Judge Dismisses Juror In Mattapan Murders Case

A judge has dismissed a juror in the retrial of a Boston man charged with fatally shooting four people and leaving a fifth paralyzed during a drug-related robbery.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke sent the juror home Monday after learning that the man had conducted online research into ballistics and shared it with other jurors in the trial of Dwayne Moore.

Moore is charged with killing three adults and a toddler in Boston's Mattapan neighborhood in September 2010. Moore's first trial ended with a deadlocked jury; his codefendant was acquitted.

Locke told the remaining jurors that the dismissed juror violated his instructions against getting any information outside the evidence presented in court.

"You are not to do anything to try and figure out this case beyond the evidence you have heard in this courtroom," Locke said, "and if any juror did engage in that sort of conduct, there could be severe consequences."

The judge appointed a new juror from a pool of alternates.

With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom