Lawyers detail evidence, set trial in 2018 slaying of mother, 3 kids in W. Brookfield

WORCESTER — Six years after Sara Bermudez and her three children were found stabbed to death inside their West Brookfield home, the family relative accused of their murders, Mathew P. Locke, is nearing trial, with prosecutors recently detailing a possible motive and other evidence they believe jurors should hear.

In documents and arguments in Worcester Superior Court, prosecutors last week listed graphic detail about their case against Locke. They maintain that evidence suggests the former Ware man killed his cousin’s family with extreme atrocity after using and searching for cocaine.

Bermudez, a 38-year-old homemaker, and her three children — 8-year-old Madison, 6-year-old James and 2-year-old Michael — were found stabbed to death inside their home at 10 Old Warren Road on March 1, 2018.

Bermudez's husband and the children’s father, Moses Bermudez, was working in California at the time. Locke, Moses’ cousin, was arrested weeks after the killings, when authorities charged him with lying to them four times, including making up a story that Bermudez had suggested the street gang MS-13 could be culpable.

Locke, now 37, was formally charged with murder six months after the killings; authorities said his DNA was found on one of the bodies of the slain children.

In court documents and a hearing Thursday, prosecutors provided additional details about the evidence, much of it graphic, that they will be seeking to admit at trial.

Assistant District Attorney Terry J. McLaughlin said in court Thursday that Locke’s DNA was found in the genital area of both female victims. He also said the victims were killed with extreme violence and burned. McLaughlin was approved to show jurors a limited number of photographs of their stab wounds and thermal injuries.

In the courtroom, Locke — who has been in jail since his 2018 arrest — stared mostly ahead as the prosecutor spoke, his hands cuffed in front of him.

Prosecutors wrote in court documents this month that Locke’s attack on the female victims appeared to include a “sexual component.”

They said Sara Bermudez and her daughter were found partially nude, had been repeatedly stabbed — including in the area of their genitals — and were positioned in a particular way.

The positioning, prosecutors wrote, was “remarkably similar” to separate photographs they said they found on Locke’s cellphone that “reveal a unique interest with naked female genitalia that is posed and exposed in a particular and unique way.”

Prosecutors are seeking to admit the photographs found on Locke’s cellphone into evidence against him. They were set to argue that motion and several others Thursday but did not after Superior Court Judge Janet Kenton-Walker agreed the trial should be delayed from May to September.

Sept. 26 date set

The trial had been slated for May 6, but Jeffrey S. Brown, Locke’s lawyer, argued Thursday it should be pushed back to allow his expert extra time to review new DNA reports recently obtained from the DA’s office.

McLaughlin told Kenton-Walker that the State Police Crime Lab offered several months ago to retest DNA evidence in Locke’s case using new, more advanced technology it acquired.

McLaughlin said he took the crime lab up on the offer but acknowledged he did not tell Locke’s lawyer about it at the time.

McLaughlin said while the new testing generated new reports, none of the material conclusions surrounding Locke’s DNA match changed. However, Brown said he was unfamiliar with the new technology and needed more time to analyze the results.

Kenton-Walker ruled that the omission constituted a late disclosure under court rules, and agreed to push back the trial.

Jury selection was set for Sept. 26.

'Nobody's got more bodies than I do'

Other motions filed recently by prosecutors include one in which they alleged that Locke has implicated himself in the crime and stated that cocaine was a motive.

In a motion seeking to admit evidence of motive, prosecutors said they intend to present testimony that Locke, among other statements, admitted to a fellow inmate that he, while on a multiday cocaine binge, “went to get cocaine from a relative’s house when that relative was in California; that the relative’s wife caught him looking for the cocaine and that he did what he had to do to not get caught; that he committed murder over cocaine, and that he burned down the house.”

Court documents from 2019 on file in the case indicate a fellow inmate of Locke’s alleged to authorities that he’d overheard Locke once say he’d broken into a West Brookfield home to steal money and drugs, and had gotten into a “confrontation” that “didn’t end well.”

The inmate also alleged that, after another inmate stated he had a “couple bodies” on his résumé, Locke replied, “Nobody’s got more bodies than I do.”

The inmate further alleged that Locke once told him he “committed a home invasion in Ware, during which he ‘beat the (expletive) out of a guy’ and stole money and drugs.”

A month before the West Brookfield killings, William Dziedzinski — the 67-year-old boyfriend of the grandmother of Locke’s child — was found bludgeoned to death in his home at 24 Clinton St. in Ware.

Charges have never been announced in the Feb, 2, 2018, death, which happened not far from Locke’s Ware home.

Court documents show Locke had been accused of breaking into 24 Clinton St. in the past by his child’s mother, with whom he’d had a tumultuous relationship.

Before murder charges were announced against Locke, Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr., while not saying whether the cases were related, said work on the Bermudez case included collaborating with authorities in Hampshire County who were investigating Dziedzinski’s death. 

Ware is outside Worcester County and thus not in Early’s jurisdiction. A spokesperson for Early referred questions on Dziedzinski’s death Friday to Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan.

A spokesperson for Sullivan, Laurie Loisel, said Friday her office doesn't comment on open investigations.

Brown, Locke's lawyer, declined to comment Thursday.

There is no indication in court papers filed publicly that Worcester prosecutors are seeking to admit anything about Dziedzinski’s death into Locke's murder trial.

They are, however, seeking to admit evidence of a past arson for which Locke was convicted in Maine.

Prosecutors: Maine arson relevant

In that case, Locke was sentenced to nine years in prison, prosecutors wrote, after admitting to setting fire to a home in Lubec occupied by his estranged girlfriend, her young children and their father.

Locke, after serving two years of the sentence — the rest was suspended — was sent back to jail in 2015 for violating probation, prosecutors wrote, and spent much of the time between 2015 and the 2018 West Brookfield murders in jail.

Prosecutors argued the proximity of the fires and the fact they were both set using flammable liquids at the homes of people he knew weigh in favor of admitting evidence of the Maine conviction at trial.

While Kenton-Walker didn’t rule on that motion Thursday, she did allow a separate motion filed in court to compel the testimony of a family member of Locke’s, Jacob Locke of Maine, to testify at trial.

In their motion seeking the order, prosecutors said they have “reason to believe that Jacob Locke was living with the defendant and aware that he was not home during the time of the murders in this case.”

Police alleged in 2018 that Mathew Locke’s car was last seen leaving his home and returning later on the evening of Feb. 28, 2018 — the night they allege the murders took place.

In court Thursday, First Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Travers said prosecutors intend to play surveillance video of a vehicle making its way to the home the night of the murders at trial.

Prosecutors also allege in recent court documents that Locke, in addition to making incriminating statements to inmates, made “admissions to police that he used cocaine on the night of the murders and had had a physical altercation over a bag of cocaine.”

Other evidence, they wrote, includes testimony from multiple family members of Locke regarding his drug use, including testimony from a sister of Locke that he “used to steal from her, that he had been using drugs since at least October of 2017, and that he goes out the night he gets paid and returns home broke one or two days later because he had been drinking and doing drugs.”

In addition to four counts of first-degree murder, armed burglary and arson, Locke will be tried for the four counts of withholding evidence from a criminal proceeding for which he was initially charged.

Father to testify

Kenton-Walker Thursday approved a request by prosecutors to have Moses Bermudez introduce photographs of his family at trial to establish their identities.

Sara Bermudez was recalled in her obituary as a homemaker with a love for God and her family. She and Moses started their family in El Salvador before moving to California and then Massachusetts to “enjoy the beauty of the country and to be surrounded by their loving family.”

Madison “enjoyed being the true princess, with a smile on her face;” James “was always running around playing and laughing at his own inside jokes;” Michael was “the joy and reflection of his siblings.” The family enjoyed many outings to Chuck E. Cheese, the obituary said.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Mathew Locke nears trial in slaying of Sara Bermudez, 3 kids in W. Brookfield