Newsletter Signup
Stay up to date on all the latest news from Boston.com
Emanuel Lopes gets life in prison for 2018 murders of Weymouth officer and elderly bystander
“Mr. Lopes, you’re the monster I warned my kids about,” Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna's mother said in court.
Six years after he murdered Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna and bystander Vera Adams, Emanuel Lopes was sentenced Wednesday to two consecutive life sentences in prison, eligible for parole after 40 years.
Lopes, 26, was found guilty in February of killing Chesna, a 42-year-old military veteran and father of two, and Adams, a 77-year-old widow who lived in Weymouth all her life. It was Lopes’s second trial; his first ended in a mistrial in 2023.
Chesna’s widow, Cindy, recalled the heart-wrenching moment she had to tell her children their father wasn’t coming home, “that he had met a bad guy at work” while responding to a call the morning of July 15, 2018.
Advertisement:
She placed family photos on the witness stand as she prepared to speak on behalf of herself and her children. Olivia and Jack Chesna were 9 and 4, respectively, when their father died.
“I cannot give my children their father back,” Cindy Chesna said in her victim impact statement. “They are always going to live with the grief that I can’t fix and the pain that I cannot heal. But I can ask the court to help me give them the only thing I can: The comfort of knowing the monster who murdered their daddy will never walk free.”
What the victims’ families said
The courtroom was packed with uniformed officers as family and friends of Chesna and Adams spoke about the victims. Adams’s loved ones described the relief they felt knowing that Lopes’s path through the courts is nearly at an end. They recalled Adams’s generosity, infectious laugh, and dry sense of humor.
Advertisement:
Chesna’s mother, Maryann Chesna, described him as “a part of me that can never be replaced.”
“For six years, I have lived with the unimaginable, painful hole in my heart,” she said. “Every day I wake up, and my son Michael is still gone. His murder has consumed my heart, my feelings, my breathing.”
More on Emanuel Lopes:
She requested the maximum penalty for Lopes, describing him as a danger to the community.
“Mr. Lopes, you’re the monster I warned my kids about,” Maryann Chesna said.
In a statement read aloud by his mother, 10-year-old Jack Chesna wrote that he misses his father when playing sports or marking milestones in his life.
“Every Father’s Day, I don’t have a father to celebrate,” he wrote. “I have to go to his grave instead.”
Olivia Chesna, 15, wrote that the worst day of her life was the day her father was killed.
“He was and will always be my hero. He wasn’t my hero for his job, or how he died, but for his character,” she wrote, adding, “He was my best friend, someone who always made me happy and made things better.”
Advertisement:
In her own statement, Cindy Chesna remembered her husband as a man who would take his daughter to comic conventions and ice cream shops, and who would remind his son to think about good things as he drifted off to sleep.
“He was funny and kind hearted, and he loved his family above all else,” she said.
She said she has never spoken Lopes’s name aloud and never will.
Lopes offers an apology: ‘This should have never happened’
Prosecutor Greg Connor asked for consecutive life sentences for each of the murders, with parole eligibility after 30 years for the first-degree murder of Chesna and after 25 years for the second-degree murder of Adams. Defense attorney Larry Tipton argued for a shorter parole eligibility, citing his client’s alleged history of hallucinations.
According to Tipton, Lopes told a doctor who performed a psychiatric evaluation on him that he was sorry and “feels like a s****y person. … That he thought people were trying to kill him.”
“It’s the circumstances of his mental illness that we implore the court to also consider,” Tipton said.
Lopes also briefly addressed the court before Judge Beverly Cannone announced his sentence.
“I just want to say I’m sorry to Sgt. Michael Chesna’s family,” he said. “I’m sorry to the Weymouth Police Department. I’m sorry to Vera Adams’s family. I’m so sorry. This should have never happened.”
Advertisement:
The morning of the double slayings, Lopes stole and crashed his girlfriend’s car and fled the scene on foot. He crossed paths with Chesna when police responded to a report of a rock thrown through the window of a nearby home.
Prosecutors said Lopes threw another rock at Chesna’s head, grabbed the officer’s gun, and shot him several times. As he fled, he shot Adams, who was on her porch.
Lopes’s mental health became a central focus during both his trials, and Cannone acknowledged his “serious mental illness” and antipsychotic and antidepressant medications. She ultimately handed down two life sentences, to be served one after the other. Lopes will be eligible for parole after 30 years for Chesna’s murder, plus another 10 years for Adams’s murder.
“And I want the record to be clear that at least in my opinion, the sentences that I did impose do allow for a meaningful opportunity for parole,” Cannone said.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com