Dora Brimage: A Regular Teenager

It was Labor Day weekend in Boston, 1987. Whitney Houston’s pop hit “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” dominated the airwaves all summer, which was not quite over. There was just a hint of fall in the air on Sunday, September 6th. In the crowded neighborhood of Roxbury windows were opened to let in the cool evening air. It was in this neighborhood, in a low-rise brick apartment building on Ruggles Street, that 19-year-old Dora Brimage lived with her sister, brother, and grandmother. At 8:00PM, Dora was home ironing her clothes. Her grandma, Bessie Kay, left to visit family, and said goodbye to her granddaughter.

Described by her younger brother as “a regular teenager,” Dora had a gentle smile and often wore a knit headband over her closely-cropped hair. Like a lot of teenage girls, she cared about her appearance and never left the house without adorning her big, dark eyes with eyeliner. She shared her wardrobe, and a room, with her younger sister, 16-year-old Angie who said, “she was my best friend.” Angie was a “star basketball player” at her high school and her older sister was a cheerleader. Dora loved makeup, hair-styling, and taking photos. According to Angie, Dora was a feminine young woman with dreams of working in the beauty industry. She had not finished high school—dropping out with intentions to return. For now, she was working full-time at McDonald’s. When she wasn’t working, Dora helped out with her younger siblings, including her 7-year-old sister, Alexis, who she affectionately called “my baby.” She also sang in the youth gospel choir at her church on Dudley Street, where her grandmother was a deaconess.

The Birthday Party

On the evening of Sunday, September 6th, 1987, the day before Labor Day, Dora planned to attend a birthday party for her friend, Lora, and Lora’s 3-year-old nephew.

After chatting for a bit, they moved the gathering to the rooftop of one of the nearby apartment buildings. They were barbequing and drinking. The gathering wrapped around 9:30PM, but many of the partygoers weren’t ready to call it a night.

Lora went inside for a moment to change clothes, leaving the rest of the crew hanging out at the front of the apartment building, chatting. When Lora returned downstairs, the group broke up into different cars.

Lora’s cousin, Ira, was living at the apartment with her mom, and it was Ira’s car that everyone was standing near. Dora asked Ira for a ride since he was going the same way. According to some accounts, another person at the party offered Dora a ride, too, when Ira’s brother, James Paige, interrupted. James didn’t typically live in Boston, but he was there at the time. He, too, was Lora’s cousin. He and his brother, Ira Paige, would drive her, he insisted.

Ira worked at his father’s construction company with Lora. And although Lora knew him well, Dora did not. Lora later said that Dora was “a little bit hesitant” about getting in the car with a man she didn’t know, but Lora assured her that her cousin was trustworthy and reliable. She said, “He’s alright.”

By this time, it was about 10:00PM, and although the sun had gone down, there were plenty of streetlights in the area. Everyone got into their vehicles and took off. That was the last time Dora was seen alive.

Labor Day Discovery

The following morning, on Labor Day, a group of construction workers had made a horrible discovery at their job site—655 Warren St.

655 was just one of many addresses in a long, connected, single-story, brick building with a number of retail storefronts—all facing Warren Street. Behind the long building was a small parking lot, bound by a chain-link fence, used for employee parking and deliveries that was accessible from Georgia Street. When they arrived, they noticed the piece of plywood used as a temporary door on the rear entrance was left ajar.

The first worker who pushed it aside and entered stopped suddenly and told the men looking over his shoulder to stand back.

The room was dim—lit only by the light streaming in from cracks between the boards at the front windows and the temporary construction lights. It was almost entirely empty, with just a few piles of debris and stacks of new building materials scattered about.

They saw a woman lying on her back in a pool of blood, and “it appeared she no longer had a face. Under her arm was a small, wooden-handled construction shovel with a broken blade. A big piece of the metal that had broken off lay next to it, and pieces of the shattered metal were tangled in the woman’s hair.

While none of her clothing had been fully removed, her white sweatpants, her red shorts, and panties had been pulled down to her ankles. She wore several things on top—a white sweatshirt with a Mickey Mouse logo, another white sweatshirt with New York Construction Company written on the front, and a blue t-shirt with a Boston Rec Center logo. All of them, along with her bra, had been push up. Her pink headband that had been a gift from her boyfriend was found discarded on the other side of the room. One pink sock remained on her foot while the other was bare. The other sock was on the floor nearby. Her shoes, pink Converse sneakers, were found at the scene. A white hat with a Cadillac logo on it was found as well, and one unsmoked Newport cigarette.

Once the body was brought to the station, police realized that the description of the clothing on an open missing person report matched the clothing of the woman whose body they’d just found. A phone call was made to Dora’s grandmother. Bessie, who went down to the station and was confronted with a horrible sight—the lifeless body of her granddaughter, Dora Jean Brimage.

Police Investigation

Though it has been reported different ways, a woman from the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office later testified that the autopsy was conducted the same day—on Labor Day—between 1:00PM and 5:00PM.

The ME discovered that, in addition to “multiple trauma injuries to the head,” Dora had also been strangled, and they couldn’t decide which had killed her—the strangulation, or the attack with the shovel.

There was evidence of sexual activity—in addition to finding her body unclothed, they also found sperm inside her. Furthermore, they discovered that there was “no sperm on the victim’s underwear,” which suggested that she had never gotten up and was raped in the place where her body was discovered.

Police asked the public for tips about where Dora had been and with whom, and then questioned the people who had been at Lora’s birthday party.

These interviews revealed that Ira and James were the last people seen with Dora when they gave her a ride. James was questioned on Wednesday, September 9th—two days after the discovery of her body—and he said that he and his brother had dropped Dora off at Joe’s Jaguar, a club near Dudley Station, the spot where she asked to be taken.

Dora’s Funeral

Once the autopsy was complete, the police released the body to the family so that they could plan a funeral service and burial.

On September 12th, a week after the party where she was last seen, Dora’s funeral was held at her church on Dudley Street. Because she was so badly beaten, the ceremony was closed-casket. Few experienced the heartbreak Bessie had endured seeing her in that condition, and her friends would only remember Dora as she was in life, looking her best.

Dora’s family was crushed. Her sister, Angie, explained, “when that happened, a big piece of me […] just went away with her.” She had lost a sister, a best friend, and a role model. Since they shared everything, when Dora was killed, she was wearing Angie’s clothes. The room they shared was now a silent void. Angie said, “she [was] my roommate, so that’s what I woke up to, what I went to sleep to.”

Dora had been the oldest of a large family, and now Angie had to take her place. Although they had worn the same sneakers, Angie felt unready to fill her big sister’s shoes.

Catching a Killer

In 2016, police contacted Dora’s family with huge news—they believed they had the killer in custody. After all those years, her killer would finally be brought to justice.

Thanks to funding from a federal grant, the Boston Police Cold Case Squad was able to test the DNA left at the scene. The sperm left by the perpetrator in 1987 had been in storage all those years, and in 2013, they finally tested it. As soon as they uploaded the DNA profile into CODIS, they got a hit. It matched a profile in the system—James Paige—the same James Paige last seen giving Dora a ride.

James had a rap sheet. In 1996, while still in Boston, James was arrested. He stole a women’s purse and fled in a stolen vehicle which he crashed after attempting to run over a police officer. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt in this incident.

At some point, James moved to New Hampshire, where, in 2015, he was arrested on a minor drug charge and for resisting arrest.

The police went to speak with James again in 2015 while he was in custody, and this time he had a slightly different story to tell. In ’87 he said that he and his brother had dropped Dora off at a club, but this time, he told police that “he and his brother had driven [Dora] to Georgia Street.” Though the murder site’s address was on Warren Street, the back side of the building (where the parking lot was located) was on Georgia Street.

On June 27th, 2016 prosecutors presented their case to a Suffolk County Grand Jury and secured an indictment against James Paige for the crime of first-degree murder.

The trial

Just a week and a half later, on July 7th, 2016, he appeared in court in Massachusetts where a judge confronted him with the charges. He pled not guilty, and was appointed a public defender named Daniel Solomon.

On March 6th, 2018, the five-day trial began with opening arguments.

Dora’s friend, Lora, whose party she attended the night of her death, testified. She spoke in direct, specific, terms about what happened that night.

Ira was Lora’s cousin, and James was his younger brother. Ira sometimes lived with Lora and her family, like he did the Labor Day weekend. Lora said that she rarely saw James—maybe once a year—and he lived elsewhere.

She described the party as a small rooftop gathering that Sunday evening with just a few friends and her little nephew. They started taking things up to the roof around 7:00PM and Dora was there, but not James. Lora said her little brother “ratted them out” to her mother, revealing that her young nephew was on the roof with them, so her mom basically ended it around 10:00PM.

After she dropped off her nephew with her mom, she was standing in front of their apartment building with the others, chatting. She said, “We were all just standing there—still, you know, talking and drinking beers or whatever—and then I went upstairs to change my shirt. Dora was actually leaning on [Ira’s] car that was parked in front of the building—not just her—everybody was leaning against the car.” Ira had a gray 4-door Mazda 626.

Dora asked Ira which way he was going and after he explained it, she asked him if he could drop her off at club called Joe’s Jaguar—which was near Dudley Square Plaza. He said sure. Lora said that Dora was a little hesitant getting into the car with Ira and asked her if it would be OK, and she assured her it’d be fine. Lora said she saw Dora get in the front seat of Ira’s car. Critically, she said that James was not in the car—something that contradicted James own statements to the police both in 2015 and 1987.

Lora’s mother, Doretha, also testified, and she said that she believed she saw James get into the back of Ira’s car. She otherwise confirmed the testimony of her daughter.

The defense called no witnesses, and all that was left was closing arguments.

James’ attorney pointed out the many failures in the early investigation—perhaps most glaring was that the police didn’t go to the club, Joe’s Jaguar, with a snapshot of Dora to ask around and see if anyone had seen her on Sunday night. It was the last place that she was reported to have been, and why that wasn’t done seems to be only attributable to poor police work. They also never canvassed the area near the crime scene to see if anyone had heard or seen anything.

His attorney’s case basically rested on the fact that James, in interviews, had denied he was the killer, and that there was no direct evidence that proved that he had. There were no fingerprints on the murder weapon. No shoe prints that matched his. No eyewitnesses. None of James’s blood was found at the scene. The only thing, he said, the prosecution had proven, was that James Paige had had sex with Dora Brimage at some point in the 24 hours leading up to her death.

The prosecutor laid out his case against James. Dora was last seen with James Paige and his brother, Ira. She was found disrobed at the murder scene, suggesting that any sexual act had just taken place. He clarified that the only DNA found inside Dora was from James—addressing the defense’s implied theory that another man had raped and killed Dora. He said that the fact that there was no sperm in her underwear suggested that she never got up. He pointed out that James had lied to the police about having had sex with Dora.

And lastly, he recalled Lora’s testimony of all the people that worked at 655 Warren Street—a big chunk of their whole extended family all worked together at this particular jobsite where Dora was murdered. What were the odds that was merely a coincidence?

The jury deliberated for 2 hours on the first day, 6.5 hours on the second day and 5 hours on the third day.

They then came in and read the verdict. He was found not guilty of first-degree murder under the theory of premeditation; he was found not-guilty of first-degree murder under the theory of extreme atrocity or cruelty, but he was found guilty of first-degree murder under the theory of felony murder.

Felony murder

Under this theory, a defendant must have murdered someone while in the commission of another felony that has a maximum potential sentence of life in prison. In James’s case, the other felony was aggravated rape. In this circumstance, where the charges weren’t brought for 29 years, it creates a strange situation. The statute of limitations was up on aggravated rape. If they were not expired, the prosecution would certainly have charged him with that as well. So, the jury had to consider whether James was guilty of the uncharged offense of aggravated rape. And if so, did the murder happen as part of the commission of the rape.

Proving rape would have been inadequate because rape, although a felony, doesn’t carry a maximum term of life in prison. Aggravated rape includes the infliction of “serious bodily injury” in connection with the rape.

Ultimately, the jury unanimously agreed that James was guilty of the uncharged offense of aggravated rape, which in itself, carried the possibility of a life sentence, thus proving first-degree murder under the felony murder theory.

The judge dismissed the motion. The first-degree murder conviction stands.

Justice for Dora Brimage

In a remarkable speedy turn of events, the sentencing hearing was conducted on March 20th, 2018, just two business days after the verdict was delivered.

Sadly, Dora’s grandmother, Bessie, had died 4 years prior to James’ indictment, 6 years prior to his sentencing. She died not knowing who had killed her granddaughter, who she raised.

Dora’s sister, Angie, spoke, explaining that she had named two of her children in honor of her sister and that she hadn’t worn pink in three decades because that was the color of the outfit Dora was murdered in. She said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to forgive him. There’s going to be hate in my heart toward him. He showed no remorse. He didn’t care.” She continued, “I don’t even communicate too much with guys because I didn’t know who [killed her]… I could have been talking to the person who did this to my sister so it was hard for me to trust people and let anybody in my life.” In a television interview with Boston 25 following the sentencing Angie wore a pair of small, pink, retro-style, rosebud earrings.

James spoke during the sentencing for the first time during the court process. In addition to criticizing the police and rehashing the missteps in the investigation, he said, “DNA did not put me at the crime scene. We engaged in a sexual act in Mission Hill—not at that place. That’s what the family don’t know. My mom didn’t raise no fool, and my mom didn’t raise no killer.”

The judge sentenced James to life without the possibility of parole.

Changing Rape Laws and Hope for the Future

Though James remained behind bars, the story didn’t end there. James appealed.

As it frequently happens, he got a new attorney to review his case and draft the appeal. Her name is Leslie O’Brien and she focuses on appellate law and post-conviction advocacy. She reviewed the work of his trial attorney, and appealed the case on five grounds. We’re only going to focus on one of them… the stickiest one. It was her first argument. She wrote, “the evidence was insufficient to prove that he raped the victim ...” She continued, “there was no evidence this was accomplished by force rather than by the victim’s consent.”

If she were able to erode the foundation of the aggravated rape charge, she might be successful in getting the Massachusetts Supreme Court to reduce the first-degree murder conviction to second-degree and substantially reduce James’s sentence.

Though she didn’t cite it in her appeal, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts located a case with surprising similarity to Dora’s case: the case of “The Commonwealth vs. Alex Scesny.”

Theresa Stone was raped and murdered in 1996 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. She was strangled by ligature and was beaten beforehand. The crime went unsolved for 12 years. In 2008, the Worcester County DA’s office found their man with DNA and charged Alex Scesny with first-degree murder and aggravated rape. In his case, the indictment fell within the statute of limitations for rape, so he faced that charge, unlike in Dora’s case where it was an uncharged offense, but still considered by the jury. In 2012, a jury of his peers convicted him of aggravated rape and first-degree murder under the felony murder theory just like in Dora’s case.

He appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.

There are some factors that the courts consider when ruling whether or not there is sufficient proof that a rape occurred (excluding victim testimony, which is, of course, impossible in the case of murder).

In Theresa’s case, there was no semen found in her underwear, suggesting that she hadn’t stood up between the rape and the murder, proving that they were contemporaneous. But there were no “injuries to the genitalia,” generally associated with rape; there was no torn clothing.

The main argument was that Theresa had a documented history of doing sex work, and her daughter said that she thought her mother might be “going to make some money,” the night of her murder.

The justices on the supreme court wrote this:

“Although the victim ultimately suffered severe injuries … there was no evidence favoring the inference that the defendant raped the victim before killing her over the inference that he had consensual sex with the victim and then killed her.”

So in 2015, they overturned the aggravated rape conviction. This also shook the foundation of the first-degree felony murder charge, but the jury had found him guilty of felony murder under two other theories as well, so they considered those again. The court said that because he strangled the victim, and that took some time, it implied “deliberate premeditation.” Alex Scesny’s sentence was therefore not affected by the ruling because the other foundations of his first-degree murder charge were still intact, but it established a legal precedent that was very relevant to Dora’s case.

As a sidenote, it seems so unfair that a woman’s sexual history is fodder for argument in a courtroom, but a defendant’s history of raping and assaulting other women is off the table under the general prohibition of discussing any of the defendant’s “prior bad acts,” is galling. (If you’d like to learn more about this, listen to our coverage on the Mark Dugas case).

When the justices sat down in 2021 to review James’s appeal, they had to compare Dora’s case to Theresa’s and grapple with the legal precedent that was set just six years prior. In fact, the key circumstances of the two cases were identical except the fact that Dora had no history of sex work. There is an important legal principle called stare decisis—that which has been decided shall remain decided. For a court to overturn a previous decision is a tall hill to climb—it more often preserves the status quo.

They could have easily overturned the rape charge like the previous court, but they didn’t. They created a new legal precedent, saying,

“We now conclude, where there is evidence that the defendant severely injured and killed the victim proximate to having sex with victim, the jury may infer that the victim did not consent to sexual intercourse.”

They set a new legal precedent.

44 years later, Dora’s tragic death would change the law. Future cases will cite hers as a new precedent and empower juries to hold murderers responsible for their actions. A small silver lining in a dark case.

This text has been adapted from the Murder, She Told podcast episode, The Murder of Dora Jean Brimage. To hear Dora’s full story, find Murder, She Told on your favorite podcast platform.

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Sources For This Episode

Mentioned in this episode: The Case of Mark Dugas

Newspapers

Various articles from Bay State Banner, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Concord Monitor, and the New Hampshire Union Leader, here.

Written by various authors including Beverly Ford, Bob McGovern, Brian Dowling, Dave Solomon, Diane Alters, Eric Fehrnstrom, Jan Ransom, Jason Johnson, John Ellement, Mark Hayward, and Sally Jacobs.

Online written sources

'Arrest Made In 1987 Cold Case Murder Of Roxbury Woman' (CBS News Boston), 6/28/2016, by CBS Boston

'Cold Case: Police Arrest NH Suspect Nearly 30 Years After Murder, Sexual Assault' (Patch), 6/28/2016, by Mike Carraggi

'Fugitive arrested in New Hampshire for 1987 homicide, source tells WCVB' (WCVB), 6/28/2016

'Man charged in 1987 homicide of 19-year-old Boston woman' (Boston.com), 6/28/2016, by Allison Manning

'Remarks of District Attorney Daniel F. Conley on the 1987 Homicide of Dora Brimage' (Suffolk County District Attorney), 6/28/2016, by DA Daniel F. Conley

'Suspect in custody for 1987 Boston cold case murder' (Boston 25 News), 6/28/2016, by Bob Ward and Christine McCarthy

'After DNA testing, man convicted in 1987 slaying of Dora Jean Brimage' (Mass Live), 3/16/2018, by Gintautas Dumcius

'Justice Served: More than 30 Years after Dora Brimage's Murder...' (Boston Police Dept News), 3/16/2018, by Boston Police Dept

'New Hampshire man convicted for 1987 murder' (Boston 25 News), 3/16/2018

'David Brimage' (Tribute Archive), 4/20/2021

'Commonwealth V. James Paige' (Justia US Law), 12/6/2021

'COMMONWEALTH vs. JAMES PAIGE' (Massachusetts Cases), 12/6/2021

'Concurring Opinion in Felony-Murder Conviction Highlights Femicide in U.S.' (Law Professor's Typepad), 1/31/2022, by Jamie Abrams

Online video sources

'1987 report on the murder of Dora Brimage' (WCVB), 6/28/2016

'Arrest Made in 1987 Homicide Case in Boston' (NECN), 6/28/2016

'Suspect in custody for 1987 Boston cold case murder' (Boston 25), 6/28/2016

'Suffolk DA Dan Conley on 1987 Cold Case' (Youtube), 6/28/2016

'Commonwealth v. James Paige, SJC 12806' (Youtube), 4/15/2022

Official documents and correspondence

Trial docket record, Suffolk County Superior Court

Complete trial transcript, including sentencing, Suffolk County Superior Court

Various trial exhibits, Suffolk County Superior Court

Appeal briefs, Massachusetts Supreme Court

Appeal decision, Massachusetts Supreme Court

Photo Sources

WCVB, Google Maps, Boston25, masslive.com

Episode Credits

Vocal performance, research, and audio editing by Kristen Seavey

Research, photo editing, and writing by Byron Willis

Additional research by Ericka Pierce and Amanda Connolly

Writing by Anne Young

Murder, She Told is created by Kristen Seavey.