SPRINGFIELD – Four Westfield homicide cases will continue to be heard in Springfield Superior Court this spring.
VADYM MISIRUK
Trials for Vadym Misiruk, Daniel Torres, Blake Scanlon and Brian Fanion are slated to continue starting in mid-April. The four men are on trial for separate incidents that took place in 2018 and 2019.
Misiruk, 20, will face a competency hearing on April 13. He is accused of killing 17-year-old Southwick resident Nazar Tkach in Stanley Park on Sept. 19, 2019. Witnesses reported that they saw Misiruk follow Tkach into a section of woods in Stanley Park after the two apparently had an argument, according to court documents. Minutes later, Misiruk is reported to have returned from the woods alone with a razor blade and blood on his hands.
Tkach’s body was discovered in those woods the following day. Misiruk had pleaded not-guilty to the murder charge.
DANIEL A. TORRES
Daniel A. Torres, 29, is accused of killing his infant daughter in July, 2018. He is scheduled to have a status hearing on April 14. According to police reports and court documents, Torres is accused of having beat his infant daughter, Lily Anayah Torres, to the point of unconsciousness.
Torres allegedly called emergency services himself, after which his daughter was brought to Baystate Noble Hospital, where she passed away two days later after having been resuscitated at least eight times.
Torres was charged with second degree murder and pleaded not guilty.
BRIAN FANION
On April 28, former Westfield Police Officer Brian Fanion, 57, will have a motion hearing and final pre-trial conference in Springfield Superior Court. Fanion is accused of killing his wife on May 18, 2018 via a gunshot wound to the head. Fanion was not arrested until November, 2019 after a lengthy multi-department investigation. He claimed that his wife’s death was a suicide, a claim his defense attorneys continued to make at his arraignment.
Prosecutors alleged that it would have been physically impossible for Amy Fanion’s death to have been a suicide based on the location and angle of the gunshot wound.
Fanion was released from jail on Feb. 14, 2020 after he posted $200,000 cash bail.
BLAKE J. SCANLON
The final pending homicide case is that of Blake J. Scanlon, 25, who will have his final pre-trial conference on June 10. Scanlon is alleged to have killed his girlfriend, 20-year-old Alexis Avery, on Jan. 11, 2019. Police said that Scanlon had killed Avery in their apartment in Westfield before calling the police on himself two days later after self-inflecting several lacerations on his forearms. During his Jan. 14, 2019 arraignment, Scanlon pleaded not guilty to the homicide charge.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, these hearings will take place either by teleconference or via Zoom.
