The Chelsea man who was stabbed to death by his girlfriend’s two sons in 2008 may have been killed in a fit of jealous rage.
The Chelsea home in which 25-year-old Shadeed “Cleo” Wiggins was stabbed to death was “dysfunctional,” with his alleged killers’ mother choosing him over her own sons, a Suffolk County homicide prosecutor said during opening statements in their murder trial this week.
Aasim Smith, 18, and Eugene Teixeira, 23, are both charged with second-degree murder for allegedly joining together in a fatal 2008 attack on Wiggins, their mother’s boyfriend, in the Chester Avenue apartment they all shared.
“This case is about choices,” Assistant District Attorney Cory Flashner said. “The choice of a mother to select her boyfriend over her two sons and to kick her two sons out of the house … and the choices of those two sons to come back into the house, back through the door, to arm themselves, and to kill that boyfriend.”
Flashner told the court that the defendants’ mother awoke on April 29, 2008, to find that Smith had skipped school and Teixeira had not gone to work. After informing Wiggins of this, Flashner said, she told the young men to leave the house.
The defendants did just that, Flashner said, but not before taking an Xbox video game system “that Shadeed thought was his.”
Later the same day, Flashner told jurors, Teixeira called the apartment and said he wanted to collect his belongings but his mother refused him access.
At about 3:30 p.m., Flashner said, the two brothers stormed the apartment, running up the back stairs. Their mother double-locked the door upon hearing their approach, Flashner said. Undeterred, they allegedly began to kick and pound against the door until its frame splintered and its center panel flew into the apartment.
As her sons entered the apartment, Flashner said, their mother was on the phone with 911 dispatchers. At some point, she told those dispatchers, “My sons came in the house and tried to beat up my boyfriend. Please help me.”
Later, Flashner said, she can be heard on the tape-recorded call hurling expletives at her sons.
“‘You [expletives] are going to jail,’” Flashner said. “That’s the mother of the defendants screaming at them over the 911 call.”
Teixeira and Smith allegedly burst into the apartment and went for Wiggins. Armed with a knife, Teixeira stabbed him seven times in the chest, face, hand, and back. Wiggins’ liver, lung, and heart were all punctured, killing him.
As Teixeira stabbed Wiggins, Flashner said, Smith attempted to hit Wiggins with a baseball bat but was blocked by a family friend who also lived in the apartment.
“Those seven separate and distinct stab wounds are why the defendants before you are charged with murder,” Flashner said.
Smith allegedly “aided and abetted” Teixeira’s deadly assault. Both later surrendered themselves to Chelsea Police.
The only injuries to Smith, Teixeira, or their mother that day were a bruise to Teixeira’s hand, Flashner said.
Smith is represented by attorney Stephen Weymouth and Teixeira by attorney George Murphy.