Verdict guilty in murder retrial

BY AMANDA BURKE

The Berkshire Eagle

PITTSFIELD — A New York City man has been convicted of first-degree premeditated murder in the execution-style slaying of David Green Jr. in Pittsfield in 2018.

Lance Burke, 46, of the Bronx, N.Y., was found guilty by a Berkshire County Superior Court jury at about 4 p.m. Thursday. The verdict, which came after just over a day of deliberations, marked the end of a weeklong trial.

It was the state’s second bid to convict Burke in the case; the initial attempt ended in a mistrial in June 2023 after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Burke was convicted of fatally shooting Green on Nov. 3, 2018, as he sat in a pickup truck near the corner of Spring and Willow streets.

Jurors also found him guilty of illegal possession of a firearm and illegal possession of a loaded firearm.

When the clerk read the verdict, Burke showed no visible emotion, and was then led out of the courtroom in handcuffs to await formal sentencing next week. After jurors were discharged, the lead prosecutor on the case, First Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey, embraced Green’s family.

After the verdict, there was a palpable sense of relief in the courtroom, where multiple rows of bench seating were filled with law enforcement. Green’s father raised a fist in the air, expressing relief for the outcome reached more than six years after his son’s killing.

“My son is resting now,” David Green Sr. said after the hearing.

Over the course of this trial, prosecutors argued that Burke had been called upon to kill Green, a 30-year-old Pittsfield father, on behalf of another man, Timothy McFadden. There was ongoing animosity between them, prosecutors said, and at the time of the killing, McFadden already was facing charges for shooting at Green months earlier.

Prosecutors presented cellphone evidence that showed McFadden in the two weeks before the fatal shooting had 68 phone calls with an alleged intermediary who they said facilitated the homicide. A witness also testified that he saw a man, whom prosecutors argued was Burke, stop by the home of that alleged intermediary after the shooting and then leave with a duffel bag.

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