Forum.RttP{who says theres no justice}

Family of robber who bled to death seeks clues; Nunes was a good person, relatives say; but known to cops

By JEFFREY WHITE
The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY - The family of Troy D. Nunes describes him as bright and hardworking, someone with big plans for the future.

Quincy police describe the 37-year-old Dorchester native as a man with a criminal record who ‘‘was known to police.''

Both are trying to make sense of his death in Quincy early yesterday morning when, apparently fleeing a video store that police said he had just robbed, he impaled his right leg on a shard of glass from a broken window and bled to death minutes later.

What was he doing there so early? How did Nunes, who didn't have a car, get there? Twelve hours after his death, police and family members still had no answers.

‘‘He was a good worker. He was a good person, just someone who took the wrong path, is all,'' a man who identified himself as Nunes' father said as he stood outside the rambling three-story house in which Nunes lived with his mother and numerous sisters in the Bowdoin Avenue neighborhood of Dorchester.

‘‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was too young to die,'' said the man, who would not give his first name.

Quincy police said Nunes broke into Hollywood Video at 45 Newport Ave. at around 3:30 a.m., hurling a rock through one of the store's double-pane side windows that face Fayette Street.

Police said Nunes entered the store and stole six Sony PlayStation 2 video games. He did not make any attempt at break into the store's cash registers, according to Detective Bill Lonergan. ‘‘We don't see him at all on the store's video,'' Lonergan said.

Nunes then climbed back out the window, but must have slipped, police said. He impaled his inner right thigh on a shard of glass the size of a human arm, severing his femoral artery, one of the body's major blood vessels.

Nunes attempted to run from the scene, police said, but with each step, the weight on his right leg only helped to pump blood out of his wound. He made it about a block from the store, and collapsed in the middle of Holbrook Road.

A police officer responding to a burglar alarm at the video chain store found a trail of blood leading to Nunes, who was lying in a pool of blood, the video games he had stolen lying beside him, police said.

William Quartrone of Holbrook Road said he was watching television ‘‘when I heard what I thought was a gunshot at first and then glass breaking.''

Quartrone said he looked out the window ‘‘and I saw this guy, he was like almost staggering and he falls right next to the car in front of the house.''

‘‘He was lying on the ground gasping for air. His eyes where open but he wasn't responding when I talked to him,'' Quartrone said.

Nunes was pronounced dead at Quincy Medical Center shortly after 4 a.m.

He was a tall, lean man, police said, 6 feet and about 180 pounds.

Nunes' father, who works for Neponset Construction of Roxbury, said Nunes had worked for him for the last 17 years. He described his son as a quick study with a talent for using machines and performing construction demolition.

‘‘I'd show him something once and he could do it, that's how smart he was,'' the father said.

Nunes, who was not married, was the father of eight children by two different women, his father said. The oldest is a 20-year-old son.

Nunes' girlfriend, who lives in Georgia, is pregnant with their ninth child, his father said. The two had been together for more than two years and were planning to settle in Georgia soon. The father would not give the name of the girlfriend, but said she was driving to Boston yesterday and did not know of Nunes' death.

Nunes' father suggested that he might have had a drug problem, but that ‘‘he didn't show it. He kept it hidden from his family.''

A woman identifying herself on the phone as one of Nunes' sisters said the family was waiting to see a police report before making a formal statement.

Outside Nunes' house on Bowdoin Avenue, other family members declined to comment as they entered the house. No one answered the door when reporters knocked on it.

Quincy police said yesterday's robbery was the latest in a spate of crime in that area. Two weeks ago, Hollywood Video was robbed in a similar ‘‘smash and grab'' incident, Detective Lonergan said. A nearby liquor store was also robbed recently, he said.

A manager at Hollywood Video declined to comment yesterday. The broken window was covered with plywood, and Lonergan said the store was going to call in an outside company to clean up blood that had soaked into the carpet near the window.

Jeffrey White may be reached at jwhite@ledger.com.

Copyright 2004 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Wednesday, March 10, 2004