First of 3 Trials Opens in Alexander Murders : Prosecutor Says Driver Will Tell How Gunmen Raided Wrong House, Killed Athlete’s Relatives

A woman who drove the getaway van will tell in detail the events that led to the killing of four members of former football star Kermit Alexander’s family, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris said in his opening statement Monday at the murder trial of Horace Edwin Burns.

The victims--Alexander’s mother, Ebora, 58; his sister, Dietra, 24, and his nephews, Damani Garner, 13, and Damon Bonner, 8--died because the killers attacked the wrong household by mistake, Norris said.

“A murder case is a murder case,” Norris noted in the hallway outside the courtroom of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz after the trial’s first session. “But these are four entirely innocent victims.”

According to the prosecutor, the driver, Ida Moore, and a second woman in the van, Lisa Brown, will both testify in Burns’ trial, which could last a month.

Moore, Norris said, was told by Burns, “They’re going to shoot ‘em up,” as Burns waited in her van while Tiequon Aundray Cox and Darren Charles Williams headed inside the Alexanders’ South-Central Los Angeles home last Aug. 31.

Cox, 18, and Williams, 24--both of whom, along with Burns, could receive the death penalty if convicted--are to be tried later.

Asked for a Ride

Norris told the jury that Moore and Brown had been asked by the men to drive them to a girl’s home where they were to pick up some money. Burns, 20, made his “shoot ‘em up” remark to Moore, Norris said, when she asked him why Cox and Williams needed a weapon to pick up the money.

After Cox’s October arrest, Burns, 20, told another witness that Cox had fired the murder weapon--a .30-caliber carbine--and that the men had gone “to the wrong house,” according to the prosecutor.

Burns told the witness, identified as Linda Lewis, that the shootings were in revenge for another narcotics-related shoot-out, Norris said. When asked how he felt about the children being shot, Burns allegedly replied, “It’s just something that happened.”

Although Burns, who stared impassively during Norris’ statement, did not enter the Alexanders’ house, he aided and abetted in the murders, the prosecutor charged, and is therefore just as legally responsible as if he had pulled the trigger.

‘Venture to Kill’

“These three set upon a venture to kill people,” Norris said after the session. “They got the wrong house and that is even more tragic.”

The three men are all said by police to be members of a South-Central Los Angeles street gang.

Security was tight at the session. Each spectator was screened with a metal detector before entering the courtroom.

Norris said Alexander, a former UCLA and Los Angeles Rams football star, will testify later this week. Other witnesses are to include two survivors of the early morning attack, nephew Ivan Bonner, who escaped death by hiding in a closet, and Alexander’s brother, Neal, who fled after grappling with one of the intruders.