Massachusetts ambulance driver narrowly avoids highway rollover crash
Video shows an ambulance driver avoiding a crash on I-95 near Boston during wintry weather. (Credit: Cataldo Ambulance Service/AUTO OVERLOAD/TMX)
- Police in California have arrested a man wanted in connection to the deaths of a mother and her daughter in Massachusetts.
- Chasity Nuñez, 27, and her daughter Zella Nuñez, 11, were fatally shot March 5 while sitting in a parked SUV in Worcester, Massachusetts.
- The arrest occurred during a motor vehicle stop in San Diego, and after another suspect was also arrested in Worcester last week.
Police in California have arrested Dejan Belnavis, 27, who was wanted in connection with the deaths of a mother and her 11-year-old daughter in Massachusetts, both of whom were fatally shot while sitting in a parked SUV, authorities said.
Belnavis was arrested Monday following a motor vehicle stop in San Diego, nearly a week after Chasity Nuñez, 27, and her daughter, Zella Nuñez, were found in the vehicle in a Worcester neighborhood, police said. They were pronounced dead at a hospital.
The arrest came several hours after the U.S. Marshals Service said it had doubled a reward in connection with the search for the man, from $5,000 to $10,000.
Belnavis and 28-year-old Karel Mangual — arrested in Worcester on March 5 — initially were accused of armed assault with intent to murder and carrying a firearm without a license.
Dejan Belnavis is taken into custody on Monday by U.S. Marshals in San Diego. Belnavis was wanted in connection to the deaths of a Worcester, Mass., woman and her young daughter last week in Massachusetts. (U.S. Marshals Service)
Mangual faced a bail hearing Tuesday. "The charge is going to be upgraded to murder," Joseph Early, Jr., Worcester County District Attorney, said at a news conference Monday night. "And when this defendant is brought back as well, he’s going to also be charged with murder."
It wasn't immediately known if the men had lawyers.
MASSACHUSETTS POLICE LAUNCH MANHUNT FOR SUSPECT LINKED TO DOUBLE MURDER OF MOTHER, DAUGHTER
Police said in court documents that surveillance video shows "the victims parked in their vehicle and that two people walk up to the vehicle and start shooting," the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported.
Chasity Nuñez, here working as a member of the Connecticut National Guard, and her 11-year-old daughter, Zella, were shot and killed while sitting inside a parked SUV in Worcester, Mass., on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. (Connecticut National Guard)
Video also showed a car consistent with a witness description circling the area before the shooting and leaving afterward, the documents said. The vehicle was later found in Hartford, Connecticut.
Authorities have not released a potential motive for the killings or said whether there was any relationship between the men and the victims.
Nuñez was a member of the Connecticut National Guard and worked as patient safety and clinical quality coordinator at MIT Healthcare Innovation, according to her obituary. She also had a younger daughter.
Zella was a sixth-grade student at Columbus Park School in Worcester who "wanted to dabble in everything from painting, singing, dancing to skating," the obituary said.
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