North Adams Man Charged on Two Counts of Murder
First Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey talks to reporters after Wednesday's arraignment of Darius Hazard.
Darius Hazard, 44, was in Northern Berkshire District Court to hear charges added to the single count of arson entered on Tuesday at Central Berkshire District Court.
Through his attorney, Timothy Flynn of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, Hazard waived the reading of the charges in a brief hearing before Judge Mark Pasquariello.
Under an agreement between Flynn and the Berkshire District Attorney's Office, Hazard was ordered held without bail until a Dec. 29 status hearing.
After the hearing, First Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey declined to discuss any specifics of the case, including whether Hazard was represented by counsel at the time he allegedly confessed to physically assaulting his parents and setting their home ablaze, according to the DA's office.
That fire took the life of Venture and Donald Hazard, the DA said. Their preliminary cause of death is listed as smoke inhalation pending a full determination by the medical examiner.
Shelvey also was asked to comment on speculation in the community that Darius Hazard has a medical condition that may have led to his behavior in the early morning of Nov. 24.
"I don't want to get into the specifics of the case because it is still an ongoing investigation," Shelvey said. "At this point in time, we'll just leave it that it is part of the investigation, so we're not going to comment."
The commonwealth Tuesday asked the court in Pittsfield to hold Darius Hazard without bail pending a "dangerous hearing" that was continued to Wednesday, when he was charged with the two murders. In Massachusetts, a first-degree murder charge, "carries the presumption that an individual is held without the right to bail," Shelvey said.
The arson and murder charges, though related, were brought separately and then joined, Shelvey explained.
"This was an ongoing investigation that started in the early morning hours on Tuesday," she told reporters gathered outside the DA's office on the second floor of the courthouse. "The arson charge … was more readily available, the evidence itself. The Fire Marshal's office was on scene very quickly after the report of this. North Adams Fire was immediately there, as was the North Adams Police Department.
"Once they realized there was a situation where they had two fatalities, they immediately contacted the State Police detective unit assigned to the District Attorney's office and they contacted the State Fire Marshal's office. The fire marshal's office was utilizing dogs to see if there were any sources of fire that they could identify that didn't come from an electrical source or something. Preliminary investigations determined this fire was intentionally set."
Tags: murder,
