NORTHAMPTON — Opening statements in the first-degree murder trial of Northampton resident Steven Malloy began on Tuesday, with the prosecution saying that Malloy pulled out a gun during a night of partying inside a Randolph Place apartment in December of 2021, put it to the temple of Pittsfield man Joseph Fillio, 39, and fired. Fillio died as a result of the shot.

The defense countered that Malloy did not pull the trigger that night, and that Fillio was suicidal, implying that he had possibly killed himself using the gun.

Malloy, 35, appeared in court wearing a white dress shirt, a vest and gold tie and listened as Assistant District Attorney Matthew Thomas went first in laying out the prosecution’s case against him. Opening statements began after a two-hour delay due to an issue with one of the jurors, leading the court to appoint a replacement before the trial could begin.

Standing before the jury, Thomas laid out a narrative that he said would be proved and show Malloy’s guilt on charges of murder and unlawful possession of a firearm. On the night of Fillio’s death, Todd Wilchek, one of the witnesses in the case, had played at an open mic night at the Wurst Haus bar and restaurant in downtown Northampton before meeting up with other acquaintances, including Malloy, at another bar nearby, The Majestic. The group later left Majestic for another bar, Ye Olde Watering Hole, where they met up with Fillio, his boyfriend Andrew Wadas and a woman, Jessica Dupell.

“People moving from bar to bar on a nice night in Northampton, a community that some call Paradise City,” Thomas said. “But paradise does not last.”

Thomas said that the group then went back to Dupell’s apartment on Randolph Place, where they were drinking beer and listening to music, when Malloy produced a firearm from his pocket, described as a small black semiautomatic pistol with a laser sight. Thomas alleged that Malloy then put the gun up to Fillio’s temple and fired. The shot caused Fillio to drop to the floor, blood pooling around him, Thomas said.

The prosecutor said that Wilchek and others fled the scene in a confused panic, while a Northampton police officer already nearby, Matthew Knowlton, was the first to arrive. Northampton Police Det. Michael Cronin, who also happened to be nearby on an unrelated case, arrived soon after as well.

A “be on the lookout” was issued by Cronin for Malloy, described as wearing a hat with feathers protruding from it. Aaron Dowd, a Smith College security officer, spotted Malloy at around 1:30 a.m. and informed police, who arrested him. Thomas said Malloy did not have the gun on him at the time of the arrest, but had blood on his shoes that matched with Fillio’s. He said a forensic examination of Malloy’s phone included a picture of a gun matching the description by witnesses of the gun that killed Fillio.

Thomas held up a copy of the photo found on the phone to the jury, saying that Wilchek’s testimony would match that of the gun in the photo.

“The picture you see now is a picture that Wilchek has never seen. He does not know where it was found, he does not know when it was found, he does not know it exists,” Thomas said. “He has never seen this picture, but Mr. Wilchek has seen this weapon.”

Malloy’s defense attorney, Joseph Perullo, said in his opening statement that while Malloy was indeed at the apartment that night and that the blood on his shoes at the time of his arrest was in fact Fillio’s, he was not the one who pulled the trigger.

“Anybody who walked in that room, there’s going to be blood on their shoes, and there’s no doubt that Mr. Malloy was in that apartment at that night,” Perullo said. “I know Mr. Wilchek is going to stand up there and say certain things ... but what we’re going to do is ask if what he’s saying is not only possible and accurate, which I suggest it won’t be, but whether it’s also physically possible.”

Purello also said in his opening statements that Fillio was suicidal, implying that he had possibly killed himself using the gun.

“He continually went into the hospital and told people there that he wanted to end his life, and he had the means to do it,” Perullo said. “He had access to things that would allow him to kill himself.”

Perullo told the jury that they need to zero in on the empirical evidence of the case, focusing on the “what” and not the “why” regarding the case details.

“I’m going to ask you to focus on the ‘what,’ because it’s your job to find out if what the government just said actually happened,” Perullo said.

Following opening statements, there was enough time in the session to call Detective Cronin to the stand. Cronin said that he was already at Randolph Place at a different house two hours before the time of the alleged murder, looking into a suicide investigation, when he heard the call over the radio. On direct examination by Thomas, Cronin said there were two other officers at the scene when he arrived, and that other than police, only Wadas (Fillio’s boyfriend) and the dying Fillio were inside the house upon his arrival, though he also said that Dupell was “around” the area.

“He was just frantically yelling at that point, crying,” Cronin said of Wadas at the time. “After I passed a medical bag to Officer Knowlton, I went over and started talking to him.”

Thomas also presented several photographs of the interior of the apartment, depicting how it looked at the time of the killing, as well as a map of Northampton so that Cronin could point out the address’s approximate location.

On cross-examination, Perullo produced additional photos of the kitchen table in the apartment taken by police shortly after the incident, showing a large white garbage bag and several items on the table. Perullo asked Cronin to identify some of the items on the table. Cronin identified two of the items as a bag of chips and another as a bottle of beer. But Cronin was unable to identify a white cylindrical object on the table when asked to by Perullo.

Following Cronin’s testimony, the court adjourned for the day. The case is expected to last for several weeks.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.