The state’s highest court has upheld the convictions of two killers in a 2001 double murder of Mission Hill residents, one of them a Northeastern University student.
Terrance Brown and Nathan Rivera, both 31, are serving life sentences without parole for fatally shooting two people inside a 40 Parker Hill Ave. apartment in a botched drug robbery on Aug. 10, 2001.
One victim was Roland Chow, who was dealing marijuana and Ecstasy from the apartment, according to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) opinion. The other victim was NU student Karen Young, who was home that day because it was her son’s birthday, according to the SJC opinion. Young had grown up with her killers and recognized Rivera during the home invasion, according to a third victim who survived the attack, as reported by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Brown and Rivera appealed their convictions on several grounds, including the way police and prosecutors obtained and used their statements about the crimes, and their claimed right to be tried separately instead of together. In a Jan. 9 opinion, the SJC said there were no legal errors in the case and upheld the convictions.