MA Court Orders Hearings in 1986 Slaying

The highest court in Massachusetts on Tuesday ordered a judge to review new DNA evidence in the case of two men convicted of murdering two alleged associates of the mob in the 1980s.

Frank DiBenedetto, of Boston, and Louis Costa, of Medford, were convicted in the murders of Bostonian Frank Chiuchiolo and Medfordite Joseph Bottari in Boston in 1986.

Both DiBenedetto and Costa argued that newly discovered evidence shows that DNA found on DiBenedetto’s sneakers could not have come from either of the victims.

The Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday sent the case back to Superior Court for a judge to consider the DNA evidence.

The court said that it did not find that a new trial is “necessarily called for,” but sent the case back to Superior Court for further findings on the DNA evidence “and its importance to the defendants’ claim DiBenedetto was not the third shooter in light of the evidence presented at trial.”

The bodies of Chiuchiolo and Bottari were found in a park in Boston’s North End on Feb. 19, 1986. Chiuchiolo had been shot seven times, including five times in the head. Bottari had been shot sixteen times, six times in the head.

During the second trial, the judge rejected a defense request to allow testimony on the defense theory that the victims, alleged mob associates, were killed not by DiBenedetto and Costa, but by fellow mob members as fallout from an earlier mob murder.

– Story from Medford Daily Mercury