Montana drifter charged with killing homeless man in Charlestown in 2012

A man now serving a 40-year sentence for torturing and killing a man in Montana has been charged with beating a homeless man on a Charlestown pier so badly the man later died, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

A Suffolk County grand jury yesterday indicted Kevin Lino, 31, for first-degree murder for the fatal beating of Norman Varieur, 45, on a fishing pier near the Charles River dam on May 20, 2012. Varieur was found unconscious at the pier the next day and died four days after that at Mass. General. The Suffolk County DA's office reports it will seek to have Lino extradited here to face the charges.

Like Varieur, who wound up here from Maine, Lino was also homeless and somebody who moved from place to place - although he stayed here long enough to became a regular at the Pit in Harvard Square. According to the DA's office:

In the weeks, months, and years that followed Varieur’s death, investigators continued to seek information, evidence, and witnesses, whether among the people in the area’s homeless community or those who use it for fishing and dogwalking. Over time, those efforts led to Lino - sometimes known as "Phoenix."

In 2015, Lino was convicted of murder in Missoula, for what happened after he and another homeless man got into an argument with a third:

Gilbert's girlfriend said she witnessed most of the incident and saw the two beat Gilbert, shove lit cigarettes into his nose, cut off his hair, and cut gang symbols into his skin.

Lino later shot Gilbert in the head and dumped his body into the Clark Fork River.