BOSTON (WHDH) - A man accused of murdering his brother-in-law during an argument inside a hotel room in Boston on Saturday night has been ordered held without bail.
Ren Rodgers, 23, of Hollis, New Hampshire, was arraigned Monday in Boston Municipal Court on a charge of murder.
Officers responding to a reported stabbing at Hotel Indigo on Friend Street around 11:30 p.m. found a man suffering from an apparent stab wound, according to Boston police.
“The defendant, who was in the hotel room while this was happening but not engaged in this altercation, stabbed the victim one time in the back with a knife,” prosecutor Tara Burdman told the court.
The victim, Christopher Kellar, was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Rodgers and his wife, Laini, were celebrating a birthday with Kellar and his girlfriend when an argument broke out between the siblings.
“When Laini Kellar asked her husband, the defendant, why he had stabbed her brother, he indicated because ‘no one hurts my wife,'” Burdman explained.
Joe Serpa, Rodgers’ attorney, told the court that his client is a dean’s list student with a full scholarship at the University of New Hampshire.
“This is just not a typical murder case. There is a lot going on here,” Serpa said. “The victim in this case had been belligerent and violent.”
Prosecutors say detectives recovered a bloody weapon inside a fourth-floor room at the hotel.
Rodgers is due back in court next month.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)