By Katie Mulvaney - Projo.com

July 22, 2010

PROVIDENCE — James and Marian Soares allowed their son to continue living with them even after he turned 20, despite his addiction to cocaine. They opened their home up to his girlfriend, too, though the young couple repeatedly raided their bedroom to steal possessions to fund their drug habit.

It was the Soares’ refusal to give up on their son that would end in fatal consequences for the husband and wife. And Tuesday, without revealing any emotion or looking his family’s way, James A. Soares Jr. was sentenced to consecutive life sentences for killing his parents by striking them with a grub ax and then shoving their bodies into a cesspool in the backyard of their home on Baltimore Avenue in Warren.

Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. questioned Soares’ claims that his mother sexually, emotionally and physically abused her only biological son, calling the 26-year-old a cold-blooded killer driven by greed. Soares, he said, had murdered his parents with premeditation and calculation in July 2008 because he wanted their money, cars and home to share with his girlfriend, Nicole L. Pacheco.

Soares had committed parricide, possibly the only such case ever in Rhode Island. “There’s nothing worse than that in this court’s judgment,” Darigan said.

It was Marian’s absence from a reunion, almost exactly two years ago, that prompted family members to call the police. As officers investigated, James A. Soares Jr.’s story kept changing.

First, he said his parents were on a motorcycle trip. Then, he said his father had left his mother for a woman he’d met on the Internet, and his mother was in Massachusetts, according to Assistant Attorney General Stacey P. Veroni.

Then, the police found a pool of Marian’s blood in a closet. Soares said his father had killed his mother and fled with the body. Then on July 25, he reported that his father killed his mother, but he killed his father and dumped their bodies in the cesspool.

The police found the bodies July 26 and arrested Soares the next day. The medical examiner concluded they died of blows to the back of their heads around July 7.

In asking Darigan to sentence Soares to two consecutive life terms, Veroni told the court of the spending spree Soares and Pacheco went on after his parents’ murders. With his parents’ credit cards, the pair bought a laptop computer, a flat-screen TV, a Sony PlayStation and a Nintendo Wii game system. The couple, Veroni said, also invited friends over for mudslides and calzones in the backyard, just feet above his parents’ decaying bodies.

Pacheco, 22, of Bristol, pleaded no contest in December to 64 financial crimes and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Veroni dismissed Soares’ allegations of abuse by his mother as lies to gain leniency.

Soares’ lawyer, John E. Lovoy, of the public defender’s office, asked for concurrent life terms. Saying he did not intend to disparage the memory of the Soareses, Lovoy said sexual abuse could explain why a man with no history of violence would suddenly snap.

He noted statements by family members that Marian had been sexually abused by her father. It is not unusual, he said, for people who are abused to repeat the pattern. He noted that Marian and James Sr. occasionally used drugs, sometimes with their son, and had been arrested for selling drugs in the past.

But other family members described for the court loving parents who adored their only child together unconditionally, to a fault. They told of being tortured by nightmares and utter distress at the brutal murders of James and Marian at the hands of their son.

“I think ‘Did they see it coming?’ ” said Dawn Viera, James Jr.’s stepsister by his father. “God, I hope not.” Viera turned to address her half-brother, who never looked her way. “I call you an evil coward.”

Her sister, Sherri Thornton, said she wished Rhode Island had a death penalty. “They’re dead, he should be dead.” She pleaded that his time be served in solitary confinement. “He should have to be alone with his haunting memories of murdering his mother.”

In addition to the two life sentences for first-degree murder, Soares received concurrent terms for failing to report his parents’ deaths, conspiring with Pacheco to use his parents’ credit cards and fraudulent use of a credit card. He will be eligible for parole in 40 years.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said he would like Soares to spend his lifetime behind bars, but his crimes did not qualify for life without parole. “We take some solace, however, in the fact that he will be in prison for a minimum of 40 years before being eligible for parole, and I trust that whoever is serving as attorney general 40 years from now will object to his parole,” Lynch said.

Soares’ family gripped hands as Darigan handed down the sentence. They declined to speak with the media, but a weak smile crossed Viera’s face as she let go a deep sigh. She turned to the Warren police. “Thank you. Thank you, very much."