GREENFIELD — The Wendell man who was convicted five years ago of ending his girlfriend’s life in 2017 will not get the chance to have the alleged murder weapon tested for evidence, a Franklin County Superior Court judge ruled on Tuesday.

Lewis H. Starkey III, 60, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for killing Amanda Glover with a 12-gauge shotgun and attempting to murder Glover’s adult son, Devin, in the early hours of July 5, 2017. But Judge John Agostini denied his motion for the firearm to be tested for blood splatter, about three months after granting a motion for $5,000 in state money to cover a firearm and crime scene reconstruction expert’s costs.

“The defendant has not filed a motion for a new trial nor any affidavit [pertaining to the newest motion],” Agostini wrote in his decision, adding that this fails to satisfy state statute.

Prosecutors in 2019 convinced a jury that Starkey killed Glover after becoming upset during an argument in which Glover told him their relationship was ending. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Suhl, who also argued against the motion to have the firearm tested, told jurors that Starkey had been working on a vacation home in Vermont and murdered Glover after she informed him she would be moving into the home alone with her son, Devin. Suhl said Starkey became so angry that he refused to let Glover leave the room, grabbing her shirt and ripping it.

Glover reportedly fled downstairs, where her son — having heard the argument and seeing his mother’s torn clothes — confronted Starkey to protect his mother. Suhl said Starkey then went to the basement and returned with his shotgun, shooting Glover at close range and attempting to shoot her son, who fled the home into the surrounding woods and called the police. Starkey was sentenced to an additional 10 to 15 years — to be served after his life sentence — for attempting to murder Devin Glover.

Michael Fellows, the attorney representing Starkey at last week’s motion hearing, argued that blood-spatter evidence on the shotgun could indicate the weapon was farther than 2 feet away from Glover when the trigger was pulled, as the prosecution stated. Starkey has maintained, both at trial and in an affidavit submitted with his previous motion for money to pay for a blood-spatter analyst, that when the trigger was pulled he was wrestling over the gun with Devin Glover between a potted plant and the hall’s right wall, placing him and the shotgun several feet farther away from Amanda Glover than her son testified to.

“This sort of testing is very old. It’s been going on for 100 years, is well-accepted in the scientific community and it is reliable,” Fellows told Agostini.

But Suhl argued the defendant is not entitled to the testing “through the legal mechanism he’s trying to use here.” She also said the defense failed to prove it would be reasonably likely that the testing would produce evidence to justify a new trial.

“There are no cases in the commonwealth where this testing has been admitted,” Suhl said. “Some cases date back to 1946. Several of them involved testimony offered by medical examiners or forensic pathologists, which is not what is being requested in this particular case.”

After killing Glover, Starkey fled in Glover’s car — attempting to evade authorities by swapping her Vermont license plates for Massachusetts ones. Starkey then drove to the Chicopee trucking company where he worked and fired a shot at a fellow employee through a pane of glass. The fellow employee sustained minor injuries from flying glass shards but was not struck by gunfire.

Police mounted a regional manhunt that ended on July 9 when Orange Police Sgt. James Sullivan — now police chief in Orange — recognized the vehicle Starkey was driving and stopped it. He was arrested without incident.

In July 2019, Starkey pleaded guilty in Hampden County Superior Court to shooting and injuring that Chicopee coworker and was sentenced to five to seven years in state prison. This sentence runs concurrent with his life sentence.

Following the Franklin County Superior Court trial, Glover’s family members delivered victim-impact statements and asked Agostini to put Starkey in prison for life.

“The brutal murder of my daughter has left a hole in my life that can never be filled,” said Lynette McCreary, Glover’s mother. “A parent isn’t supposed to outlive their child.”

McCreary said she found it difficult to enjoy activities like quilting, which she liked doing with her daughter.

“It makes me very angry to think about the last moments of her life,” she said. “This man has not only murdered my baby, but tried to murder my grandson, and then blamed it on him.”

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-930-4120.