Florida man charged with murdering Roslindale produce driver in Vermont in 2019

because it was short and the key takeaway was the victim's (non-violent, drug-related) criminal record.

The Brattleboro Reformer reports that Fonseca-Rivera had been sentenced to a year in federal prison last November after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute cocaine for his role in a South Shore cocaine ring.

Judging by the now-cingeworthy comments on the original article, I wasn't alone in shrugging off the story with a reaction of "Oh, some drug deal gone bad up in the woods of Vermont, must've been making a delivery."

So with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that the Globe did have a decent story about him, which (we can now look back and say) assigned the drug charge appropriate weight by not mentioning it until the 12th paragraph and providing the context it deserved - a service to the victim and to the reader, it now turns out.

Fonseca-Rivera had recently returned to his job with the produce company after pleading guilty to a federal drug charge in the fall of 2018 and serving a short prison sentence, Katsiroubas said.

Company officials felt the charge against him was not major and that he had earned their respect, Katsiroubas said.

“He had served his time and he really, from all of our perspectives, left such a good impression on us that we felt comfortable bringing him back,” Katsiroubas said. “We believed in him and felt like he was a good employee.”

Fonseca-Rivera had pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to posses cocaine with intent to distribute, Silverman said. Fonseca-Rivera was one of five people arrested in the operation, accused of picking up packages containing cocaine that had been mailed from Puerto Rico to addresses in Canton, Stoughton, Quincy, and Framingham, according to a press release from US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling’s office.

Fonseca-Rivera was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, court records show. It was the shortest sentence handed down in the drug trafficking case: The other four men accused with him are serving sentences of between 2½ and 17½ years. It was unclear Sunday when Fonseca-Rivera was released from prison.

Admittedly Adam, you did include an excerpt from the Katsiroubas Bros. press release praising the victim, and you did comment on your own piece by referring to the victim as "such a good guy...the Globe reports," but it's tough to tell whether the latter is genuine or skeptical.