Nicola Colafella, formerly insane in double murder case, files for parole

The Globe recently reported how his case has stretched the fabric of the justice system, which experts say is grappling with what to do with a man who teetered on the edge of competence. The resulting delays can trap both the accused and victims in legal purgatory.

Just hours after the attack, Colafella confessed to attacking the Earley family, his upstairs tenants, with a gun and an axe in the three-story Mission Hill home he owned and lived in at the time. He killed Walter Earley, a retired Boston police officer, and Bobby, Earley’s adult son. He wounded Katherine, Walter’s wife, and another son, Tommy.

After pleading guilty, Colafella was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Because he had credit for 34 years he had served, he was eligible to immediately apply to the state Board of Parole for release, a move Earley’s family has opposed.

On Thursday, he, his lawyer and his niece argued that he should not be held any longer, while a member of the Earley family and a representative of the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office argued against it. The parole board will consider the arguments and how Colafella, who is being held at MCI-Norfolk Prison, answered their questions before his sentencing in the coming weeks.

In the board’s Natick offices Thursday, Colafella said he could live out the rest of his life without further problems, with the help of health care workers and his niece. He also said he regretted what he had done.

“I am very sorry about this,” said Colafella, a native Italian who learned to write in English in a state psychiatric hospital. In his raspy voice, he added: “I am ashamed.”

He said he wanted to move into an apartment provided by his niece and her family — “I’ll spend the rest of my life with them,” he said. His lawyer, Sean O’Neill, said Colafella was a “model” prisoner who had been out of trouble for decades.

But John Earley, grandson of Walter and Katherine and nephew of Bobby and Tommy, said he believes releasing Colafella would shorten the sentence he deserves.

“Because of his occasional mistakes and imperfections, victims never received the justice they deserved,” he said.

The 1990 shooting occurred during an escalating rent dispute between Colafella and his tenants. That morning, Colafella grabbed a gun and an axe and climbed the stairs of his St. Alphonsus Street apartment. On Thursday, he repeated what he had said earlier: that he hadn’t come to hurt his tenants but to scare them. But after he knocked on the Earleys’ door and began threatening them, Bobby Earley approached him and told him he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Colafella shot him dead before shooting the rest of the family. Police who were the first to arrive at the scene found Colafella covered in so much blood that initially thought he might be one of the victims. No, he told them, according to police reports from the time, “It’s from the guys I shot upstairs.”

Thirty-four years later, his memory is poor, he said. He answered many questions with “I don’t remember,” though he sometimes gave more details when pressed. He said he didn’t remember much of what happened after he shot Bobby, but he said he knew he shot the whole family.

Colafella, dressed in a gray jumpsuit with the state Department of Corrections “DOC” written on the back, sat in a wheelchair during the hearing, his wrists and ankles shackled.

For years, he was ruled incompetent because of his inability and unwillingness to cooperate with the parade of lawyers he had before O’Neill. For a case to go to trial, a defendant must be able to participate in his own defense. Because of his paranoid delusions that his lawyers — and others — were conspiring against him, court records say, he was repeatedly ruled incompetent to stand trial.

Parole board member Charlene Bonner, who served as the lead questioner, repeatedly asked him about his mental illness. She said two dozen assessments over the years — which are withheld from the public — were consistent: that Colafella suffered from “delusional disorder, persecutory type.” Bonner said that even if Colafella is not delusional now, he relapses.

“Here’s the concern: When people think they’re feeling better and they’re taking their medication, they stop taking it,” she said. “We have to consider what would happen to his safety and the safety of the public if he were to relapse.”

Sean Cotter can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @cotterreporter.