Jury in Mattapan murders trial to resume deliberations Monday

By Brian Ballou, Globe Staff

Jurors in the Mattapan murders retrial deliberated for a second full day without reaching a verdict and are expected to resume deliberations Monday.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke told the jurors at the end of the day Friday, that he had considered having them return Saturday, but decided against it because of the upcoming holidays and the overtime it would have demanded of court employees in Worcester and in Boston.

The jury is comprised of Worcester County residents. Attorney John Amabile successfully argued that his client, Dwayne Moore, would not get a fair trial with a jury from Suffolk County because of the publicity surrounding the shootings as well as his first trial in March that ended in a hung jury.

Moore, 35, is charged with four counts of murder in the shooting deaths of four people, including a mother and her 2-year-old son, on Sept. 28, 2010.

Locke suggested that the jury — comprised of seven women and five men — start preparing Monday for longer days as the holidays approach. The jury deliberated for about seven hours on Thursday and on Friday.

The jury had to restart deliberations twice after two jurors were dismissed on separate occasions.

One juror had to leave to tend a gravely ill brother in Georgia while another was dismissed because he had done independent ballistics research on the Internet, against the judge’s orders.

Each time a juror is ­replaced, the jury has to begin deliberations from the start.

Alternates do not sit in on deliberations, so the newest person to join the talks has not discussed the case or been ­exposed to any evidence since Dec. 5.

Moore has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his attorney, John Amabile, has told jurors Moore is wrongly accused.

Moore is accused of killing 21-year-old Simba Martin; ­Martin’s girlfriend, Eyanna Flonory, 21; her 2-year-old son, Amanihotep Smith; and ­Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22, Martin’s friend, who had slept on a couch at Martin’s ­Sutton Street house that night.

A fifth man, Marcus Hurd, was shot in the head and left a quadriplegic. He has testified in both trials.