Cape student identified as Allston murder victim

Friends and Cape Cod Today are identifying the man stabbed to death at an Allston party early yesterday as Tony Spaulding, 21, of Harwich.

Spaulding was a student at the New England Institute of of Art in Brookline and had an interest in music production.

Brian MacDonald, 24, of Allston was arraigned in Brighton District Court today on a murder charge and ordered held in lieu of $500,000 bail, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, which provided this account:

Officers and detectives began interviewing witnesses, who told them that the victim resided at the Pratt Street scene and that the assailant and his girlfriend were guests at a party there.

Witnesses said that Spaulding exited his bedroom and told MacDonald to quiet down a short time after they arrived. This led to an almost immediate physical altercation between the two men, Broadbent said. In the course of that altercation, Spaulding and MacDonald tumbled down the stairs from the building's second floor to the first floor.

The two men went outside, the evidence suggests, where they were the only two men at the scene. A bystander separated the two and observed blood on both of them, [Assistant District Attorney Holly Broadbent] Broadbent told the court.

While it was not immediately clear who threw the first punch in the underlying fisticuffs, there was no evidence that Spaulding armed himself before or during the incident, prosecutors say. Witnesses did tell investigators that they had seen MacDonald with a knife at the party before the fight.

While some responding officers spoke to witnesses, others began following a blood trial that led away from the scene. Investigators soon learned MacDonald's identity by name and appearance and found that he lived at a Washington Street address where the blood trail ended. When taken into custody by Boston Police, he had injuries to his face and hand. Surveillance imagery from a nearby camera shows him fleeing the scene on foot, Broadbent said.