Karel Mangual, first man arrested in Worcester double homicide, now faces 2 murder charges
WORCESTER — Karel Mangual, one of two men who police believe killed Chasity Nuñez and her 11-year-old daughter Zella last week, now faces two charges of murder, one day after the other man implicated in the case, Dejan D. Belnavis, was arrested in California.
Mangual, 28, and Dejan D. Belnavis, 27, are alleged to have opened fire on an SUV parked on Englewood Avenue around 3 p.m. March 5, killing 27-year-old Chasity and Zella Nuñez.
Zella was a sixth-grade student at Columbus Park Preparatory Academy.
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Mangual was initially arraigned Thursday in Central District Court on charges of armed assault with intent to murder and carrying a firearm without a license.
He was scheduled for a dangerousness hearing Tuesday in Central District Court, but instead the earlier charges were dismissed as he was arraigned on the two murder charges. Mangual never entered the courtroom after his lawyer, without opposition, asked the judge to allow him to appear from behind a door.
On his behalf, his attorney entered a not guilty plea.
Mangual was ordered held without bail and will appear in court again for probable cause hearing April 12.
A spokesperson for the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office said Belnavis, who was arrested Monday afternoon in the San Diego area after a traffic stop, is expected to appear for an extradition hearing in front of a judge in California, but it is not clear when that will happen.
When he will be brought to Massachusetts also depends on whether Belnavis fights extradition, added the spokesperson.
Police wrote in court documents seeking a warrant for Belnavis that the surveillance video from March 5 shows “the victims parked in their vehicle and that two people walk up to the vehicle and start shooting.”
They said the shooters then ran in the direction where a witness said a white sedan was parked. Surveillance video and witness evidence, police said, showed a vehicle “consistent” with the sedan circling the area before the shooting and leaving the area afterward.
Police were able to get the sedan's license plate and speak to its owner, who told them Belnavis had been borrowing it for about a year. Belnavis was listed as the driver of the car during a Shrewsbury crash in January, they said, and his cellphone records tie him to Englewood Avenue at the time of the shooting.
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Police allege in court documents that video shows Mangual and Belnavis exiting the vehicle in Hartford, Connecticut, and both men wearing shoes similar to the ones worn by the shooters.
They said Mangual was wearing the same distinctive purple and black shoes in both videos. An officer who has known Mangual since childhood, police said, identified him on the video from Hartford.
Mangual has a tattoo that reads “RIP Robert Walker,” according to court records, a dedication to an 18-year-old Blackstone man who died in 2013 after an altercation at a birthday party in Worcester.
Collage Nuñez, the brother of Chasity Nuñez, the woman killed March 5, was sentenced to seven to 10 years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to manslaughter in Walker’s death.
Mangual also faces trial at the Dudley District Court on allegations from Webster police that include assault and battery on a police officer and carrying a dangerous weapon stemming from March 2023.
He has an open case in Central District Court on allegations that Worcester police caught him in March 2022 with 8 grams of suspected crack, which they believe he was selling on Main Street.
In 2015, Mangual was sentenced to three to five years in prison for a retaliatory shooting behind an apartment building on View Street. Authorities connected the attack to the fatal shooting of Christian Obeng-Addo days earlier.
Belnavis, with a most recent address of Toronita Avenue, also has 20 prior criminal cases in the city, mostly for drugs and domestic violence. Like Mangual, he has been associated with gangs, court records show.
He was sentenced to six months in jail in 2022 after a jury found him guilty of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
According to a judge’s summary of the allegations in a 2021 court document, Belnavis was accused of threatening a “rival gang member” with a firearm inside Worcester’s Walmart.
Belnavis received 90 days in jail in 2017 after pleading guilty to resisting arrest and selling marijuana.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Karel Mangual faces 2 murder charges in shooting of mother, daughter
