BEVERLY — Three women charged in connection with the stabbings of three other women outside a Grant Street apartment house Friday night will remain in custody until a hearing next week to determine whether they pose a danger, a judge has ordered.
It's still unclear exactly what touched off the violent dispute that sent three women to the hospital and three others to jail, but court papers and testimony yesterday suggest that weeks of simmering tensions had boiled over on a hot summer night.
Now Dionne Duarte, 22, of Randolph and Linette Figueroa, 19, of Brockton are facing attempted-murder charges, and Nichole Powell, 35, of 34 Grant St., is being charged with threats to commit a crime and witness intimidation. The three are being held without bail at MCI-Framingham.
Powell lives upstairs from two of the victims, Carol Houghton, 49, and Houghton's daughter Deisere Lee Andress, 28. The third victim, Siobhan Angel MacArthur, 28, lives down the street at 42 Grant St..
Houghton and Andress, along with Houghton's husband, David Houghton, 27, were in court yesterday seeking civil harassment restraining orders against Powell, citing ongoing disputes with their upstairs neighbor over noise.
The Houghtons complained that Powell and her children "stomp" around and said they have overheard Powell, Duarte and Figueroa making comments about her.
"I am pretty concerned about my living environment," Houghton told Judge Robert Brennan. "The stress has been making me lose my hair."
She also said Powell had called the police about the Houghtons' stereo playing too loudly.
According to a witness statement by Andress, on the night of the stabbing Houghton and her daughter were talking outside with some of Andress' friends when "four black chicks came out and started to run (their) mouth. Two of them punched my mother in the face, so the other two jumped (MacArthur) ... then I got into it with one of them, and the other three jumped in and stabbed me in the back two times."
Carol Houghton said the attack was unprovoked, saying that the women "came across the street towards us yelling and screaming things like 'you (expletive) are gonna get hurt.' Houghton said she felt something sting her face, and it turned out to be a cut on her cheek.
MacArthur, meanwhile, said she had simply gone to the defense of Carol Houghton and Andress and was attacked.
"I just jumped in because they jumped on Carol," said MacArthur, who suffered a punctured lung, in a statement.
All three victims identified Duarte as the woman who stabbed them. But when police questioned Powell, she said Figueroa was carrying the knife when she came into the apartment, according to a police report.
Powell, who was not initially charged, told police that she threw the knife out the window. She offered a different version of events, suggesting that Duarte and Figueroa were acting in defense of her 14-year-old niece.
Powell, in a statement, said she, Duarte, Figueroa and her niece, Genae Francois, were walking back to Powell's apartment when "the big woman" (Houghton) grabbed Genae by the throat and began beating her. Houghton has not been charged with such an offense.
Powell, who has no prior record, said she and her friends tried to "break it up by any means possible" and feared that they were outnumbered.
Three days after the stabbing, after being released from the hospital, MacArthur called police to complain that Powell had made a threat toward her and called her a vulgar name. Police then arrested Powell.
Lawyers for Powell, Duarte and Figueroa suggested that prosecutors are going to have a tough time proving exactly what happened, noting inconsistencies among the various witness accounts.
Judge Robert Brennan suggested that a clearer picture of the incident is likely to come only after a full hearing, which he scheduled for Sept. 15.
Meanwhile, two other women were arraigned in a series of somewhat connected events, involving an alleged plot by a woman named Jessica Timmons, 32, of 551 Cabot St., Beverly, to hire MacArthur to beat or kill her foster mother.
Timmons allegedly offered $200 from her girlfriend's Social Security disability check to MacArthur, who instead went to the proposed target. Subsequently, Timmons and her girlfriend, Nicole McIntyre, 32, also of 551 Cabot St., were involved in a fight with MacArthur on Grant Street, which preceded the stabbings. A warrant was issued for their arrests.
Timmons has also been charged with assaulting McIntyre on Monday by throwing a box of sex toys and an iron at her as the women were breaking up. When police responded to that fight, both women were arrested on the warrants.
Timmons is being held on $1,500 bail in Framingham. McIntyre's bail was set at $250.
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