PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "While it’s not clear when the database was created or who knew about it when, Scapicchio noted that the missteps listed there would have been known to the investigators and the lab’s supervisors from the moment they were identified. She argued that prosecutors were essentially hiding evidence that undermined the credibility of their experts."
----------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "A last-minute revelation could reshape a Boston murder case after suspect’s 8 years in jail," by Charlie McKenna, published by MassLive, on May 8, 2026. (Charlie McKenna is a reporter on the public safety team at MassLive. Based in Boston, he covers the entire state. Before joining MassLive, McKenna worked for The Daily Item, where he covered Saugus, and on The Boston Globe's express desk.)
PHOTO CAPTION: "Lance Holloman, center, appears in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday, May 7, 2026, for his first bail hearing after more than eight years in custody."
BOSTON — A man accused of carrying out two fatal shootings in September 2017 could be released on bail following more than eight years behind bars, after his trial was delayed due to prosecutors’ failure to turn over key evidence.
Lance Holloman faces seven criminal charges in connection with a series of events beginning just before 5 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2017 — two counts each of murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and carrying a firearm without a license, and a single charge of armed assault with intent to murder.
He was finally supposed to go on trial on Monday after eight previous trial dates had been rescheduled for varying reasons.
The trial was delayed again due to Suffolk County prosecutors’ failure to reveal the existence of a database listing disciplinary actions taken against members of the Massachusetts State Police crime lab. The discipline ranges from misidentifying a fingerprint to using the wrong letterhead, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney John Verner said.
Verner has said he turned over evidence in the database, and later the entire database itself, as soon as he learned about it. But he admits that he only learned of the database’s existence on April 28 — a week before the scheduled trial date.
The database is particularly relevant to Holloman’s case because it lists “corrective actions” taken against seven experts working in the crime lab who are expected to testify at trial.
Among them is Lt. Timothy MacDougall, who performed fingerprint analysis tying Holloman to a red Jeep prosecutors say was used to carry out one of the two shootings.
The database reveals that MacDougall signed off on a fingerprint analysis performed by another member of the crime lab, Robert Quigley, which misidentified a suspect in an armed bank robbery. That evidence would be relevant to the Holloman case if MacDougall were called to testify about the analysis he performed.
Defense attorney Rosemary Scapicchio suggested there could be wider ramifications for the failure to disclose the database beyond the Holloman trial. On Friday, she filed motions for documents regarding discipline against experts involved in two unrelated murder cases.
She likened it to the scandal involving Annie Dookhan, a chemist at the former Department of Public Health crime lab who fabricated test results in thousands of cases to advance her career.
Dookhan pleaded guilty to charges of tampering with evidence in 2013. Her misconduct ultimately led to the dismissal of more than 20,000 criminal cases.
Holloman himself had a federal prison sentence reduced because of Dookhan’s crimes.
“This affects every single solitary case in which the Massachusetts State Police was involved,” Scapicchio said in an interview, claiming that “in all likelihood,” evidence in the database wasn’t turned over to defense attorneys in many other cases. “We get all the stuff that makes them look good, but we don’t get the most important stuff — screw-ups on actual cases."
It’s not clear when the database was created, but Scapicchio believes it dates back to at least March 2025. Verner conceded that while he didn’t know the database existed until late April, other prosecutors in the district attorney’s office knew before then.
Scapicchio called the late disclosure “a dereliction of (prosecutors’) duty under the constitution.” With the trial delayed to November, Scapicchio intends to hire experts to examine the information in the database.
At a hearing on Monday, Judge Diane Freniere agreed to consider whether the latest delay warranted releasing Holloman from custody.
The judge heard bail arguments during a lengthy hearing in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday afternoon. If released, Holloman would live with his mother on home confinement.
Most of the arguments on Thursday focused on the strength of the commonwealth’s case — a key factor judges must consider when evaluating bail for a defendant charged with murder.
Defense view of the evidence
Evidence linking Holloman to the fatal shooting of Michaela Gingras inside his family’s home at 11 Santouit St. in Dorchester is “barely there,” Scapicchio said.
Prosecutors have said they won’t call any of Holloman’s three codefendants at trial, including two family members who were in the home when Holloman is accused of shooting Gingras multiple times, according to Scapicchio.
Both Holloman’s mother, Daphne, and sister, Latoya, were charged with misleading the police investigation into Holloman — his mother’s case has since been dismissed and his sister’s case is pending.
Holloman’s father, James, was also in the home but won’t be called as a witness, Scapicchio said. James Holloman has a pending murder case in Suffolk Superior Court. He was arrested in September 2024 in connection with the fatal stabbing of Karen Taylor in 1988.
“Without the evidence of the family members ... there’s no one to make the identification to even put my client in the house,” Scapicchio said. “The case is razor thin, and the Commonwealth knows it’s razor thin.
Gingras was the passenger in a red Jeep that prosecutors say Holloman was driving on Interstate 93 South hours earlier. Holloman is accused of pulling up next to a group of motorcycle riders and firing several shots out of the driver’s side window, hitting Scott Stevens Sr. and Scott Stevens Jr. Both men were injured, but Stevens Jr. died of his injuries.
Prosecutors have no witnesses identifying Holloman as the person who carried out the shooting on the highway, and the only way they can link Holloman to the shooting is through the fingerprint, Scapicchio said.
One witness who had previously claimed she saw a Black man fire a gun out of the red Jeep later told prosecutors she never saw a gun, couldn’t remember the race of the person in the car and didn’t describe the car as a red Jeep, according to Scapicchio.
The prosecution’s case
Laying out the prosecution’s case, Verner said there is surveillance video showing Holloman and a woman renting the red Jeep in Manchester, New Hampshire, several days before the shootings. From that rental agreement, prosecutors were able to match the license plate on the rented Jeep with a Jeep pictured on Interstate 93 south by a passenger in a black Porsche, which the Jeep collided with.
“I believe, through a combination of descriptions, rental agreements, video surveillance, common sense and reasonable inferences, the Commonwealth will prove it was Lance Holloman and Miss Gingras in that Jeep,” Verner said.
After the Jeep collided with the Porsche, it was captured taking an exit into downtown Boston, according to Verner. Then, after taking the exit, Holloman and Gingras get out of the car.
“What is incredibly compelling is that Lance Holloman has on a pair of black sneakers with velcro straps,” Verner said. “The problem for Lance Holloman is he didn’t velcro the straps, so they’re looped around the back, and they’re flopping around as he walks and runs.”
Holloman and Gingras get back in the Jeep after about 5 minutes.
Verner said prosecutors will call a chemist to testify about paint at trial, noting that red paint was found on the right handlebar of the motorcycle Stevens Sr. and Stevens Jr. were riding and that the Jeep had scratches on its left side.
After getting off the highway, the Jeep is captured on a bridge, where video shows an object thrown out of the car into the water below. State Police would later recover a gun from the water that prosecutors say is the murder weapon in the shooting on the highway.
That gun, Verner said, was reported stolen by a man in New Hampshire who knew Holloman and identified him in a photo.
“What we have is Lance Holloman is connected to a home in New Hampshire that he was at, presumably a few days before the murder weapon was stolen, and now that murder weapon is thrown into the river immediately after the murder,” Verner said.
Holloman then parked the Jeep on St. Marks Street in Dorchester. Police located the car on St. Marks Street and matched the plate to the car that collided with the Porsche, according to Verner.
While police are “sitting on” the Jeep, a 911 call comes in reporting shots fired or a person down at 11 Santouit St. When officers arrived, Holloman’s parents and sister were at the house, but Holloman was gone.
Inside the home, police found Gingras’ body wrapped in rugs and blankets on the ground. They also found two key fobs to the Jeep in Holloman’s sister’s bedroom dresser drawer and a pink bag Gingras had been seen carrying earlier that day.
Hours later, when Holloman was brought into the police station after being arrested in Franklin, surveillance captured the same black sneakers with the velcro straps flapping behind, Verner said.
Trial delays and database impact
Verner downplayed the prosecution’s role in the myriad delays that affected Holloman’s case. Massachusetts’ rules of criminal procedure require a case to be tried within a year of a person’s arraignment date, but time can be excluded from that calculation for a variety of reasons, like hearings on pretrial motions and delays granted by a judge at the request of either side.
Multiple trial dates were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And others were delayed due to pending motions to suppress evidence filed by Holloman. Verner argued that prosecutors weren’t responsible for delays resulting from defense requests for evidence related to fired Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Proctor.
“I think it’s a fair assessment to say that attorney Scapicchio and I have worked collaboratively to get as much information as I could possibly get” about Proctor, Verner said.
Scapicchio argued that the Proctor information was available to prosecutors through the State Police and noted that evidence regarding investigators should be automatically turned over. State court rules now include investigators as part of the “prosecution team.”
That fact, Scapicchio said, means that because the State Police investigators working on Holloman’s case knew about the database, prosecutors were required to turn it over.
“I don’t have to prove actual knowledge to ADA Verner in this case, or anybody in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office,” she said.
While it’s not clear when the database was created or who knew about it when, Scapicchio noted that the missteps listed there would have been known to the investigators and the lab’s supervisors from the moment they were identified. She argued that prosecutors were essentially hiding evidence that undermined the credibility of their experts.
Because of the failure to disclose that information, Holloman is staring down “six more months of not being free, of being locked up in a cage,” Scapicchio said. “I would suggest that the Constitution is pretty clear that you can’t incarcerate a person indefinitely without a trial, and that’s essentially what a nine-year continuance does.”
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true
