Date: 07/20/1995 Page: 25
Author: By Patricia Nealon, Globe Staff
Section: METRO
The slaying, which one investigator termed a "bizarre" situation that grew out of a "food fight," left an East Providence laborer dead and Dr. David Barrett in a prison isolation cell saying he feared reprisals from inmates whose mental state he had evaluated as part of his psychiatric training.
Barrett, 32, of East Providence, was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Joseph Silvia, 33, and held without bail. Six days before the murder Barrett was placed on medical leave by Brown University School of Medicine, where he was to begin his fourth and final year of psychiatric training.
Citing confidentiality rules, a school spokesman yesterday would not say why Barrett was placed on leave, but said it was at the school's request. A month earlier, Barrett had requested a personal leave, which was granted.
He is charged with firing three shots through the open, driver's side
window of a van parked in the lot of a gas station-convenience store in East
Providence, striking Silvia twice in the head.
A Washington, D.C., native who recently became engaged, Barrett is a 1985 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a 1992 graduate of the University of Vermont Medical College. He began the psychiatric residency program in July 1992.
Idrees Richardson, 37, a musician who has shared an apartment with Barrett in East Providence for about four weeks and was with him during the shooting at about 1 a.m. Tuesday, said Barrett shot in self-defense as Silvia repeatedly rammed Barrett's Saab with his van.
"It's a shame," Richardson said yesterday. "If Dave didn't do it, I would have. We were in danger."
Richardson, a guitarist who said he played music with Barrett and met him through musician friends, said Silvia approached Barrett in the parking lot of the store and spoke to him "in a nasty way," threatening to kill him.
"Dave never threatened the guy," said Richardson.
According to police Capt. Joseph Broadmeadow, Silvia was a school friend of Michael Glynn, the clerk awakened one morning last week when Barrett threw a wrapped sandwich at him. Glynn ordered Barrett out of the store, according to police.
Richardson said Barrett often stopped at the store, about four miles from their home, in the early morning hours and was friendly with Glynn.
"Dave usually wakes him up," said Richardson. When he threw the sandwich, ''He was excited about getting married and wanted to invite him to the wedding," Richardson said. "He didn't throw it in his face, he didn't harm him, he was acting like a buddy would."
When Barrett, Richardson and a third man returned to the store early Tuesday, Silvia tried to intervene, Richardson said. When Barrett refused his overtures, Silvia began ramming his van into Barrett's car, which was parked next to gas pumps, Richardson said.
After backing into Barrett's car "quite hard," Richardson said it appeared that Silvia was preparing to ram the car once more. "That's when he was shot," Richardson said. "There was nothing else to do; the guy wouldn't stop. . . It's not like Barrett wanted to put somebody out. We were in between gas tanks. It's self-defense, absolutely."
Silvia's mother told the Associated Press that her son would not have started a fight.
''He was the kind of kid who pulled people out of arguments, unless you put your hands on him," Alice Silvia was quoted as saying.
Richardson said Barrett had guns in the car -- the .38-caliber revolver that police believe was used to kill Silvia and another gun found outside the car in a cloth bag -- because neighbors had threatened to kill his dog and blow up his car.