Prosecutor: Teen skipped school to kill

A 16-year-old girl busted after a brazen murder in Dorchester in December was planning to go to school that day but changed her mind and allegedly set off with an older man to gun down a hated rival, according to new details revealed yesterday.

The teen will be arraigned today in Dorchester Juvenile Court after being indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm and as an accessary to murder after the fact for her role in the Dec. 1, 2008, broad-daylight shooting of 16-year-old DeAndre Barboza.

The Dorchester girl’s alleged accomplice, Patrick M. Grier, 20, was arraigned yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court and charged with murder. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.

The morning of the shooting, the girl had planned to go to class, but instead she called Grier, prosecutor John Pappas said during Grier’s arraignment. “She left with the defendant instead of going to school,” he said.

Barboza was shot at point-blank range just after 9 a.m. on that bright morning in front of the Codman Square post office as people walked to work and traffic crawled by on Washington Street.

Police, who responded within seconds, spotted Grier and the girl, both running on a nearby street. Grier was out of breath and reeked of gunpowder, Pappas said.

The girl was carrying a sawed-off, .22 caliber revolver that testing later confirmed was used to gun down Barboza, Pappas said. The serial number on the gun had been erased.

Barboza died two days later, a day after turning 17. He had been shot multiple times, including once in the head.

Pappas said Barboza and Grier came from different neighborhoods and that the homicide stemmed from an “ongoing feud.”

Grier’s attorney, David Apfel, said Grier was not on Washington Street when Barboza was shot, and no witnesses have identified him as the shooter.

“Obviously, any murder case is a human tragedy. It becomes a double tragedy when the wrong person is accused. That’s what we have here,” Apfel said.

But Pappas said surveillance camera footage and cell phone records put Grier and the girl near the post office that morning. Witnesses told police that a black man, who wore his hair in braids, as Grier does, shot Barboza.

Three of Barboza’s family members in court yesterday declined comment. Grier’s family also declined comment.