North Adams Man Sentenced in Suicide Case
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| Berkshire Superior Court |
PITTSFIELD - A North Adams man was sentenced to four to five years in prison after a Berkshire Superior Court jury on Tuesday found him culpable in the suicide of Nancy Choquette on her 51st birthday more than two years ago.
Christopher Burda, 46, was sentenced by Superior Court Judge John Agostini to the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Cedar Junction on Friday morning on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Burda handed the distraught Stamford, Vt., woman the gun that she used to kill herself, even loading it for her when it failed to fire, on Nov. 21, 2005.
The defense said Burda did not intend to aid Choquette in killing herself but rather to shock her out of her despondency; the state argued that he was aware of her suicidal intentions when he handed the intoxicated woman the gun.
"He is a primary cause of her death," Assistant District Attorney Joan McMenemy told the jury, according to The Associated Press.
The jury agreed, taking only an hour to find Burda guilty of involuntary manslaughter, according to the district attorney's office.
The jury found that Burda had provided the handgun, a 9 mm Beretta, that Choquette used to end her life in front of him at his former Folsom Street home.
According to news reports, Burda testified that Choquette, of Stamford, Vt., had been in a good mood earlier that day and they'd spent the afternoon together. She returned to his home later that evening upset and angry, and he had hoped the loaded gun would would "snap her out of it."
The two had worked together at Burda's business, Period Lighting, becoming romantic for a time in 2005. Both were married at the time but Burda was in the midst of a divorce that November.
Judge John Agostini ordered that Burda be held without bail at the Berkshire County House of Correction pending sentencing on Friday, March 14, at 9 a.m.
The investigation was conducted by members of North Adams Police Department, state police detectives assigned to the district attorney's office and to Crime Scene Services and Ballistics, and chemists from the Crime Laboratory.
Originally published on March 11, 2008; updated on March 14 with sentencing information.
