Promising New England jr. middleweight killed in car crash

Enrique Palau had fought seven times since turning pro 13 months ago, and had won all of them. Trained by Sean Fitzgerald, the promising 27-year-old Worcester (Mass.) junior middleweight had recently been working as a sparring partner for WBA champion Jose Rivera while pursuing his own career.

Although Palau boxed from an orthodox stance, he had joined lefties Derrick Whitley and amateur Dan O’Connor in helping prepare his hometown mentor Rivera for his January 6 Florida defense against fellow New Englander Travis Simms.

“Palau,� Rivera trainer John Scully told me a few weeks ago, “is so ambidextrous that he probably ought to be fighting southpaw himself.�

As a young teenager Palau won multiple New England Junior Olympic titles, but his progress was interrupted at the age of 17 when he was convicted on an armed robbery charge. He spent nearly five years as a guest of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Following his release he won the 2004 New England Golden Gloves 152-pound title in Lowell, and competed in that year’s Gloves nationals in Kansas City.

He made his pro debut in November of 2005, stopping LeShawn Wiliams at the Dorchester Armory.

None of his first four opponents got out of the first round.

He appeared to have turned his life around, and seemed to feel that his earlier struggles had been a blessing in disguise, in that he was allowed to embark upon his professional career with a maturity he would have lacked as a teenager.

“Now I’m in my prime,� he told a Worcester Telegram & Gazette sportswriter. “I’m strong and I think now is the time. And I don’t think it could have come at a better time, really.�

We’d last seen him when we worked the telecast of Rich Cappiello’s Mike Oliver-Adam Carrera show at the Mohegan Sun on October 28. Palau stopped John Gottschling in two that night’s undercard, and just last Friday night he’d won again, outpointing Massachusetts veteran Hollister Elliott on Hank Tuohy’s card at the Park Plaza Castle in Boston.

The telecast of that bout will be shown via tape-delay on NESN, but Palau won’t be around to watch it. He was killed early Wednesday morning in Worcester when a car in which he was riding with a lady friend, 25 year-old Amanda Snaras, ran a stop sign and crashed headlong into a stone wall.

Enrique Palau left two young children, aged 4 and 1. Ms. Snaras, who was married, also had two children.