Accused Killer's Attorney: Main Witness "Lied The Way He Breathes"

The lawyer for the man accused of murdering JP convenience store clerk Surendra Dangol says the state hasn't proved its case.

Dangol's brother sat in the front row during closing arguments on Monday.

Defense attorney John Hayes urged jurors to throw out witness testimony that Ed “Butchie” Corliss confessed to killing Dangol during a robbery, then sought to hire assassins to rub out witnesses — his own wife and a neighbor.

“None of those [prosecution] witnesses are credible,” Hayes said. Of a key prosecution witness, the defendant’s brother William Corliss, Hayes said he “has no grip on reality.”

Of John Witt, a jailhouse source who testified about Ed Corliss' alleged plot to kill witnesses, the defense attorney told jurors “he lied and he lied and he lied. He lied the way he breathes,” Hayes said.

The decision about how much of the testimony and evidence to believe rests with jurors.

Ed “Butchie” Corliss, 65, is accused of shooting Dangol on Dec. 26, 2009 in the course of a robbery that netted about $700. The murder, at the Tedeschi by the Monument, shocked JP.

While the defense urged jurors to throw out everything they heard from the prosecutions' main witnesses, the state maintained that even without witness testimony, the jury should convict Ed Corliss.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan said thorough work by Boston Police had identified the car seen in surveillance video taking the murderer from the crime scene: A white 1994 Plymouth Acclaim. Haggan said the vehicle had six unique characteristics, including an Obama bumper sticker, a broken tail light, a certain type of wheel rims and an MIT alumni sticker added to the driver's door the day news media blanketed the airwaves with images of the car.

He also said police found the murder weapon on Revere Beach, a beach where the same car broke down the day after the murder and had to be towed.

The defense said the state had not proven that the person shown on surveillance video gunning down the Nepali immigrant Dangol is Ed Corliss.

"All you can get from this [video] is the robber had two eyes and a nose,” Hayes said.

Prosecutors countered by showing several photos of Ed Corliss compared with stills from the robbery.

"That killer had a very distinctive nose," Haggan said. "That killer had a prominent set of frown lines."

Haggan began his closing argument nearly wordlessly, simply replaying surveillance tape of the robbery and murder from two different angles.

"There is no doubt who that partially disguised killer was, he’s sitting before you," Haggan said, pointing to Ed Corliss.

The jury will decide whether Ed Corliss is guilty of three crimes: Murder, armed robbery while masked and possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Jurors did not hear that Ed Corliss is a convicted killer, having slain a Salisbury convenience store clerk in 1971. He was on parole when Dangol was shot and killed.