Ryan Greenberg enters Superior Court for arraignment on charges in the death of Patrick Murphy in a boating accident in July.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Ryan Greenberg, of Barrington, pleaded not guilty yesterday to four charges, including second-degree murder, in the boating death of Patrick Murphy on the Barrington River July 17.

His Superior Court arraignment came after a statewide grand jury indicted the 17-year-old, adding the murder charge to previous allegations of operating a boat to endanger, death resulting; underage possession of alcohol; and refusing to take a breath test after he failed a field sobriety test.

Dressed in khaki pants and a navy blazer, the former Barrington High School student, now a senior at Hope High School in Providence, was released on $100,000 recognizance, 10 times the original amount.

He was also ordered to undergo random alcohol and drug screening, banned from operating watercraft and prohibited from traveling outside Rhode Island or Massachusetts.

He is due back in court on April 2 for a pretrial hearing.

Greenberg, who remained outside the courtroom until his name was called, said little during the arraignment before Special Magistrate Joseph A. Keough.

Murphy’s parents, John and Phoebe, watched the proceedings from the second row of Courtroom 9 and left immediately with Barrington police via a stairwell.

Last week Greenberg’s lawyer, William C. Dimitri, asked Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini to dismiss the murder indictment and send the case to Family Court because Greenberg is one of the 500 or so “gap kids” who were arrested during the 4½ months when 17-year-olds were prosecuted as adults. A decision on that request is expected later this month.

Yesterday’s proceedings did nothing to resolve the mystery of the circumstances surrounding the death of Murphy, who was killed by blunt and sharp force injuries, according to the state medical examiner’s office.

Although arrest reports are supposed to be made public after an investigation is completed, the Department of Environmental Management, which arrested Greenberg, and Barrington police, which did much of the investigation, have withheld most of the paperwork, sending it to the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.

Lynch’s office had said it was withholding the material so it could be presented to a statewide grand jury.

Yesterday, Barrington Police Chief John LaCross did not return two phone calls and a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office said there was no new material to release.

Murphy’s death — he would have been a senior at Barrington High School — sent shockwaves through the town and a renewed interest in combating underage drinking in town.

But four months later, another teen was killed in an incident that resulted in 17-year-old Michael J. Silveira being sent to the state Training School for two years for driving while intoxicated.

And Saturday night, a Bristol man was pinned under a car after a Barrington High School football player, apparently trying to elude a DEM officer at Colt State Park, allegedly drove his car across a field, through some brush, crossed Poppasquash Road in Bristol and plowed into a stone seawall. The 17-year-old driver faces charges in Family Court of driving under the influence of alcohol; driving while intoxicated, bodily injury resulting; underage possession of alcohol; possession of marijuana, and driving while in possession of a controlled substance.

gemery@projo.com