What began as a simple robbery of a drug-dealing ex-roommate ended with three adults and one child dead on a Mattapan street and a fifth person clinging to live in the hospital, a Suffolk County prosecutor said today.

Dwayne Moore, 33, was formally charged this morning with four counts of murder for the people found dead on Woolson Street on Sept. 28. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail at his arraignment this morning in Dorchester District Court. He is next scheduled for a Dec. 22 court hearing.

Over the objections of Moore's lawyer, assistant District Attorney Edmond Zabin recounted parts of the prosecution's anticipated cases against Moore - out of prison for just a few months on a manslaughter charge related to the way he killed a Milton teenager in Mattapan in 1995.

Zabin said that after his release from state prison, Moore lived on Sutton Street with Simba Martin. Moore, Zabin said, hatched a plot with Kimani Washington - arrested on Oct. 1 on stolen-property charges related to the case - to rob Martin at gunpoint.

Zabin said cell phone records show Moore called Washington shortly before they showed up on Sutton Street - just as Marcus Hurd was driving up. Not long after the murders, investigators said Hurd was there to buy drugs. Zabin said Moore and Washington marched the two upstairs to Martin's apartment, which he proceeded to go through in search of the drugs and money he knew to be there.

Zabin said the other male victim, Levaughn Washum-Garrison, and Eyanna Flonory and her 2-year-old son Amanihotep Smith, were also in the apartment. He said Moore ordered the men to strip and marched everybody outside and to Woolson Street, while Washington drove off in Hurd's car, Zabin said. Moore then began firing, he said.

Zabin said Hurd remains in the hospital.

As Zabin recounted the allegations, family and friends of Eyanna Flonory sat quietly in the packed courtroom. Afterwards, they held a brief prayer circle in the courthouse lobby. Some quietly cried.

Moore's lawyer, John Amabile, said Moore "vehemently denied" having anything to do with the shootings. As Moore stood behind a door, out of view of most people in the courtroom, Amabile said Zabin's recitation was serving only to poison the potential jury pool, because Moore had agreed to be held without bail and so there was no legal reason to read the charges, especially since Moore had agreed to waive them.