Boston Globe



Boston Globe

October 15, 1992 | | |

FULLER IS DESCRIBED IN MURDER TRIAL AS A JEALOUS BOYFRIEND

Author: Alexander Reid, Globe Staff

SALEM -- At the time he stabbed his 14-year-old girlfriend to death and dumped her body into a nearby Beverly pond, Jamie Fuller was either a jealous lover who carefully planned the murder or an emotionally unstable adolescent driven into a maniacal rage by a steady intake of whiskey and steroids, according to the two lawyers arguing the case. Those two depictions of Fuller emerged yesterday during the second day of his trial in Salem Superior Court in the murder of Amy Carnevale.

Fuller, who is 17 but was 16 at the time of the murder on Aug. 23, 1991, is charged with first-degree murder and faces life imprisonment if convicted.

According to the prosecutor's statement yesterday and pretrial hearings, Fuller accompanied Carnevale into a wooded area near Memorial Middle School and stabbed her in the back, stomach and throat. Carnevale's body was later found in a pond, her hands tied and plastic garbage bags covering her feet and head. Her body had been weighted by two cinderblocks.

Michael Maillet, a friend of Fuller's, is expected to testify that he helped the defendant dispose of the body. Maillet, charged with being an accessory after the fact of murder, is free on $25,000 bail, with a trial scheduled for Nov. 2.

"What this case is about," said Howard J. Whitehead, Essex County assistant district attorney, "is how it came to be that Amy Carnevale was found at the bottom of Shoe Pond."

Whitehead described Fuller as an abusive boyfriend who had become annoyed and jealous of her involvement with other potential boyfriends. He said Fuller had often discussed and plotted with friends who knew them both how he would murder Carnevale.

One of the three witnesses called yesterday, Diane Wagar, 16, said Fuller sometimes talked about taking Carnevale into a wooded area, giving her a flower and killing her.

Whitehead also said it was a trip to a beach in Gloucester the day before the murder with a group that included two boys that provoked Fuller to commit the crime.

Once he heard Amy had been to Gloucester, he told one friend, "this [expletive's] gonna stop. She won't be around to go out with anyone . . . I'm going to kill her," said Whitehead in his opening statement.

Whitehead said several witnesses who will be called to testify are expected to describe Fuller's constant discussion of Carnevale's death. Witnesses are also expected to testify they saw Fuller walk with the victim into the woods and later emerge with his hands and clothes soaked in blood.

Fuller's defense lawyer, Hugh Samson, conceded his client's implication in the murder but he argued that Fuller was provoked into jealous rage, largely because of the whiskey and steroids he was consuming daily leading up to the murder.

Samson, in emphasizing Fuller's reliance on the substances and the change they brought about in his character and appearance, said his client -- once an introvert and target of other young people in the neighborhood -- gained 30 pounds in the four to five months before the murder, became increasingly aggressive, short-tempered and belligerent, and had periods of deep depression.

The mood swings, induced by the depression and substance abuse, caused Fuller to attempt suicide with an overdose of whiskey and aspirin one morning when he discovered a pimple on his face, Samson asserted.

At the time of the murder, when Fuller was aware that Carnevale was spending time with other boys, the defendant was haunted by a vision "of Amy having sex with another man," said Samson. "It was a vision that he brooded over in his mind."

Throughout yesterday's proceedings, the mothers of the victim and defendant listened as the attorneys and witnesses described their children's relationship.

Copyright 1992, 1998 Globe Newspaper Company

Record Number: 00289158

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