Uninvited Allston party guest convicted of killing host

A Suffolk Superior Court jury today convicted Brian MacDonald, 26, of fatally stabbing Anthony Spaulding during a fight at a New Year's party at Spaulding's Pratt Street apartment on Jan. 1, 2013, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

MacDonald will be sentenced Feb. 26 for his conviction on voluntary manslaughter, the DA's office says, adding the jury will continue its deliberations Monday on an assault-and-battery charge against Bianca Hollenbeck for the same incident.

According to the DA's office:

Assistant District Attorney Julie Higgins of the DA’s Homicide Unit proved that MacDonald was an uninvited guest at Spaulding’s Pratt Street home, where residents held a party on the night of Dec. 31, 2012, into the morning of Jan. 1, 2013.

Higgins proved that MacDonald was on the second floor of that home near Spaulding’s bedroom. When he and another person became boisterous in that area, Spaulding came out of the bedroom and asked him to keep his voice down. That interaction sparked a physical altercation. The two men tumbled down a set of stairs onto the first floor.

MacDonald and his associate were ejected from the party but lingered outside. Spaulding approached them, Higgins argued, in an attempt to clear the air. Instead, the evidence showed, MacDonald stabbed Spaulding in the chest with a folding knife he had brought to the party. Spaulding’s friends called 911 and emergency medical technicians transported him to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, but he died of his injuries.

Police followed a blood trail MacDonald left after cutting himself with the knife to his Washington Street apartment, where they found his bloody clothes in a garbage bag, the DA's office reports, adding police never found the knife.