Man convicted of double murder, arson

By Buffy Spencer - The Republican Newsroom

Tuesday December 11, 2007

SPRINGFIELD - A Hampden Superior Court jury today convicted Brian K. Cavitt of murdering an elderly couple and setting fire to their Carew Street home, a double slaying that Cavitt admitted commiting following the verdict.

At Cavitt's sentencing today, the 24-year-old man admitted he killed the couple. Judge Judd J. Carhart had warned Cavitt he should speak to his lawyer William J. O'Neil before he spoke, but Cavitt refused.

"I did kill them," he said of Edelmira Miranda, 67, and Milagros R. Rosario, 69. "I didn't want to."

When the verdict was announced many of the about two dozen family members and friends of the victims, in court through the trial with Victim-Witness Advocate Kathleen O'Connor, cried.

Cavitt said during the sentencing that he did not force himself into the Carew Street apartment on May 5, 2006. He said Rosario let him in, but when Rosario found out he was running from police "he tried to kick me out."

Cavitt said he did not want to go back to prison and that was what was in his mind at the time of the murders. "I've been doing this prison since I was 17," he said.

Cavitt had listened to impact statements from two daughters of the couple, Maria Milagros Miranda and Omayra Santos.

Miranda said, "How could he do this? He is nothing but a monster, a cold-blooded killer and he has no remorse for what he did. He thinks he killed two elderly people that were worthless, but he killed our Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa."

Cavitt, of Springfield, was also found guilty of one count each of arson, armed robbery while masked and assault and battery. The armed robbery was at the Big Y supermarket and he was trying to hide from police when he went to the apartment of the couple, whom he did not know.

The arson count is from the at least two fires Cavitt set to cover evidence, including one fire set on Eldelmira Miranda's bedclothes as she lay in bed and one near Rosario's body.

Maria Miranda talked about the grief and shock from thinking her parents were dead from a fire, and then learning that their parents had been stabbed to death and the fires were set.

"I can't imagine how scared my father and mother were when the defendant entered their home and as my mother lay on her bed listening to him killing my father, how horrible that must have been for her knowing she would be next to die," Miranda said.

Cavitt said he knew he had to serve a life sentence without parole for the murders, and he accepts that.

"I'm not necessarily a monster. I'm a little screwed up," he said.

Assistant District Attorney Brett J. Vottero said that even though the life sentence for one count of murder does not offer the possibility of parole, he wanted to ask for consecutive life sentences as a symbolic recognition of each victim.

Carhart sentenced Cavitt to consecutive life sentences on each count of murder and another consecutive 20-25 year sentence on the armed robbery count, to begin after the consecutive life sentences.

Miranda said in her statement to the court that her whole family has been "traumatized with the horrific death our parents had to go through."

The main message in the statements from Miranda and Santos was the love that the couple gave to all in their sphere. But the statements talked about the emotional scarring that family members believe will never abate.

"My parents were generous, loving, caring, honest human beings," Santos said. "They didn't care who you were. If you needed anything from them, they would lend us a helping hand."

Miranda described her parents, who fell in love when they were living in the same building in the mid-1970s. Rosario worked for 30 years as a machine operator, while Edelmira Miranda relished her role as homemaker, mother, foster mother and mother figure.

Edelmira Miranda had had two strokes and needed a hospital bed and wheelchair. Maria Miranda said that she once told her mother she could not see her life without her.

Maria Miranda said, "And she said, 'Honey, if God decides it's time for me to leave this world, I will go knowing that all my children are grown and they can take care of themselves."

Cavitt Guilty in Springfield Double Murder