The Globe reports a Suffolk Superior Court jury today found Manuel "Spank" Andrade guilty for the shooting death of the visiting Kentucky student outside a Geneva Avenue party on March 24, 2007.

The verdict means Andrade will be sentenced to life behind bars without possibility of parole. Ironically, Casimiro Barros, whose gun prosecutors say actually killed Levin during a running gun battle with Andrade, was convicted last month of voluntary manslaughter, which means he could get out in 20 years.

A Suffolk County Superior Court jury today found Casimiro Barros of Roxbury guilty of voluntary manslaughter, rather than first-degree murder, in the March 24, 2007 death of Chiara Levin outside a Dorchester house party, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

Prosecutors had sought a first-degree conviction, which would have sent Barros away for life without the possibility of parole.

The case of a second man charged with Levin's murder, Manuel Andrade, 36, of Dorchester, has yet to come to trial. Levin was killed in the crossfire between the two, which prosecutors say was the violent culmination of a long-standing beef between Barros's Roxbury boys and Andrade's Dorchester associates.

Prosecutors allege Barros and Andrade got into a battle inside - which ended with Andrade throwing a plate of food at one of Barros's pals and then shooting him in the shoulder for good measure - and that they took the fight outside, pulling guns and taking aim at each other. Officials say one of Barros's bullets hit Levin, sitting inside Andrade's Escalade, in the head, killing her. Levin had met Andrade at a club earlier in the evening but was not involved in the fight, officials said.

By the time he'd turned 20, Barros was already listed by the state as an "an armed career criminal" for a variety of gun-related violent crimes.

In addition to the reduced murder charge, which could get him 20 years, the jury found Barros guilty of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm, the DA's office says. He's scheduled for sentencing tomorrow morning.

Casimiro Barros, 23 and already an official "career criminal," faces life behind bars for his role in the death of the Kentucky woman in Dorchester on March 24, 2007.

Barros allegedly got into a gun battle with Manuel Andrade, 36, of Dorchester, outside a Geneva Avenue party where they had feuded. Levin, an innocent bystandar, was shot in the head. Andrade will be tried separately for murder. Prosecutors say Levin and friends met Andrade at a Tremont Street club and agreed to go with him to the after-hours party.

Barros is also charged with armed assault with intent to murder, aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Even as prosecutors were getting ready yesterday to arraign the alleged killers of Chiara Levin, police in Maryland were arresting somebody for an equally notorious 1995 murder in Dorchester.

The two cases might be indirectly related: The 1995 murder of Bobby Mendes, allegedly by Arnoldo Lopes, started a gang war in the Cape Verdean community that just never really ended.

In 2005, Lopes's brother was shot to death in Randolph. In 2006, Mendes's brother, Alexander Lopes, was shot to death (near where his brother had been fatally stabbed). And this past March 24, according to police, two Cape Verdeans got into a beef at a party and took it outside, where, in a hail of gunfire, Chiara Levin died.

Meanwhile, the Globe answers the question: If one of the people charged with Levin's murder was an "armed career criminal," what was he doing out on the street?

Well, OK, they allow as how maybe the cops had something to do with the arrests but that:

.. The short press release from the BPD mirrors exactly the information we passed along to them after receiving a tip from someone in the community. ...

Casimiro Barros was an "armed career criminal" (quite an accomplishment for someone at the tender age of 20). He'd been arrested most recently in December for unlawful possession of a firearm - after he'd led police on a high-speed chase. And yet now he's charged (along with another alleged winner) in Chiara Levin's murder. Why wasn't he behind bars on the earlier charges? How many other ticking time bombs like him are walking around today?

An "armed career criminal" and another alleged gang member will be arraigned Monday on charges they killed Chiara Levin on March 24 during a shootout, prosecutors said today.

Levin, visiting from Kentucky, was shot in the head during an early morning shootout between Casimiro Barros, the alleged career criminal from Roxbury at just 21 and Manuel Andrade, 34, of Dorchester, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley. In a statement, Conley described the night of her death:

Chiara Levin was with two friends at the Caprice Lounge on Tremont Street in Boston. There she and her friends met Manuel Andrade and two other men. Levin and her friends went with Andrade and his associates to an after-hours party at 415 Geneva Avenue in Dorchester. Levin and her friends drove there in a Cadillac Escalade with Andrade and the other men. The facts also establish that Andrade carried with him a loaded handgun.

This after-hours party at 415 Geneva Avenue was very crowded. At some point during this party, Manuel Andrade got into an altercation and shot an individual inside the party. Andrade returned to the Escalade, which was parked on the corner of Westville Street and Geneva Avenue, where Levin, her friends and Andrade's friends were waiting inside the vehicle.

Standing next to the Escalade, Andrade now exchanged gunfire with Casimiro Barros who was standing in front of 415 Geneva Ave. During the exchange of gunfire, Chiara Levin was struck in the head by a single bullet and was pronounced dead early that same morning at Boston Medical Center where she and her friends had been taken.

Barros is no stranger to police. On Dec. 14, 2006, he briefly led police on a high-speed chase. When they caught up with him, they say they discovered a gun in the car and arrested him on a variety of charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition and being being an armed career criminal.

On April 4, 2006, he and a companion were stopped by police. His companion was arrested for unlawful possession of a loaded hangun; Barros was arrested on a charge of being a disorderly person.

Interesting discussion over at Boston Crime about her - you've got folks living in the neighborhood, a friend of hers and white suburbanites who think it's racist to suggest that Boston's violent crime only started getting a lot of attention when a young white woman got killed.

Also, one thing I never expected when I set that crime site up was that some of the entries would become virtual memorials to some of the murder victims (see here and here).

But not the alleged troublemaker who also wound up at Boston Medical Center around the same time as Levin, police say in a report that explains some of the events the morning she died:

... Upon deciding to leave, Ms. Levin and her two friends again accepted a ride from the three males, while inside the vehicle and about to leave the area, gunshots were fired at the vehicle.

Ms. Levin was struck by gunfire and another male passenger (one whom she had just met that evening) was also struck and suffered a non-life threatening injury.

It is now known that the vehicle left the area of Geneva Ave. and Westville Street, traveled to the area of Bowdoin Street and Adams Street, where it briefly stopped. There two of the males (met that night) exited the vehicle and the vehicle continued to travel to Boston Medical Center. ...