BARRINGTON — Ryan Greenberg will now face a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the July 17 boating death of Patrick Murphy after a statewide grand jury handed up an indictment of the 17-year-old yesterday.

Greenberg, now a senior at Hope High School in Providence but previously Murphy’s classmate at Barrington High School, had been charged with one felony count of operating a boat to endanger, death resulting; one misdemeanor count of underage possession of alcohol; and one misdemeanor count of refusing to take a breath test after he was pulled off the Barrington River and failed a field sobriety test.

The grand jury affirmed those earlier charges as well.

Greenberg, of 33 Lamson Rd., will be arraigned on the new charge and rearraigned on the previous ones Jan. 2 in Superior Court, Providence. He remains free on $10,000 personal recognizance.

A call to Murphy’s parents was not returned.

Although 17, Greenberg was charged as an adult after the General Assembly, in a cost-saving measure, changed the rules that determine which cases are handled by Family Court. When the legislature reversed itself after 131 days, it allowed youths such as Greenberg to remain in the adult system.

Rumors that Murphy had been killed by Greenberg, who had been towing him on a kneeboard from a borrowed boat, have swirled around Barrington ever since the incident.

But Barrington police had trouble making any such connection based on the statement of the witnesses, some of whom had been reluctant to talk. Police Chief John LaCross had repeatedly put out calls for anyone who might have seen something that evening to come forward.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch had taken the case to the grand jury in hopes that the process might uncover additional information. Apparently it did, although Lynch’s office was cryptic yesterday about what kind of testimony had been heard by the jurors during its monthlong probe.

“As more and more witnesses came in and testified, more and more of the facts came to light,” said spokesman Michael J. Healey.

In all, there were 20 witnesses and 36 exhibits.

Healey declined comment on whether Greenberg is accused of intentionally driving the boat at Murphy, but said the second-degree murder charge means that the grand jury felt that Greenberg’s actions were malicious, although not premeditated.

Lynch released a statement yesterday evening saying that the state “Supreme Court has ruled that legal malice can arise from either an express intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm, or from wanton recklessness. The grand jury found, and it will be my office’s burden to prove, that by allegedly operating the boat in the manner that he did, the defendant created a situation in which he could, to a very high degree of risk, either kill or seriously injure another person, even if he didn’t intend to do so.”

When rescue workers were originally called to the scene, there was hope that Murphy would be found alive based on the accounts of Greenberg and another teen who had been on the boat, acting as a spotter. The other teen has never been identified.

But an all-night search turned up nothing.

It wasn’t until the following afternoon that the body was recovered. The state medical examiner’s office ruled that Murphy had died from “blunt and sharp force injuries,” and investigators believed he was cut up by the boat’s propeller.

At least one witnesses later told the police that Greenberg had been seen tossing bottles of beer and other alcohol over the side of the boat before the police arrived.

That death sent shockwaves rippling through the town, where Chief LaCross, the School Department and Barrington’s Substance Abuse Task Force had already been aggressively trying to combat teenage drinking.

But many adults and students continued to insist that the problem was no worse than in other communities and that Barrington was being singled out for attention.

One high school student wrote to the Barrington Times complaining about media coverage of the tragedy and its aftermath, saying “the articles and editorials posted have often been rude and unnecessary, not only in our established paper [The Times], but the Providence Journal as well.”

On Nov. 5, within a week of the letter being published, another student, Jonathan Converse, 16, was killed in a drunken-driving accident involving a 16-year-old driver who allegedly drank six beers, got in the car with Converse and two other teens, drove down New Meadow Road at more than twice the speed limit, and lost control, slamming into a tree.

The unnamed driver was operating under a provisional license, which made it illegal for him to drive with more than one unrelated minor.

Residents, already rattled by the Murphy death, were devastated by a second tragedy in such a short period of time.

“Personally, this [Converse] accident was a tipping point,” said Councilwoman Kate Weymouth at a special Town Council meeting called Nov. 20 to address the underage drinking issue. “It is the number-one topic of conversation. It’s like it blew the lid off my head. It’s all I can think about.”

“I felt like I had been punched in the gut,” Larson Gunness, a parent, said during a meeting yesterday of the Substance Abuse Task Force, explaining how he reacted to the second tragedy, which came just hours after the last task force meeting.

Much of the alcohol in the Converse case had allegedly been bought in Providence at S&M Liquors by two teens, both of whom now face charges in Family Court. A clerk at the store, Shawn Merilan, was subsequently summoned to appear in District Court, Providence, on two counts of selling liquor to a minor following a sting operation.

Yesterday, Chief LaCross said two others were being charged in connection with the Converse case.

Last Tuesday, he said, a 17-year-old boy came to the station to confess that he had been involved in purchasing some of the alcohol that may have been consumed by the Converse group.

That led police to 18-year-old Benjamin W. Geldmaker, 18, of 128 Maple St., Barrington.

LaCross said Geldmaker went to an East Providence liquor store and used fake identification to buy a 30-pack of beer. He gave some of that beer to the youth, and it apparently ended up at the informal party where the driver in the Converse case allegedly became impaired, the chief said.

Both Geldmaker and the 17-year-old face misdemeanor charges of underage possession of alcohol. Geldmaker is due back District Court on Dec. 12.

CORRECTION: The 18-year-old person accused of buying beer at the East Providence liquor store and charged with underage possession of alcohol was incorrectly identified in the original version of this story.

gemery@projo.com