Supreme Judicial Court upholds convictions of man who murdered two doctors in South Boston condo

Bampumim Teixeira, right, talked with his attorney during his trial in 2019.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe

The man convicted of murdering two doctors in their South Boston penthouse condominium in 2017 will not be granted a new trial and must continue serving his sentence of life without the possibility of parole, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday.

Dr. Richard S. Field, a North Shore pain clinic doctor, and his fiancee, Dr. Lina Bolanos, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston, were slain on May 5, 2017, in their 11th-floor penthouse despite making frantic calls to 911 and texts to friends asking for help, according to court records.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the first-degree murder convictions of Bampumim S. Teixeira who was found inside the victims’ home by Boston police officers conducting a well-being check prompted by the emergency calls and text messages.

Teixeira was shot twice by officers who then discovered the bodies of Field and Bolanos, who had been fatally stabbed, according to court records. Teixeira recovered and was convicted in Suffolk Superior Court in 2019.

Writing for the court, Justice Dalila A. Wendlandt rejected the defense’s argument that prosecutors undermined Teixeira’s right to a fair trial by telling jurors the couple’s death meant “Lina will forever be Richard’s fiancée but never his bride.”

“It is well settled that a prosecutor may not appeal to the jury’s sympathy,’' she wrote. “But the defense was grounded on the theory that the engagement was a sham. In these circumstances, the statement to which the defendant now objects was a permissible — if hyperbolic — response to the defense.”

Teixeira had worked as a concierge in the building and after his arrest claimed that he was having an affair with Bolanos. He told police Field killed Bolanos and that he killed Field in self-defense. However, authorities said there was no connection between Teixeira and the couple before he killed them.

Teixeira’s lawyers also asked the SJC to use its authority in first-degree murder cases to reduce his convictions to manslaughter, which would allow him to eventually seek parole.

“We affirm the convictions and discern no reason to grant relief,” Wendlandt wrote.

Teixeira is serving his sentence at MCI-Shirley, a medium and minimum security prison, according to Department of Correction records.