Salvi Charged With Murder in Abortion Clinic Slayings

In a district court seldom troubled by crimes of violence, the most serious charges yet--two counts of murder and five counts of armed assault with intent to murder--were filed Monday against accused abortion clinic killer John C. Salvi III.

Staring expressionlessly, the 22-year-old apprentice hairdresser stood silently as a clerk announced his plea of not guilty to all charges stemming from the attack Dec. 30 on two women’s health clinics in this sedate community adjacent to Boston. Two receptionists were killed in the assaults on the Planned Parenthood Clinic of Greater New England and the Preterm Women’s Health Clinic; of the five other people who were injured in the shootings, two remain hospitalized.

Salvi, wearing a bulletproof vest under his navy blue sweater and blazer, remained impassive as a Norfolk County prosecutor, John Kivlan, depicted the “chain of physical and identification evidence” allegedly linking the Hampton Beach, N.H., resident to the New Year’s weekend attacks.

“For a period of weeks and months,” Kivlan intoned, Salvi “planned and prepared for Dec. 30.” He characterized the shootings as “deliberately premeditated and committed with extreme atrocity and cruelty.”

Along with the acquisition of a handgun and a .22-caliber rifle from a New Hampshire gun shop, Salvi located the addresses of the clinics here--as well as women’s health clinics in Boston, Connecticut and Virginia, Kivlan told the court. He said the streets where the clinics were located were highlighted on a map found in Salvi’s possession, and that the day before the clinic assaults, “Mr. Salvi prepared himself by target-shooting” at a range in Salisbury, N.H.

Salvi was taken into custody on Dec. 31 when he allegedly fired at a women’s health clinic in Norfolk, Va. Officials there have agreed to postpone proceedings against Salvi pending state and federal trials in Massachusetts.

District Judge Herbert Goodwin set Salvi’s trial date for Feb. 6, and reported that a grand jury has begun hearing evidence against him. Salvi is being held without bail.