New Evidence Presented in 1996 Martinsville Murder

A Bridgewater man, sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting his mother outside their Martinsville home in 1996, was back in court Monday and asking for his conviction to be reversed, citing newly discovered evidence.

Walter Tormasi, 33, was sentenced to life in prison in 1998 for shooting his mother, Frances Tormasi, in what authorities called an "ambush" outside their Middle Road home. Tormasi, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, was tried as an adult.

David Ruhnke, Tormasi’s lawyer, told Superior Court Judge John Pursel on Monday afternoon that the new evidence was an affidavit from Tormasi’s father, Attila, who died on Nov. 16, 2010.

Ruhnke did not tell the judge the contents of the affidavit.

Pursel scheduled a hearing on Tormasi’s motion for post-conviction relief for July 9.

“Sooner or later, I have to make a decision,” Pursel said.

The state Supreme Court refused to hear a previous appeal from Tormasi, who argued that his former attorney had failed to properly examine his father during the trial, and failed to investigate and present evidence that implicated his father in the murder, according to court papers.

During the trial, several witnesses testified to Tormasi’s penchant for guns. His former girlfriend testified that he had showed her a hole in his basement wall that he claimed was made by firing a gun.

Carlo Rosati, a firearms expert with the FBI, examined the nine-millimeter bullets recovered from the scene of Frances's murder and the basement wall of the Tormasi home, and concluded that they had all been fired from the same weapon, court papers say.

Kenneth Riker, who had gone to school with Tormasi since the sixth grade and was at Warren Acres, a juvenile detention center, when Tormasi was brought there after the shooting of his mother, testified that Tormasi admitted to shooting his mother with a nine-millimeter handgun "eight to 10 times.”

After the shooting, Tormasi told authorities that a masked gunman had shot his mother as he stood by watching.

He later told friends, who testified at his trial, that he hated his mother because she had moved out of the house to live with a boyfriend.