Men accused of cooking drug dealer's body

updated 8:40 p.m. ET June 8, 2009

BOSTON - A high school football coach and another man killed a cocaine dealer to avoid paying a debt, dismembered his body and cooked the remains at a concrete business, prosecutors said Monday.

Daniel Bradley, 47, of Westwood, and Paul Moccia, 48, of Dedham, pleaded not guilty Monday in Wrentham District Court to murder charges in the death of Angel Antonio Ramirez, a construction worker from Guatemala who lived in Framingham.

Moccia met Ramirez near the concrete company in Walpole that Bradley co-owns and shot him in the back with a .357-caliber pistol, said Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Robert Nelson.

Moccia owed Ramirez $70,000 from drug deals and decided to kill him instead of paying up, authorities said.

Bradley dismembered the man's remains and then tried to get rid of the evidence once and for all, Nelson said.

"It was cooked," he said.

Prosecutors didn't say how they arrived at their theory, or how the body was cooked or disposed of.

Defense attorneys said their clients are innocent and noted prosecutors haven't produced a body.

Prosecutors believe forensic evidence from the concrete factory will bolster their case against the suspects, Nelson said.

Investigators found blood spots inside the concrete business, RJ Bradley Co. Inc., Nelson said, as well as on a pair of Bradley's boots at his Westwood home.

Bradley is an assistant football coach at Xaverian Brothers High School; the school didn't return a message left after business hours Monday. Moccia is a veteran Mass Pike toll collector. They were ordered held without bail in Wrentham District Court.

A pretrial hearing has been scheduled for July 7.

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