said was littered with bumper stickers — at points between the approximately 10-minute drive from Ware to West Brookfield.
He alleged the videos indicate the vehicle arriving near 10 Old Warren Road around 11:39 p.m. and leaving around 12:50 a.m., after the crime was committed.
Videos from the way home also show the same “distinctive” car taking a different route to Ware, Travers said, getting back to the area of his home just after 1 a.m.
Travers said Locke gave a number of false stories to police denying he committed the crime, changing his story when confronted with new evidence.
He alleged that “jealousy, anger and a drug habit he needed to feed,” fueled the crime.
