By Bill Forry
and Patrick McGroarty
Reporter Editors

Authorities arrested suspects this week in two high profile murder cases that are separated by more than a decade.

Over the weekend, police announced that they had arrested two men in the shooting death of Chiara Levin, a 22-year-old visitor from New York City who was gunned down in March outside of a Geneva Avenue house party.

Then on Monday, the Boston Police Department revealed that a longtime suspect in the 1995 stabbing of Bobby Mendes, son of peace activist Isaura Mendes, had been apprehended at an airport in Baltimore.

The arrests bring with them the possibility of some closure for two families, united in their loss, and for a community that has been plagued in recent months by violent murders that have come with a frequency not seen since the early 1990s.

Casimiro Barros, 20, of Roxbury, and Manuel Andrade, 33, of Dorchester, were arraigned in Dorchester District Court on Monday and ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty to charges of murdering Levin.

While Levin's parents sat stoically in the courtroom, Isaura Mendes was standing outside, holding a sign with a message to prosecutors and police, demanding that authorities also capture the killers of her two sons, Bobby and Matthew, slain 12 years apart, but just blocks away, in her Uphams Corner neighborhood.

When Mendes got a phone call Monday that Mayor Thomas Menino and "a bunch of cops" were waiting for her on her porch, she nearly panicked.

"I thought something else happened. When I got here they told me [they'd made an arrest].

"I thought it was the one who killed my son Matthew," says Mendes, referring to her youngest son, who was slain near his home in a drive- by shooting in May 2006.

"I told them, 'Please be sure that you've picked up the right person.' And they said, 'Isaura, we got Nardo.' "

Arnado "Nardo" Lopes, 28 has been a suspect in the stabbing that killed Mendes's first son, Bobby, since almost immediately after the murder in 1995. In 2001, he was indicted by a grand jury for the crime, though authorities were unable to bring him into custody &endash; until this week.

Mendes says that she has always known that Lopes was responsible for stealing Bobby's life. Several people, including one of her nephews, fingered Lopes for the crime.

"I know with Nardo," says Mendes. "Police always complain that people in the community don't come forward, but people did come forward when Bobby was killed. My nephew came forward and other people said he did it."

Still, Lopes eluded capture in those early days and Mendes was told that he had probably fled the country, perhaps to Cape Verde.

"They'd keep telling me he left the country, but I always thought he was here and that they just weren't looking hard enough," said Mendes.

Not long ago, Mendes said she resolved to stop asking about the hunt for Lopes. She was frustrated by what she felt was a lack of progress in the search. And, of course, the more recent slaying of Matthew Mendes - struck down by a single bullet on May 5, 2006 - had a stronger grip on her attention and her grief.

"It was very surprising," Mendes said Tuesday, the day after she learned of Lopes's arrest. "I've wanted to get this person for a long time. I was almost giving up. I put everything in God's hands and I wasn't doing anything.

"I feel okay about it, but you really don't get your children back.

He needs to go to jail for what he's done," she said. "I do want to meet [Lopes] face to face. I believe that he did this. I don't like what he did, it put me through a lot of pain. But I don't hate him."

With the prospect of a criminal trial now looming as the next phase

in Mendes' frightful journey, she acknowledges that she doesn't know for certain that Lopes will be convicted. Though Suffolk County prosecutors say they have a strong case against him, Mendes worries that the passage of time will make conviction more difficult in court.

"So many people are gone now. My nephew is dead. Other people are dead or in jail."

As she awaits Lopes's arrival in Boston from Maryland, she has plenty of other things to worry about. Sunday will mark the one-year anniversary of Matthew's death and she intends to make sure that he is not forgotten. She plans to lead a candlelight vigil from his murder scene on Wendover Street to her home.

"They haven't found anything about Matthew's murder," Mendes laments.

"They don't have anything. I just have to continue to talk and tell people that revenge is not the answer. I'm hurt for the rest of my life."

Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who visited Mendes at her home on Monday to deliver the news of Lopes's arrest, told the Reporter that with her outspoken work for peace in the community, Mendes has set an unprecedented example.

"It's incredible that this woman has stayed involved for so long, and done such great work," said Davis. "It's a testament to her love for her children and a great benefit to the city that she has done that."

Mendes says that she hopes that the arrest of Lopes - like the weekend's arrest of two men charged in Levin's murder - will send a message to would-be killers in our midst.

"I think it can stop it a little bit," she says. "I put it in God's hands and just keep asking for peace. And keep telling them it's wrong to take lives. I don't want no one else to feel the pain."