BOSTON - The state’s highest court has denied a new trial for the man convicted of first-degree murder in the 2011 stabbing death of Amanda Plasse of Chicopee.
In a ruling issued Tuesday, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it found no grounds to overturn the guilty verdict or to order a new trial for Dennis Rosa-Roman.
Rosa-Roman of Springfield was convicted in 2016 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no right to parole. At the time of his arrest in 2013, he was 22 years old.
Plasse, 20, was found dead inside her apartment on School Street on Aug. 26, 2011. She had been stabbed multiple times and died of blood loss in her kitchen.
“We are beyond thrilled,” said Plasse’s mother, Michelle Mathieson of Chicopee. “This has been a long time coming. We’re very happy. Absolutely.”
She said she learned Tuesday morning from one of the State Police investigators on the case that Rosa-Roman had been denied a new trial.
“I can’t imagine having to go through that again," she said.
Rosa-Roman was convicted following a trial that included eight days of testimony. The jury deliberated for 5 hours before returning with a guilty verdict.
Rosa-Roman appealed the conviction, charging that police violated his Miranda rights, which grant suspects the right to remain silent, and as a result statements he made to police should have not been allowed as evidence during the trial.
The appeal also charged the original trial judge erred repeatedly at trial by not allowing defense challenges during the selection of jurors, by failing to strike the prosecutor’s opening statement, by striking a portion of the defense’s opening statement, and by failing to properly instruct the jury when it began deliberations.
The ruling, authored by Chief Justice Ralph J. Gants and supported by justices Frank M. Gaziano, Kimberly S. Budd, Elspeth Cypher and Scott Kafker, notes the court reviewed all records from the time Rosa-Roman emerged as a possible suspect through the conclusion of the trial and and found “no basis to set aside or reduce the verdict of murder in the first degree or to order a new trial.”
Rosa-Roman first came to the attention of investigators in October 2013, more than 2 years after the murder. A state police investigator reviewing the case file noticed a crime scene photo from Plasse’s bedroom showing a dry-erase board with the words “Dennis was here” and the date of Aug. 11, 2011. This was 15 days before Plasse was found murdered.
A review of cell phone contacts named Dennis led police to Rosa-Roman, who was at that time living in Westfield.
When police briefly questioned Rosa-Roman outside his Westfield residence on Oct. 29, 2013, he admitted knowing Plasse because he said he regularly sold marijuana to her.
Police at the time retrieved a cigarette that Rosa-Roman had discarded and were able to use it for a DNA sample that matched the sample found under Plasse’s fingernails. Police also noticed in that first interview that he was wearing sneakers similar in size and shape to bloody footprints found at the crime scene.
He would be formally interviewed by police at the Westfield police station on Nov. 1 and again on Nov. 5, and for a third time that same day at the Chicopee police station on Nov. 5.
According to the SJC ruling, Rosa-Roman was properly advised of his Miranda rights, and waived his right to remain silent.
In his appeal, he sought to disallow statements he made to police after he waived his rights to remain silent. The SJC rejected the argument.
During the interviews, he changed his story about his connection to Plasse, and about when he saw her last multiple times. He claimed he had never been inside her apartment. But when asked about the photo of the dry-erase board in her bedroom, he conceded he had been inside the apartment.
“Well, I have been in her house. But, like, I just don’t want people to look at me like I’m a … murderer,” he told police.
Two hours into the Nov. 5 interview, police received confirmation that his DNA matched a sample found under Plasse’s fingernails and confronted him with that information.
He replied that he was there at the time Plasse was killed, that he knew who killed her, and that he tried to stop him from killing her.
He told police the killer was his own drug dealer, but he could not reveal his name out of fear for his and his family’s safety.
His defense attorney, Donald Frank, told the jury that Rosa-Roman was present at the murder, but was unable to stop it from happening. He repeated that the real killer was Rosa-Roman’s drug dealer but he was unable to identify.
He charged that investigators had information about other suspects but failed to pursue them.
The family of Plasse sued the city of Chicopee and it’s police department in 2015, charging her civil rights were violated after officers at the scene took cell phone photos of her body and then shared them with members of the public.
The city agreed to settle the case for $100,000.
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