Man learns fate in road rage attack that killed Black man

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Dean Kapsalis, right inset, was sentenced in the killing of Henry Tapia, left inset. (Kapsalis courtroom photo and crime scene screenshot from NBC Boston affiliate WBTS/YouTube; Tapia photo courtesy of family friend via GoFundMe)

A white man convicted of running over a Black man with a truck, killing him in a racially motivated road rage attack in Massachusetts will likely spend the next several decades behind bars.

Dean Kapsalis, 56, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 15 years in the death of 34-year-old Henry Tapia.

Tapia’s family said they didn’t think the punishment was harsh enough.

“My son has to serve a life sentence without his father due to the actions of this man,” said Tapia’s girlfriend, Courtney Morton, the Boston Globe reported.

Kapsalis apologized, which rang hollow to Morton, the newspaper reported.

“I am truly sorry this extremely tragic event ever happened,” said Kapsalis who denied being a “racist” and a “murderer.”

He said he regretted his use of the n-word.

“Language like that is disgraceful, and I am very ashamed of myself,” he said.

Judge David A. Deakin said he hoped Kapsalis would become a better person.

“My hope for you,” he said, “is that you use the experience of incarceration to commit yourself to truly becoming the man your family and friends believe you to be.”

As Law&Crime reported in May, Kapsalis was convicted of second-degree murder, violation of constitutional rights causing serious bodily injury, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, and leaving the scene after causing injury in Tapia’s death.

The attack happened on Jan. 19, 2021, in Belmont, just outside Boston. The road rage escalated from a simple argument over whether a blinker was being used in traffic into a racially motivated slaying on a residential street, authorities said. Authorities said it went down at 4 p.m. on a residential street when Tapia and Kapsalis began arguing about the blinker.

They got out of their cars and argued in the street. After yelling back and forth, it seemed to have ended, and both drivers were heading back to their vehicles when Kapsalis turned and hurled a “horrific racial insult” at Tapia before getting into his pickup truck and driving at Tapia. Kapsalis dragged Tapia a short distance before he drove off, authorities said.

Police found Tapia on the road near the driver’s side of his Honda Civic. He was conscious but had life-threatening injuries and died at a hospital. Police issued an alert to be on the lookout for a red Dodge Dakota pickup truck. Kapsalis turned himself in at a police station 30 minutes later.

“He had a smile that could melt your heart, and that’s literally what won me over,” Morton said, according to the Globe. “That, and his eyes. And the fact that he was like a bear. He was just a cuddly, lovey bear.”

She told the Globe he was raising her child as if he was his own.

“He didn’t look at him or treat him any different,” she told the paper.