(HOLYOKE, Mass.) — A Massachusetts judge has dismissed all criminal charges against two former officials from the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, citing no “reasonably trustworthy evidence.”

The facility made national headlines last year, when 77 veterans, who were residents of the home, died of coronavirus in the early months of the pandemic.

In September 2020, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey asked a grand jury to indict former superintendent Bennett Walsh and ex-medical director Dr. David Clinton, on charges of elder neglect, and on permitting bodily injury.

The prosecution focused on a decision, taken on March 27, 2020, to consolidate two dementia units into one.

Healey alleged that Walsh and Clinton were “ultimately responsible for the decision” that led to tragic and deadly results” of combining the 42 veterans into a single unit that usually accommodates 25 beds. Six or seven veterans were placed in rooms meant to hold only four people. Due to overcrowding, nine beds also were placed in a dining room.

The placement of symptomatic residents, including confirmed COVID-19-positive residents, and asymptomatic residents, within feet of each other, thus increased their risk of exposure, Healey said.

“There is insufficient reasonably trustworthy evidence that, had these two dementia units not been merged, the medical condition of any of these five veterans would have been materially different,” wrote Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward J. McDonough, Jr., in a dismissal on Monday. “Therefore, because the evidence does not support a finding of probable cause to believe Mr. Walsh or Mr. Clinton committed any crime, I must dismiss the indictments against both.”

The five specified veterans in the original suit had “already” been exposed to COVID-19 before the merger took place, the judge wrote.

In a statement to ABC News, a spokeswoman for Healey wrote that the office is considering other legal options moving forward.

“We are very disappointed in today’s ruling, especially on behalf of the innocent victims and families harmed by the defendants’ actions. We are evaluating our legal options moving forward,” wrote spokeswoman Jillian Fennimore.

When the suit was filed in September of 2020, Susan Kenney, whose father, Charles Lowell, served in the Air Force from 1960 to 1965, during the Vietnam War, and died at the facility as a result of the outbreak, told ABC News that she welcomed the charges.

“I think that Bennett Walsh and Dr. Clinton should have to dig every grave that hasn’t been dug yet — as well as whatever time they receive if they’re found guilty,” Kenney said last fall. “They need to accept responsibility and account for their behaviors and the actions that they took.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will take to the skies in 2022 on a historic debut spaceflight to the International Space Station.

Watkins will become the first Black woman to embark on a long-duration mission at the space station, where she will live and conduct research in the microgravity laboratory as it orbits the Earth.

NASA announced that Watkins will serve as a mission specialist for the SpaceX Crew-4 mission, the fourth rotation of astronauts on the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS. This will be her first journey to space since becoming an astronaut in 2017.

She will join NASA astronauts Robert Hines and Kjell Lindgren, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. The group is scheduled for liftoff in April 2022 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Watkins was born in Maryland and now calls Colorado home. Previously, she worked as a geologist with a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles.

She joined NASA as an intern and has worked at various research centers in California. At the time of her astronaut selection, Watkins worked as a post-doctoral fellow on the science team for the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity.

When Watkins launches into space next spring, it will be the realization of a dream she’s held since she was in elementary school.

“A dream feels like a big faraway goal that’s going to be difficult to achieve or something you might achieve much later in life,” Watkins said in a video released by NASA last year. “But in reality, what a dream realized is just one putting one foot in front of the other on a daily basis. If you put enough of those footprints together, eventually they become a path towards your dreams.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BOSTON) — The death of Elijah Lewis, the 5-year-old boy from New Hampshire who went missing before being found dead in Massachusetts last month, has been ruled a homicide, authorities said Monday.

Lewis died from “violence and neglect,” John Formella, the New Hampshire attorney general, said in a release. The boy suffered “facial and scalp injuries, acute fentanyl intoxication, malnourishment and pressure ulcers.”

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Massachusetts conducted the autopsy.

Lewis’ body was found late last month, after “credible information” led investigators to a wooded area near Boston, the local district attorney said at the time. There, a cadaver dog found Lewis’ remains “buried in the ground.”

Two people — Lewis’ mother, Danielle Dauphinais, 35, and her boyfriend, Joseph Staph, 30 — remain held without bail on charges of witness tampering and child endangerment, which were brought against them last month after they were arrested in New York City.

Both allegedly asked other people to lie about where the 5-year-old was living, “knowing that child protection service workers were searching for Elijah,” the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said.

“The endangerment charge alleges that they violated a duty of care, protection or support for Elijah,” the office said.

The two pleaded not guilty to both charges in a New Hampshire court.

The Merrimack Police Department began investigating Lewis’ disappearance on Oct. 14, after the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families reported to police that his whereabouts were unknown, according to the state’s attorney general’s office. The child welfare agency’s involvement with the boy is unclear.

The search for Lewis involved multiple New Hampshire and Massachusetts state and county agencies, as well as the FBI.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.