NH man acquitted of 1969 Mass. slaying

WOBURN, Mass. (AP) -- A jury has acquitted a New Hampshire man of a murder charge in connection with the death of a Massachusetts teenager 43 years ago.

Michael Ferreira of Salem, N.H., was cleared Friday by a Middlesex Superior Court jury.

Prosecutors say the 59-year-old Ferreira and two friends killed 15-year-old John McCabe after a dance in Tewksbury, Mass., in September 1969. Ferreira was 16 at the time.

Prosecutors say they abducted McCabe, bound him, taped his eyes and mouth, and left him in a Lowell field where he died of asphyxiation. Authorities say they wanted to teach McCabe a lesson for flirting with a girl one of them liked.

Ferreira's attorney said police and prosecutors fed facts to a co-defendant, who testified in exchange for a manslaughter plea, and the co-defendant's story isn't supported by evidence.