On Thursday, the day after De Barros’s funeral at St. Peter Church in Dorchester, Boston police and the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office announced they charged Deonarine Ganga, 29, of Boston with killing De Barros in what authorities called a brazen act of violence.

Inside their Dorchester home, Melissa De Barros sat on the arm of the sofa beside her weeping mother and swept the hair from her damp face. In a corner of the living room, propped against a chair, was an enlarged photo of De Barros’s brother, Joey, 21, who was shot and killed last week in a McDonald’s parking lot on Gallivan Boulevard in a road rage incident.


“My detectives worked tirelessly on this case from the beginning,’’ Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said in a statement. “Their hard work and commitment to seek justice for this young man was matched by the cooperation of the public who offered assistance.”

On April 13, De Barros was driving toward the parking lot exit on Granite Street around 4:15 p.m. when he got into a dispute with people in a second car, officials said. De Barros stepped out of his car toward the second vehicle when, police say, Ganga opened fire, striking him multiple times, according to the account given by police.

De Barros was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.

“Things can happen anytime, but I never think it would happen to me,” De Barros’s mother, Ana, said through tears.

Ana De Barros migrated to Boston from Cape Verde in 1988. Her mother had died and she came to the United States to help provide for her siblings.

“I wanted him to have what I didn’t have,” she said of her son.

Melissa De Barros, 25, said her younger brother was a student at Bunker Hill Community College who had a variety of interests, including a career in information technology. He also enjoyed buying cars, fixing them, and reselling them.


“He was still young and trying to figure out what he wanted to do,” she said. “He was super smart with computers. He had a lot of goals.”

He had worked at Tasty Burger and a local CVS, she said.

The siblings were close. De Barros said her brother often shared his dreams with her, sometimes even calling her at work to catch up.

“He always wanted to help people out,” she said.

“Anything you asked him, he’d do it,” De Barros said as tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s just sad how people literally have nothing going for them in their lives. They think taking a life is nothing.”

Witnesses gave police a description of the vehicle involved in the shooting and a partial license plate number, which led investigators to Ganga. The vehicle was registered to a Dorchester woman associated with Ganga, who had also been a passenger in the car when it was stopped by police on April 10 in Abington, officials said.

Ganga is in custody on charges that he threatened to shoot a customer inside of an Auto Zone on Dorchester Avenue on April 7. He is accused of displaying a semiautomatic handgun and racking the slide to put a bullet into the chamber after accusing the customer of skipping him in line.

“I’m going to get you, let’s go outside,” Ganga said, according to the police report.


“Hold this, hold this, because this is what you’re going to get,” he allegedly said, while showing a gold bullet to the customer, loading the gun, and then pointing it at the customer.

Employees at the Auto Zone asked both men to leave, police said. One employee told police that Ganga was a regular customer. Boston police detectives reviewed video footage and linked the light blue Chrysler 200 that Ganga drove that day to the one seen at the McDonalds parking lot.

Ganga was arrested Monday and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and held on $50,000 cash bail on charges stemming from the Auto Zone incident.

He is also being held pending a hearing for violating terms of probation imposed following a 2015 guilty plea to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.

Ganga was arraigned Wednesday in Dorchester Municipal Court. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge on May 18.

John R. Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Jan Ransom can be reached at jan.ransom@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Jan_Ransom.