Man admits he killed mechanic over a Volvo engine

Cornelius Evans, 36, of Dorchester, admitted today he shot a mechanic to death outside Dorchester District Court to help out a friend's wife, who didn't like the engine the man sold him, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

By pleading guilty to second-degree murder for the death of Charles Cantave on March 29, 2010, Evans will be eligible for parole in 15 years on his life sentence. Had he risked a trial on his initial first-degree charge and been found guilty, he would have been sent away for life without possibility of parole.

Mario Burns, 39, is scheduled for trial next year on first-degree murder charges.

Prosecutors charge Burns had been upset for weeks over an alleged defective Volvo engine Cantave, a Hyde Park resident, sold his wife. When his wife went to Dorchester District Court for a hearing in the lawsuit she filed against Cantave, Burns and Evans came along. And when they spotted Cantave after the hearing walking to his car in the court parking lot off Washington Street, Evans got out of their car, ran over to him and shot him dead, prosecutors say - and Evans today admitted.

Villages: 

Topics: 


Subscribe to the Dorchester Reporter