WOBURN -- Barry Moran was 20, driving around and drinking beer on the night of Sept. 26, 1969, when he and his buddies drove down a dirt road off Maple Street in Lowell and may have stumbled onto a murder.

In Middlesex Superior Court on Thursday, Moran, now 64, testified that about 11 p.m., he and his two friends drove down a road off Maple Street that led to a vacant lot and an old railroad tower. As they drove past a side road, "We could see a car parked," Moran testified.

Moran and his friends decided to "have some fun" with the people in the other car.

"We figured someone was parking with his girlfriend or a bunch of guys were drinking beer," Moran testified.

Moran and his friends were going to pretend they were the police to scare whoever was in the other car. So they hit the highbeams on their car and raced toward the other vehicle, a 1965 Chevrolet Impala, stopping about 8 feet from the vehicle, as if they were a police cruiser.

But the car was empty, so the guys reversed and sped away. Moran would later tell police he believed the car was a purple or plum color. At one point he thought it might have been the color of pink champagne, but changed his mind because it was a "dark-colored car," he said.

In the murder trial of Michael Ferreira, 59, of Salem, N.H., prosecutors allege that on the night of Sept. 26, 1969, Ferreira and his friends Walter Shelley and Edward Allan Brown, teens at the time, decided to kidnap 15-year-old John McCabe, of Tewksbury, to teach him a lesson for flirting with Marla Shiner, a neighborhood girl Shelley liked.


But defense attorney Eric Wilson told the jury in his opening statement that police overlooked other potential suspects, including one man who allegedly confessed to two priests. He told the jury that Brown, who will testify for the prosecution in exchange for a plea deal, told a story that won't hold up under scrutiny. Shelley, who is also charged with murder, will go on trial at a later date.

Prosecutor Thomas O'Reilly told the jury in his opening statement that the trio snatched McCabe as he walked home from a school dance at the Knights of Columbus in Tewksbury sometime after 11 p.m., dragging him into Shelley's 1965 Chevy Impala and driving to the field off Maple Street near where Ferreira's cousin lived.

It was there that O'Reilly alleges that Brown will testify that the three men hogtied McCabe with ropes around his wrists, ankles and neck, connecting a rope from his neck to his ankles, and taped his eyes and mouth shut. Then they left him. About an hour later the trio returned to find McCabe dead.

During her testimony on Thursday, Dr. Kimberly Springer, of the state Medical Examiner's Office, said she reviewed photos and reports from 43 years ago and determined McCabe died of asphyxia due to strangulation. But Springer testified it was possible, but not probable, that McCabe was hogtied due to the nature of the ligature marks on his neck and and that his legs were not bent when rigor set in.

Wilson suggests that McCabe was tied up, strangled and his body was dumped in the lot by the real killer.

Elaine Sutton testified Thursday that she was 18 in 1969 and lived in the Tewksbury neighborhood with McCabe, Ferreira, Shelley and Brown.

Sutton testified she went to McCabe's funeral with Ferreira, who was so emotional he squeezed her hand so tight it hurt.

Then a month after the murder, Sutton went on a beer run with Ferreira and others to Pelham, N.H. The group began discussing the McCabe murder and Ferreira told her the police think he killed the boy, Sutton testified. When she asked him why, he responded that he didn't have an alibi for that night.

When Sutton wondered who killed McCabe, Ferreira got "serious looking'' and told her he did it. Sutton testified Ferreira, who had been drinking, then looked at her and told her, "just kidding.'' After talking to her father, Sutton said she went to police.

But Wilson noted Sutton didn't go to the police until December, 1969, some two months later. Sutton responded, "I wasn't exactly friendly with the police.''

Before the jury was released for the day, McCabe's childhood best friend, Jack Ward Jr., testified that McCabe confided in him that he liked a few girls. But Wilson said Ward told him recently that McCabe never said anything about Shiner, instead McCabe "had the hots'' for another girl.

Wilson said Ward told him the police "twisted his words.''

The trial is expected to continue Friday.

Follow Lisa Redmond at www.twitter.com/lredmond13.