Last night, less than a full day after police dive teams recovered the body of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley from a Maine river, more than 600 friends, neighbors and concerned citizens crowded into Curley's Cambridge school to question school, police and local officials and try to come to terms with the tragedy.
The discussion at the Harrington School ranged from tense exchanges of anger to emotional expressions of guilt and remorse.
Many speakers said the crime could be used to galvanize public support for the death penalty. Outside the auditorium, amid the glare of lights of television news cameras, hundreds of audience members signed a petition calling for capital punishment in Massachusetts.
Addressing the crowd at the beginning of the meeting, Middlesex Country District Attorney Tom F. Reilly said the crime had left the entire city searching for answers.
"There are simply no answers to explain...or to understand this," he said. "I think [the Curley family] is an inspiration to us all."
Prosecutors contend two men, 21-year-old Salvatore Sicari and 22-year-old Charles Jaynes, Kidnapped Curley from right near his grandmother's home in East Cambridge, and then murdered him, dumping his body in the Piscataqua River near the New Hampshire-Maine border.
When notified that her son's body was discovered, Barbara Curley told the Associated Press that Jeffrey was "sacrificed just like Jesus," and that his death would bring about a change.
Sicari was arraigned at the Newton District Court last Friday, charged with murder and kidnapping.
Jaynes was arraigned yesterday morning and is also charged with murder and kidnapping, said Diane McDonald, a spokesperson for the District Attorney's office. Jayne's first pre-trial hearing is set for Nov. 6, she said.
Both suspects pleaded innocent to the crimes.
The graphic details of the crime were revealed by prosecutors at the suspects' hearings.
Police say the two men tried to lure Jeffrey into having sex with them in exchange for a bicycle and money. The boy refused, but police say Jaynes suffocated him.
The two men then dumped the body into the river near the two states' border, police said.
Early this morning divers found Jeffrey's body "in a four-by two-foot container, wrapped in duct tape," said Cambridge Police Commissioner Ronnie Watson.
Investigators found pornographic material and literature from the North The organization advocates the abolition of age-of-consent laws, which prohibit adults from having sex with minors. Read more in News
