PITTSFIELD, Mass. - Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless
announced Tuesday a Grand Jury found no probable cause to charge a 25-year-old man with murder after the December 2011 shooting death of 23-year-old Nikolas Carnute.
The Grand Jury found that Kurt Hudson was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot Carnute on Wellington Avenue in Pittsfield on December 4th.
According to
Capeless, after hearing from eleven witnesses over two days of testimony, the
Grand Jury determined that Carnute threatened Hudson with a drawn gun while
Hudson sat in the driver's seat of a car parked in a Wellington Avenue
driveway. Fearing for his life, Hudson
quickly backed the car out of the driveway and drove in reverse down the
street. Still threatened by Carnute with
the gun, Hudson fired two shots from the car while driving backwards. One shot hit Carnute in the head and killed
him.
Hudson was
arrested three days later in South Carolina.
The gun that
Carnute used was not recovered; police investigators believe it was taken from
the scene immediately after the shooting by one of Carnute's associates.
Capeless stated, "In an effort to balance the
necessary secrecy of Grand Jury proceedings with my responsibility to make the
public aware of the circumstances underlying the Grand Jury's decision, it is
important for the community to understand that the investigation conducted by
the Pittsfield Police Department, assisted by the Massachusetts State Police
Berkshire Detective Unit, was thorough, fair and exemplary in the quest for
determining what occurred that evening. This diligence persevered despite being hampered
by witnesses that were variously reluctant, uncooperative, misleading and even
obstructionist."
Hudson was charged with Possession of a Firearm, a felony, which carries a minimum three to fifteen years state prison sentence.
22-year-old Jamel Nicholson, of Pittsfield, was also charged with Interfering with a Criminal Investigation for providing misleading information to investigators.
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