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“The words from Jose Feliz’s family gives us motivation to work ever harder to reduce violence throughout our city,” the DA said.
A Hyde Park man was sentenced last week to 24 years in state prison for fatally shooting a “life-long” friend in 2024, prosecutors said.
Isaiah Smith, 29, pleaded guilty to manslaughter as a part of a plea deal for shooting and killing his “life-long close friend” Jose Feliz, 28, in Nov. 2024, the local DA said.
The defendant also confessed to unlawful possession of a firearm, the office of Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a press release.
“It’s always difficult discussing a decision that’s going to affect the rest of somebody’s life,” Smith’s attorney, Edward Molari, said in an interview with Boston.com.
Smith was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison for manslaughter and four years for the firearm offense. The two sentences will run consecutively, Hayden’s office said.
On Nov. 8, 2024, police received multiple calls regarding a person shot at 201 Garfield Ave. in Hyde Park, the DA said.
On scene, officers found Feliz dead in the backyard of the home, Hayden’s office said.
Police found Smith near the front steps of the home, where he “told officers that he had shot Feliz and that the weapon was inside the house on the kitchen counter,” prosecutors said.
While addressing the court in a victim impact statement, Feliz’s brother described Feliz as “friendly, outgoing, and respectful [to] people in the neighborhood,” the DA said.
“The words from Jose Feliz’s family gives us motivation to work ever harder to reduce violence throughout our city,” Hayden said.
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