Hartford man charged with murder in fatal shooting of Plainville teen in 2023
A 23-year-old Hartford man has been charged with murder in connection with the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Plainville teen in 2023.
Luis Laboy was located in Hartford on Monday by members of the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force and the Hartford Police Violent Crime Unit and taken into custody where he was charged with murder, criminal possession of a firearm and unlawful discharge of a firearm, according to the Harford Police Department.
He was being held in lieu of a $1.5 million bond and is the second person to be charged in connection with the murder of Julius Rivera in January 2023, police said.
On Jan. 11, 2023, officers responded to the 600 block of Broad Street after a ShotSpotter alert just before 10 a.m. At the scene, they found Rivera suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died just after 2 a.m., according to police.
Rivera was the city’s first homicide victim in 2023.
Family, friends mourn teen fatally shot in Hartford. ‘Our family seeks justice for Julius.’
Investigators say Rivera was leaving a convenience store near 695 Broad Street and heading to his vehicle when a man in a hooded sweatshirt approached him and fired several rounds. The man then stepped closer to Rivera and shot him again at point-blank range, police said in the warrant affidavit for Sahaira Delucca, who is also charged in the case.
The shooter then ran off and a Honda Accord was seen driving away from the area shortly after, according to police.
Rivera’s friends and family began calling for accountability and justice shortly after the shooting, gathering to mourn Rivera near the site of his murder last February, some wearing shirts with photos of the teen that read “RIP Julius.”
He was remembered by his family and friends as a funny, smart and quiet man. His older sister Angelique Rivera said he “cared a lot about people” and had a big heart.
Family, friends mourn teen fatally shot in Hartford. ‘Our family seeks justice for Julius.’
Beata Bajuk, a relative of Rivera’s, said then that their family waslooking to identify “the person or persons responsible for his death.”
“What is done in the dark will always come to light,” Bajuk said.
Delucca, a 28-year-old Hartford woman, was charged in May with one felony count of hindering the prosecution in connection with Rivera’s death. Investigators believe Delucca was in the getaway car used by the man they suspected gunned down the teen, and that she lied to police about it.
Delucca was charged after a Honda Accord abandoned on a highway after Rivera’s murder was found by police and tied back to her. Paperwork inside the vehicle led investigators to believe that Delucca had recently purchased a firearm, though it was not the same caliber as the weapon used to kill Rivera, according to the warrant affidavit for Delucca’s arrest.
When investigators questioned Delucca, she said that she was out of town the night of the shooting and that someone known as “Trell” or “Latrell”, who had she had known for about a month, had taken the car and gotten into a crash, the warrant affidavit said.
During their investigation, police spoke to a witness who said that the night of the shooting, he saw Delucca in a vehicle with two men just before the shooting. At the time of the shooting, the man told police he heard a burst of three to four gunshots, then three or four more, the warrant affidavit said.
He then saw a man with a firearm with him with a flashlight or laser attached to it running from the 600 block of Broad Street — where Rivera was killed, according to the warrant affidavit.
Delucca has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been released from custody on a $150,000 bond. She is scheduled to appear in court next in Hartford on March 20, court records show.
Laboy has at least four pending cases in Connecticut criminal courts, including first-degree larceny charges from a Connecticut State Police arrest in January 2023; charges of carrying a pistol without a permit, first-degree violation of probation and possession with intent to sell narcotics in Hartford in March 2023; and third-degree burglary and first-degree larceny charges out of Windsor in January 2024, according to court records.
He is scheduled to appear in court next in Hartford on Friday, court records show.
Information from Courant reporter Justin Muszynski was used in this report.