New Bedford man sentenced to life in prison for 2018 brutal stabbing of Wareham woman
FALL RIVER — On Jan. 22, 2018, two men kicked in the door of the New Bedford apartment where Chantel Bruno had only been living for two months.
She was attacked and stabbed 49 times.
Her murder was the first recorded homicide in 2018 in New Bedford.
Robert Viveiros, 50, of New Bedford, was convicted last week in Fall River Superior Court of Bruno’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, announced Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III in a news release.
The trial of the second defendant in the gruesome killing, Kenneth Roark, 48, of New Bedford, is slated to start Jan. 31, 2022.
Viveiros lived at 387 Ashley Blvd. in the apartment next door to Bruno and the two, according to police reports, had an ongoing dispute.
Around 1:20 a.m. on the night of the murder, New Bedford police and EMS responded to a call of a woman screaming and bleeding at 387 Ashley Blvd. Bruno, 34, originally from Wareham, was found stabbed and was rushed to St. Luke’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 2:30 a.m.
Viveiros and Roark were arrested and charged with the killing. Bruno’s small dog was also stabbed in the attack but survived.
COVID delays justice
The case against Viveiros was initially declared a mistrial in March 2020 after the trial had to be halted due to the COVID-19-related court shutdowns at that time, the DA noted in the news release.
Viveiros has remained in jail since the time of his arrest in 2018, the DA said.
“COVID was out of everyone’s control,” said Rochelle Bruno, Chantel Bruno’s aunt about the trial being shut down because of the pandemic. In speaking with the Standard-Time by phone, she said sitting through the trial all over again once courts reopened was “pretty exhausting and draining.”
Still, she was there every day throughout the second trial just like the first, except for the day of testimony regarding Bruno’s autopsy revealing grim details of the crime that Rochelle Bruno said family did not want to hear about.
Of the crime itself, Rochelle Bruno said she considered her niece very brave to have walked from her apartment, after being severely wounded, and going downstairs where neighbors were alerted, and police called.
“Thank God she was brave enough to go right by his (Viveiros’s) door,” she said.
Rochelle Bruno said she will also attend Roark’s trial.
“It’s just so sad and so unnecessary,” she said. “Nobody wins.” She said her niece’s life was cut short and the family of the defendants will be forever impacted.
Standard-Times digital producer Linda Roy can be reached at lroy@s-t.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @LindaRoy_SCT. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times.
This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: New Bedford man sentenced in 2018 brutal stabbing of Wareham woman
