FRIENDS SAY MUSICIAN MUTED BY HEROIN AUBURN

Their song titles spokethe code of boredom and
deviant rage in teen suburbia. Tainted Purity.
Detaching from Prophecy. Apathy. Refine.

They were Godflaw, the teen rock band of five neighborhood friends in
this bedroom community outside Worcester, who moved from hackey-sack
in the park to hard-core thrashing at all-ages clubs and area mini-malls.

And at their creative core was Brian Davis, a shy underachiever who
dropped off the high school attendance rolls, searched for genius in
the space between guitar strings - and who, friends say, was swallowed
ever-so-slowly by heroin.

But even those who watched the 20-year-old Davis spiral into craving,
addiction, theft, and even drug convictions never believed they would
hear his name linked to murder.

Yet Davis and his mother, distraught and disheveled as they were
arraigned yesterday in Worcester Central District Court, are now at
the center of the murder case of James A. Hackett, whose badly decayed
body was found swaddled in plastic near the Worcester airport Friday,
and in which only the sketchiest details link the victim to the
unassuming addict friends always believed Davis to be.

''Maybe he was too far in on the heroin, but seriously, if you met
him, you'd think he was not at all the kind of guy to do this,'' said
Jon Hagberg, a bandmate who joined Godflaw in the spring of 1997,
shortly after Davis's first band, Platform, broke up. ''This was a guy
who one time saw a squirrel that fell over the power lines and moved
it so it wouldn't get run over by a car.''

A world away from his dreams of demo-recording and a debut CD, Davis
was in court before Judge Martha A. Brennan yesterday, pleading not
guilty as he was charged with murder and improper disposal of a body.
His mother, Marcia M. Davis, pleaded not guilty to being an accessory
to murder after the fact and to improper disposal of a body.
Investigators said Davis knew the victim.

According to investigators and the Worcester County district
attorney's office, Davis hid the victim's body inside his apartment at
125 Oxford St., an apartment that sits just above a red-brick sportsm
en's club called the Panda Lounge. Davis shared the second-floor
apartment with his mother; the two had lived there for nearly 10 years.

Prosecutors said yesterday that Davis told police he struck the
victim, a white, tattooed man in his 20s, with a blunt instrument
after he came home and found the man waiting for him with a lead pipe.
Then, according to prosecutors, he kept the victim's body in the
apartment for weeks before it was found near a fence at Worcester
Regional Airport in Leicester.

Davis was being held without bail yesterday at Worcester County House
of Corrections. Marcia Davis was held on $10,000 cash bail at
Framingham House of Corrections.

Both cases were continued until March 18. Two lawyers assigned
separately to Davis and his mother, Kenneth Brekka and Walter
Rojcewicz, said they had no comment, having spoken to the mother and
son only hours before yesterday's arraignment.

Brekka, who is representing Brian Davis, also would not comment on a
series of convictions that records show for Davis in 1997 and 1998,
including two counts of heroin possession, two counts of possessing a
syringe or needle, two counts of shoplifting, and one count of larceny.

The record echoed the words of friends and neighborhood merchants near
Davis's apartment. A talented guitarist, Davis deteriorated, they
said, from a teen who shone in school talent shows to a bony shadow of
himself, living from high to high and stealing to feed his habit.

Russell Beaudoin, 18, a former classmate of Davis at Auburn High
School and a clerk at the Economy Market near Davis's apartment, said
he used to see Davis regularly - at the store and in performances with
Davis's first band.

But Davis changed after he got into heroin, Beaudoin said. Desperate
to feed his habit, he told friends and acquaintances he could get them
drugs, then took their money and never delivered. The scams left the
once-mellow teen in a chronic state of edgy paranoia, Beaudoin said.

''He never left the house much after that,'' he said.

Heroin was a side of Davis that Hagberg and his other bandmates didn't
want to see.

''He definitely had a problem,'' said Hagberg.

Davis started coming to practice later and later. Then, for long
stretches, he stopped coming at all.

Finally, last summer, after band members made several failed attempts
to save their band and their friend, Hagber g said, Godflaw pushed
Davis out.

''We tried to replace him but we couldn't,'' Hagberg said. ''That's
what's sad, too, because he was incredible.''

Soon after, Godflaw disbanded, and Davis disappeared from the scene.
Months later, when he finally resurfaced, it was in a bleak mug shot,
reprinted in newspapers and broadcast over the television news.