Pring-Wilson Indicted By Grand Jury

A Harvard graduate student who allegedly stabbed a Cambridge teenager five times on April 12 was indicted by a Middlesex grand jury for first degree murder yesterday, according to the District Attorney’s office.

Alexander Pring-Wilson, a 25-year-old graduate student who had been studying at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, has been held in jail since he was arrested for the murder of Michael D. Colono, an 18-year-old Cambridge resident.

At an April 14 arraignment hearing at the Cambridge District Court, Pring-Wilson plead not guilty to the charge.

In last month’s incident, which occurred outside of a Cambridge pizza parlor, Pring-Wilson and Colono engaged in a verbal altercation as Pring-Wilson walked by the car in which Colono was seated.

Details surrounding the subsequent physical confrontation remain disputed, but police say Pring-Wilson stabbed Colono five times in what Pring-Wilson has said was an act of self-defense.

In the indictment, the District Attorney’s Office presented evidence to the Grand Jury, a 23-member body assembled by standard jury selection procedures, according to District Attorney spokesperson Emily LaGrassa.

The prosecution requested that Pring-Wilson be charged with first degree murder, a “decision that [the office] made as the investigation progressed,” LaGrassa said.

LaGrassa said the jury had the option of not indicting Pring-Wilson or doing so on a lesser charge, but said that they returned the indictment yesterday morning accepting the first degree murder charge.

“[In order to indict] the grand jury has to believe that there [is] probable cause that the crime was committed...and reason to try the case in Superior Court,” LaGrassa said.

Chapter 265, Section 1 of Massachusetts General Law defines first degree murder as “murder committed with deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, or with extreme atrocity or cruelty.”

In Massachusetts, a charge of first degree murder can only come from the majority decision of a grand jury.

Details of the grand jury’s decision remain unknown because proceedings are confidential.

Jeffrey Denner, Pring-Wilson’s attorney, said he anticipates the trial will be long.

“The process continues. We look forward to having our days and weeks in court,” Denner said. “[That’s] pretty trite, but accurate.”

Pring-Wilson’s next bail hearing is scheduled for May 13 in Middlesex County Superior Court.

—Jenifer L. Steinhardt contributed the reporting of this story.

—Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu.