On the morning of September 22, 1980, four employees at Sammy White’s Brighton Bowl in Boston were found bound, bludgeoned with a bowling pin, and shot execution-style in the mechanics’ room. The victims were identified as 40-year-old George E. Hagelstein, Donald Doroni, 41, and brothers Brian Cobe, 23, and David Cobe, 21. Three were pronounced dead at the scene; Brian Cobe was taken to a hospital and later died.

Investigators determined the motive to be robbery after the alley’s safe was found open and about $4,800 missing. Attention centered on former employee Bryan A. Dyer, a cab driver who had worked at the bowling alley in 1973. Witnesses placed a car matching Dyer’s near the alley around the time of the killings and reported that he shortly afterwards paid off a car loan and prepaid YMCA rent.

Dyer was arrested, tried, convicted on four counts of murder plus robbery and firearm charges, and given four consecutive life sentences. The killings prompted renewed local debate about the death penalty.