Henry “J.R.” Del-Rio, not pictured, is accused of killing Ashlee Berryman, seen here in photos from her obituary.
A man has been charged in the death of a 21-year-old mother killed when a bullet was fired in a crowded Massachusetts nightclub parking lot eight years ago by a suspected gang member who bragged about the killing and his associates tried to cover it up.
Henry “J.R.” Del-Rio, 27, faces the charge in the death of Ashlee Berryman. Del-Rio was indicted by a grand jury on charges including first-degree murder, assault and battery and weapons offenses.
“The conduct that Henry Del-Rio is alleged to have engaged in outside the Braza Grille was outrageous, and it ended in terrible tragedy,” Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. “Ashlee Berryman, a completely innocent victim, was caught in a hail of gunfire and lost her life.
“Those actions ripped her from her then 3-year-old son as well as her other family and friends,” she added in a Friday news conference.
In the early morning of Aug. 13, 2015, a crowd of concertgoers gathered in the parking lot outside the Braza Bar & Grill in Everett, north of Boston. Berryman had gone to the concert to see her boyfriend, one of the performers.
In that parking lot was Del-Rio with his acquaintances — all allegedly associated with the East Side Money gang, prosecutors said.
At about 12:50 a.m., two men who had not been at the concert arrived in the area and began arguing with one of Del-Rio’s associates.
After the confrontation, Del-Rio allegedly drew a .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol and fired nine times at the men, and didn’t stop firing as the men ran. He struck one of the men in the feet and ankles.
A bullet hit Berryman in the back, fatally wounding her. An Everett police officer in the area at the time heard gunshots at 12:56 a.m. and responded. Berryman was found suffering from a gunshot wound and died at a hospital.
“You just took away a 3-year-old’s mother,” Berryman’s sister, Alex Berryman, told the Boston Globe then. “Maybe you don’t have a mother, and that’s why you’re such a monster. But if you did have a mother, or if you do have a mother, imagine growing up without her.”
Bullets also lodged into a wooden municipal sign, smashed through the front window of a Rite-Aid across the street and penetrated the roof of a passing car, prosecutors said.
In the days afterward, the suspect brazenly told people he was responsible for the shot that had killed Berryman.
Investigators also learned that his associates had agreed to conceal the truth of what had happened and talked about disposing of the murder weapon, which has never been found.
“This violent, predictively tragic behavior we will not forget, and we will not cease looking to get to the results,” Ryan said.
There’s nothing surprising about what took place here. What is surprising is that more people were not hurt, given the number of times that this gun was fired in a city that is extremely densely populated.”
Del-Rio is being held in connection with a federal case and was expected to be brought to Middlesex Superior Court to be arraigned later.
He has been in federal custody since December 2022 in a separate federal gun case, details of which she said would be revealed at his arraignment.
The Globe reported he was released from custody in September 2020 after a conviction for federal drug and weapons infractions.
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