image description — Family members of the Pascual-Polanco brothers gather outside of Berkshire Superior on Thursday to speak to media after the two men were sentenced to life in prison.

Pascual-Polanco Brothers Sentenced to Life for 2019 Homicide

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
02:23PM / Thursday, October 06, 2022Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Chiry Omar Pascual-Polanco and Carlos Pascual-Polanco on Thursday were given life sentences without possibility for parole for the murder of 18-year-old Jaden Salois in 2019.

The brothers lured Salois, of Dalton, outside a Pittsfield home for a false drug deal and shot him in the back in the early morning hours on Jan. 20, 2019. Prosecutors say the killing was over allegations of stolen marijuana.

During the sentencing at Berkshire Superior Court, several of Salios' family members gave impact statements that detailed his kind disposition and hopes for the future. They said it was unfair for him to be robbed of it.

"A piece of me is gone that will never be replaced," his mother Megan Bernardini wrote.

"Over the past 3 1/2 years, me and my family have experienced endless sleepless nights and have had never-ending thoughts of why this happened to Jaden and why this happened to us," his cousin Brianna Crucitti said. "We still don't know why it happened to him or why it happened to us."

Family members of Chiry Omar, 26, and Carlos, 22, called the verdict is an injustice, arguing that there was not sufficient provable evidence and that the brothers are innocent.

They did not speak at the sentencing but offered statements to iBerkshires afterward.

Sister Marisela Pascual knew that she and her brothers had "no fighting chance" for their lives in this community and said it is clear that they didn’t commit the crime.

"That didn't matter to the jury who made the deliberations in under six hours," Pascual added. "Obvious to say, they had their minds made up."

Their mother Maribel Polanco said the verdict is a "big injustice" and racism against her children, arguing that it was decided on because they have a Hispanic last name.

Cousin Elina Estrella said the case showed a lot of circumstantial evidence that was not concrete and pointed to a lack of diversity on the jury. She believes that if Salois was a person of color and her cousins were white, it "would have been a different story."

Last month, the brothers were found guilty of murder in the first degree by a Berkshire Superior Court jury following a two-week trial that saw the prosecution call 30 witnesses. They were also found guilty on two counts of possession of a firearm without a firearm identification card, two counts of possession of ammunition without an FID, and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

The two were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Cedar Junction in South Walpole.

The other counts carry a sentence of two years in the Berkshire County House of Corrections and one carries a sentence of five years in the state correctional facility.

A third co-defendant, Dasean Smith, 24, of Pittsfield, is also charged with murder and will be tried separately.

"I send my condolences to Jaden's loved ones, and I admire their courage in delivering their powerful victim impact statements to the court. Jaden is gone but lives on in the hearts of those who loved him, and I hope this measure of accountability supports his family," District Attorney Andrea Harrington said.

"I thank the Pittsfield Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police for their investigation into this senseless homicide, and I am proud of the trial team for their presentation of the facts to the jury."

Salois' grandmother said he had gotten in with the wrong crowd and that his family always hoped that he would realize that this life wasn't going to work out for him. She said they spent a lot of time talking on the phone about how to improve his circumstances prior to his death.

"He had hopes and dreams like we all do. A future life with marriage and children. He knew we wanted to be a dad," Salois' other grandmother said.

"He knew he wanted to have God in his life and I would take him to every church in the city until he found one that he felt comfortable with. He never had a chance to do that because time ran out for him."

Tags: murder,

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DA Provides Updates on 4 Pittsfield Summer Shootings

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:11PM / Thursday, November 05, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— District Attorney Timothy Shugrue delivered updates on a string of gun violence incidents over the summer and said even one is too much.

"This summer was extremely upsetting to people living in Pittsfield and our entire Berkshire community. While we live in a safe community, it is always disheartening to hear these gunshots. In the past four years, there has been a remarkable reduction in gun violence," he said during a press conference at the Berkshire DA's office on Thursday.

"Since January 2023, there has been a 62 percent reduction of validated shootings in the City of Pittsfield."

There were four separate incidents involving gunfire in Pittsfield this past summer. Some suspects were charged, and some are still being sought by police.

On June 18, a person died after being shot in the area of Tyler Street and Pleasure Avenue, and another person was injured. Following an extensive investigation, the Pittsfield Police Department applied for and was granted an arrest warrant for Terry Martizna, wanted for murder.

Shugrue reported that his office is working with various authorities, including federal, to secure Martizna's return to the Berkshires. He said he was involved the whole weekend of the incident after being "immediately" contacted by the PPD.

"My office was on notice, and we continued to work with them throughout the night. I can tell you that they worked all night long; they never stopped working. I was really pleased with the amount of effort that was going into it, and by the next day, we had a pretty good clue of where we were going. But the amount of surveillance that they had to go through was incredible, and it was just commendable," he added.

"The amount of support we got from the community, from the Pittsfield residents, and from the work that these officers put in all weekend long, they were able to identify certain locations where this individual was, and that continued all the way in through Monday morning. By that Saturday, I was informed that we had a suspect that we were just producing the probable cause reports, and that was all which led to the warrant coming out."

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