A man was found guilty Friday on four murder charges more than six years after he killed a woman and her three young children in West Brookfield, Massachusetts.
The bodies of 38-year-old Sara Bermudez, 8-year-old Madison Bermudez, 6-year-old James Bermudez and 2-year-old Michael Bermudez were found in their Old Warren Road home on March 1, 2018. All four victims had suffered stab wounds.
Matthew Locke, a Ware resident and the cousin of Sara Bermudez's husband, was charged with murder in September of that year. He had been in custody since March on allegations that he misled investigators.
Locke, now 38, was convicted on four counts of first-degree murder at the end of a monthlong trial, the Worcester County District Attorney's Office said Friday. He was also convicted on charges of armed burglary and arson of a dwelling.
Prosecutors noted that the murder charges carried underlying felonies of armed burglary and aggravated rape.
"The deaths of this mother and her children were some of the most heinous ever seen by this office," District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said in a statement. "We hope this outcome can provide some measure of justice for the victim's family."
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Authorities said that Sara Bermudez's husband, Moses Bermudez, was out of the state when the murders.
Locke allegedly told investigators that Moses Bermudez had suggested members of MS-13, a gang, were behind the killings, additionally misrepresenting his own relationship with Sara Bermudez and when he had last been in the house where the murders took place.
A date for Locke's sentencing has not been set.
