MANCHESTER, NH – Anderson Pereira was sentenced to life in prison, without parole, for the murder of Zakhia “Zak” Charabaty three years ago while he slept in his bed at his Pasture Road home.
Judge N. William Delker, who presided at the three-week trial in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District that ended with Pereira, 42, being convicted of first-degree murder, on Wednesday also ordered Pereira to pay Wahib Charabati $15,000 to cover his brother’s funeral expenses.
In addition to the life sentence, Pereira also was given a 3 to 6-year sentence for falsifying evidence for moving Charabaty’s body. That is to be served concurrently with the life sentence. On that charge, the judge also fined him $4,000.
Delker said he agreed with Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Hinckley that the fine was appropriate.
“You engaged in one of the most elaborate cover-ups I have seen in all the years I have been on the bench and you almost got away with it,” Delker said. He said Pereira killed a man he never met.
Imposing the fine, he said, “limits one of the few freedoms you’ll have … your authority to earn and spend your commissary as it suits your wants and needs.” He said given the “magnitude of your crime, it is a small price to pay.” The commissary is where prisoners buy approved items.
Pereira also received two, 1-to-3-year sentences for falsifying physical evidence, for destroying Charabaty’s cell phone, and theft by unauthorized taking, for stealing Charabaty’s work truck. Those sentences are concurrent to the life sentence.
His widow, Flavia Deoliveira, who had a seven-year relationship with Pereira including while married to Charabaty, did not attend the sentencing. She now resides in California, other family members said.
A statement by her, however, was read into the record by a victim/witness advocate.
“My life is over,” she said in the statement. “I live because Christ lives in me.”
She and her son left Charabaty’s home six days before he was killed on March 13, 2020. They went to live with Pereira in Methuen, Mass. after Charabaty and Deoliveira’s son had a heated argument. Prosecutors said Deoliveira and Charabaty later reconciled and she was to return home on March 13, 2020. Early that morning, however, Pereira killed Charabaty.
“If I could go back, I wouldn’t have separated from Pereira,” Deoliveira wrote. The prosecution theory of the murder was that Pereira killed Charabaty out of jealousy because Deoliveira was leaving him and returning to her husband. Deoliveira testified at trial under a grant of immunity.
Family members on Wednesday addressed the judge and Pereira, relating the anguish they went through, first not knowing what happened to “Zak,” then learning he was murdered and then ultimately Pereira being arrested and finally, his conviction more than three years later. Pereira showed no emotion while looking directly at each of Charabaty’s relatives as they spoke.
They said Charabaty was a kind, generous man with a big heart.
Ruth Shiebler, Charabaty’s former wife of 15 years and who had remained friends with him, called Pereira a “vile creature” and said life without parole was not enough for what he did. She and Charabaty’s sister-in-law, Marie Charabati, attended every day of the trial. That, she said, erased all doubt that he killed Zak.
“You are a weak and sniveling coward,” she said. “You never met Zak.” She said Pereira sneaked into Charabaty’s home, slivered up the stairs “like the snake that you are” and murdered him while he slept. “You never gave him a chance to fight and he would have fought,” she said.
She said that “Zak was everything you will never be.” She said he was honest, successful, trusting and kind. He grew up during the civil war in Lebanon and suffered a hearing loss because of a bombing. He was brutally beaten at a Syrian checkpoint, she said.
Shiebler said she is certain Pereira will think of Zak every day for the rest of his life while in prison and particularly when he goes to use his commissary funds and finds them depleted because he had to help pay for Zak’s Christian burial.
Wahib Charabati, after the sentencing, said Zak was accepted into the medical program at American University in Beirut, Lebanon but, being Christian, was unable to cross into Beirut, a Muslim city. So, he pursued a degree in computer science. He came to the U.S., from Canada, in 1996 and worked hard to establish his own delivery service.
Family members reported Charabaty missing on March 13, 2020, and they later located his work truck in Lawrence, Mass. through his Apple watch, which was in the console. Charabaty’s blood was found in the back of the truck.
For four hours that day, family members searched for Zak along the banks of the Merrimack River in Lawrence, digging through trash, tossing soiled mattresses and carefully avoiding discarded hypodermic needles.
His body wasn’t found until four months later, on July 20, 2020, buried in a construction site in Methuen, Mass. Unearthed by a worker using an excavator, Charabaty’s body was wrapped in his own bed linens. The body was so damaged an exact cause of death was undetermined.
Pereira did not address the court or Charabaty’s family members on the advice of his attorneys who plan to appeal his convictions, Defense Attorney Ted Lothstein told the judge.
The jurors had the option of finding Pereira guilty of first-degree murder or the lesser crime of second-degree murder.
Hinckley had argued for first-degree murder, saying the case against Pereira, 42, consisted of an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence. That included data from cell phones, and footage from residential and commercial security cameras, including a recording of Pereira buying a spaded shovel at Home Depot. Put together, it pointed to Pereira as the lone killer, he said.
Investigators honed in on Pereira after they recovered data from his cellphone and Charabaty’s Apple watch, along with footage from residential and commercial video surveillance. Prosecutors said the cellphone data aligned exactly with the killer’s movements.
Hinckley told jurors, in reaching their verdict, they could rely on digital DNA from both Pereira’s cell phone and Charabaty’s Apple watch. Hinckley said Pereira worked hard to cover up the killing, as was detailed from video surveillance, cell phone tracking and physical evidence. That included his wearing gloves; covering his bald head with a hooded sweatshirt; cleaning out Charabaty’s blood in the back of the victim’s box truck; smashing Charabaty’s cell phone, among other activity.
However, Hinckley said Pereira made a critical mistake when he turned on his cell phone, after getting lost in Massachusetts and needing directions, allowing investigators to track his movements in Methuen and Lawrence.
Hinckley said investigators also corroborated through cell phone data that Deoliveira, and her son, Gabriel Baronto, were at home in Methuen at the time her husband was killed. The defense suggested both had motives to kill Charabaty: Charabaty had met with an attorney and was seeking to have his two-month-long marriage annulled, while Baronto had threatened him six days before Charabaty disappeared.
Hinckley said it was pure “speculation” that Deoliveira or her son had anything to do with Charabaty’s murder.
The day after Pereira spoke to Manchester police, Pereira closed out his bank accounts and fled to Florida where he used an alias. He wasn’t located until October 2021, when he was stopped by Florida Fish & Game officials. He ran but was quickly apprehended and later brought back to New Hampshire to face charges.
Charabaty and Deoliveira were married on Jan. 20, 2020, according to defense attorneys.
They had met the previous October, shortly after Deoliveira was released from jail. She had been picked up by ICE and was facing deportation for being in the United States illegally from Brazil. The defense said Deoliveira knew marrying a U.S. citizen was a way to obtain citizenship.
Mazha Charabaty, Charabaty’s sister, said Zak told her he was marrying Doliveira so she could obtain citizenship. She told her brother not to do it.
“She never knew him,” she said. “Everyone knew why she married him. He told me that. I told him not to do that and he did it because he is very generous and very kind and he paid for it. He was seduced by her. She was a good-looking lady.”
Marie Charabaty said she believes he did love Deoliveira.
Marie Charabaty said she believes justice was served because the person who took Zak’s life is being held responsible. She said the family can now move on after three years of their lives being taken away. “We were like robots,” she said. “So, we are truly happy this day has come.”
She said the family wanted to thank the prosecutors, the victim/witness advocate and law enforcement who worked tirelessly in finding justice for Zak
