Bolaski Found Guilty of Murder

As the word “guilty” hung in the still courtroom, family members of Vinnie Tamburello flung their arms around one another, grabbing tight, trying not to yell.

http://www.vnews.com/05202011/7821164.htm

Published 5/20/2011


Bolaski Found Guilty of Murder

Victim's Father: ‘Never Give Up'
By Mark Davis
Valley News Staff Writer

White River Junction -- As the word “guilty” hung in the still courtroom, family members of Vinnie Tamburello flung their arms around one another, grabbing tight, trying not to yell.

Standing at the defense table, Kyle Bolaski stared straight ahead, without expression, while his younger brother Corey, in the courtroom gallery, buried his head in his hands.

After three hours of deliberation, a Windsor Superior Court jury yesterday found Kyle Bolaski guilty of second-degree murder, rejecting his claim that he shot Vincent Tamburello in self-defense during a 2008 melee at a softball field in Chester, Vt., that was witnessed by dozens of people.

“I can't explain how it feels to have victory for our son, justice for Vinnie, finally,” Tamburello's father, Vincent Tamburello, said outside the courthouse, holding a photograph of his son. “I never thought, three years ago, that we'd be here. I would never give up on Vinnie, my family would never give up. We knew they killed our son.”

Bolaski, 27, has been free on bail since the shooting, but as his family watched from the gallery, he was led away by sheriff's deputies and transported to Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt., to begin serving a sentence of 20 years to life.

The jury of six men and six women found Bolaski not guilty of a second charge, aggravated assault, for allegedly hitting Tamburello in the head with the butt of his rifle as Tamburello lay dying.

Bolaski's mother, father and brother left without commenting, as did his girlfriend, who attended every day of the trial and lingered after everyone else had left yesterday to see Bolaski driven off in a squad car.

Bolaski's attorney, Kevin Griffin, could not be reached for comment after the verdict was announced yesterday evening.

Earlier in the day, Griffin made a final appeal for Bolaski's freedom, telling jurors that while dozens of witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the fatal confrontation, Bolaski fired a second shot from the .30-06 rifle because he believed Tamburello, who had swung an ax at him, was still threat.

“Nobody at the ball field had a better view, a better perception of the threat Vinnie Tamburello posed, than Kyle Bolaski,” Griffin said during his closing argument. “He was the one who had been pursued, hunted down, completely locked in to what Vinnie Tamburello was doing at that point, and there has been a ton of second guessing of that decision to fire the second shot.”

But several witnesses testified that Tamburello had been retreating when he died. And, perhaps most damning of all, an autopsy showed that the fatal shot entered Tamburello's back.

During his argument yesterday, Griffin addressed that finding for the first time, arguing that Tamburello may have suddenly twisted his body, perhaps to elevate the ax, before he was shot. But Griffin did not offer any witnesses to testify about that theory during the trial. Bolaski did not take the stand.

“Vinnie Tamburello is dead because of a bullet that man put in his back,” prosecutor John Lavoie said, pointing at Bolaski, during his closing argument. “There's a broad range of witnesses who describe him … hobbling, limping, and he's moving back, he's trying to retreat, trying to run away. The defendant pursues him and shoots him in the back.”

Bolaski and Tamburello were total strangers -- they may never have even exchanged a single word.

In the days before the shooting, Tamburello had been feuding with a group of Bolaski's friends in the Springfield area. The confrontation started when Tamburello allegedly stole $40 worth of marijuana from one of the friends, and continued into a warm Sunday evening days later.

Many of the details were hotly contested, as participants gave conflicting accounts and changed their stories during the the investigation. But somehow, Tamburello and a large group that included Bolaski met at Mackenzie Field in Chester, as dozens of softball players drank beer and celebrated the end of a weekend long tournament.

Tamburello grabbed an ax and charged the group, causing them to scatter. He kept running after Bolaski, who ran to his truck and grabbed the rifle. As Tamburello plunged the ax into the truck, Bolaski loaded and fired once, hitting Tamburello in the leg. Then he fired again.

Vinnie Tamburello, 32, was the oldest of four siblings from the neighborhoods of Charlestown, Mass, north of Boston. He struggled with substance abuse in the final years of his life, and moved to Vermont in the summer of 2008, hoping to start anew. But Tamburello remained proud of his hometown: As he lay bleeding to death on a grassy field, he spoke his final words.

“My name is Victor,” he told a police officer. “I'm from Boston.”

For much of the past two weeks, Lavoie assumed an almost bombastic personality, repeatedly engaging in heated exchanges with witnesses and provoking the ire of Judge Patricia Zimmerman. Yesterday, Lavoie quietly declined to comment.

“Thank you, though,” he said, before loading his files into his trunk and driving off.

For the Tamburello family, even having a murder trial was something of a victory. In 2009, Windsor County State's Attorney Robert Sand dropped the murder charge to voluntary manslaughter, saying he did not have enough evidence to prove murder.

The Tamburellos were enraged. They lobbied to have Sand removed from the case, hired their own attorneys, and leveled accusations that the entire Vermont justice system was corrupt. Eventually, Sand handed the case to Lavoie, a deputy state's attorney in Franklin County, who reinstated the murder charge.

“I did not believe there was any justice in Vermont, but now I believe it,” Tamburello said yesterday. “It's not the system, it's the people that make it work.”

After three years of legal maneuvering, and a two-week trial, the verdict seemed to arrive suddenly. Around 6:30 p.m., word filtered through the courthouse that the jury had decided to go home and resume deliberations in the morning. A few minutes later, word spread from lawyers and security personnel that a decision had been made.

With the Tamburello family and several of Bolaski's friends milling around the courthouse for the past two weeks, security had been unusually tight, and authorities were clearly concerned that the verdict would cause emotions to explode. By the time the jury announced its decision, a dozen sheriff's deputies and four members of the Vermont State Police and several Hartford police officers had assembled at the courthouse.

Both families quietly took seats on the wooden benches in the courtroom. The Tamburellos stayed long enough to hear the verdict and watch Bolaski walk to a holding area, before everyone poured outside into the late evening half-light. “You did it, you did it, you (freaking) did it,” Randy Staples, the victim's uncle, told Vincent Tamburello Sr. as they embraced.

But as the Tamburellos celebrated, 10 yards away, Bolaski's girlfriend stood alone. Wearing a black skirt and a lavender jacket and barefoot, she walked toward the side entrance of the courthouse, the one the public never sees, and waited to see Bolaski put into the backseat of a squad car. They were able to exchange a quick greeting before he was driven away to the prison that will confine him for the next 20 years.

She lingered. In the minutes that followed, she made an obscene gesture toward Lavoie as he drove off, walked toward her own car, and unlocked the door. But she didn't get in.

Instead, she sat on the curb, and lowered her head in her hands.

Vincent Tamburello Sr., left, and his wife, Ronnie Tamburello, react yesterday to the jury's guilty verdict in the second-degree murder trial of Kyle Bolaski, who shot and killed their son, Vincent, in a 2008 dispute. (Valley News — Jennifer Hauck)