A Suffolk Superior Court jury on June 26 acquitted a man of murdering Brenda Pawlowski in Jamaica Plain three years ago, but found him guilty of possessing the weapon with which she was killed.
A second defendant also charged with killing Pawlowski, Christopher Howard, is still awaiting trial, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
After eight days of testimony and two days of deliberations, jurors found Mattapan resident Larry Pack, 32, not guilty of murder in Pawlowski’s Feb. 8, 2011, shooting death behind 21 Kenney St., but convicted him of unlawful possession of a handgun ballistically matched to the slaying, according to a statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Jurors also convicted Pack of possessing a silencer for that .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun; possessing Class A and Class B substances—cocaine and heroin—with intent to distribute; and possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony.
The firearm, silencer, and narcotics were recovered from Pack’s apartment after the execution of a search warrant less than a month after Pawloski was found dead of a gunshot wound. Among other evidence, prosecutors introduced phone records linking Pack to the victim in the hours preceding her murder, cell tower data that put him in the area of the shooting at the time it took place, witness testimony connecting him to the homicide, and criminalists who testified to a reasonable degree of ballistic certainty that the weapon in Pack’s home was the weapon that killed Pawlowski.
Pack faces at least five years for the firearm and up to 15 years as an armed career criminal when he is sentenced on Sept. 14.
Prosecutors did not describe a motive for the killing. Pawlowski, who was 49, reportedly had a “serious drug problem,” according to a previous statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.