Jury Convicts CRESPO

in 2016 Fitchburg Murder

WORCESTER – August 5, 2021 – Jose Crespo was convicted of first degree murder in the 2016 killing of a Fitchburg man, according to Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr.

36-year-old Mr. Crespo, of Newark, New Jersey, was also found guilty of home invasion; aggravated kidnapping; two counts of kidnapping; armed robbery while masked; and arson.

The Superior Court jury deliberated for a day before delivering its verdict. Judge James G. Reardon Jr. scheduled sentencing for Tuesday.

The first degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The victims of the Dec. 3, 2016 home invasion at 122 Laurel St., Fitchburg were 24-year-old Kevin O. Cabrera-Soto, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s 7-year-old son.

Mr. Cabrera-Soto was found dead in an apartment at that address where a fire had been set. The woman and her son escaped the fire.

An autopsy later revealed that Mr. Cabrera-Soto died of homicidal violence from blunt force trauma with thermal injuries.

42-year-old Ramon Millan, of Bridgeport, Conn., who was also charged with murder in the case pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

A third defendant in the case, 36-year-old Wilfredo Muniz, 36, of Bridgeport, Conn., was indicted under the intimidation of a witness statute for misleading a police investigation. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.

DA Early said “Our prosecutors, Assistant District Attorneys David P. Feraco, Louis Tosches and DonnaMarie Haran, did an excellent job in trying this case and working to obtain justice on behalf of the victims,” “And I’d like to thank the jurors for their service in this trial, which was the first murder trial held in Worcester since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.”