A 16-year-old was stabbed to death on an MBTA bus on New Year’s Eve in 2008. Police are still looking for his killer.
"Devonte deserves your help.”
Ten years ago, 16-year-old Devonté Maugé-Franklin was stabbed to death while aboard an MBTA bus. His murder remains unsolved today, and MBTA Transit Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying his killer. The attack occurred around 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2008, police said. The bus was running on Route 28 and was near Blue Hill Avenue and Harvard Street in Dorchester when Devonté, of Roxbury, was reportedly “stabbed multiple times.” He was brought to Boston Medical Center and pronounced dead. At the time, Jake Wark, a spokesman for former Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, said an altercation had taken place on the bus, but authorities didn’t know who the teen was fighting or what sparked the incident.Witnesses were interviewed, and investigators looked for suspects. But the case went cold.
Devonté Maugé-Franklin.
“The violent death of any young person is senseless and tragic but consider the horrible irony of Devonté’s death on New Year’s Eve,” Conley told The Boston Globe at the time. “Instead of celebrating the arrival of a new year, his loved ones are mourning.”
Devonté’s family didn’t comment back then, other than his mother, Aretha Maugé, telling the Globe, “I haven’t slept,” in the days following her son’s violent death.
In 2012, Maugé walked in the teen’s memory in the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace. The walk endeavors to bring awareness to street violence.
Devonté was struggling with his parents’ separation before his death, Maugé told the Globe in 2012. He also endured bullying at school.
“He told me the day that he died, he couldn’t take it anymore,’’ Maugé said. “He said I couldn’t teach him, the streets were too tough. … [He couldn’t] do it no more, the extra buses, the long way home to avoid conflict. He gave up.’’
Transit police have pledged to continue to pursue the case.
“The Transit Police Department will never give up on this case,” the department said Monday. “On this ten year anniversary mark we implore anyone with information, however slight, relative to Devonté’s murder and the identity of his killer to contact us. Devonté deserves your help.”
