Police Suspect Drug Link in Slaying of S.D. Boy, 11 : Crime: Victim’s great-grandmother was also shot by gunman seeking someone else.

Police said Friday that they suspect drug involvement in the slaying of an 11-year-old boy and the wounding of his great-grandmother by a gunman who fired through a metal security door of the family’s home.

Dwayne Maurice Gilbert, who was hit in the chest and wrist, died about 10 p.m. Thursday at the home in the 3700 block of Acacia Street in Southeast San Diego, said Lt. Dan Berglund of the San Diego Police Department.

The child’s great-grandmother, Marguerie Hitchens, 79, had answered the door while Dwayne stood behind her, Berglund said. She had opened the inside door, but kept the black metal mesh outer door shut, Berglund said.

The killer asked for a friend of the family--who is not being identified by police or relatives--and, when told by Hitchens that the man was not there, shot Hitchens and then the boy, Berglund said.

Hitchens was wounded in the right side and was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center. She was released from the hospital Friday.

Relatives and neighbors described Dwayne as a bright, polite child who got A’s and B’s in school, and who played baseball and was taking boxing lessons.

“He used to come over and ask for the rake, and do his garden,” said Esther Tejada, a next-door neighbor. “He had very nice manners.”

Investigators think the shooting may be linked to the drug activity that allegedly has occurred at the residence, Berglund said. The gunman appeared one day after Dwayne’s mother was arraigned in court on drug charges.

“There have been arrests (at the house) by narcotics investigators, also some search warrants primarily looking for PCP,” Berglund said.

Dwayne’s mother, Sonya Smith, 28, is in jail on charges of possessing and selling PCP.

In a telephone interview from jail, Smith said the person the killer asked for did not have any involvement in drugs, and she believes that the gunman was someone paid to kill either her or her friend. Dwayne’s father does not live with the family; Smith also has two children by another man.

Smith said she gave detectives her friend’s address, but is convinced he has nothing to do with the attack. “He’s like my brother, my guardian angel,” she added.

Berglund declined to comment on whether police have located Smith’s friend, saying it may hurt their investigation.

According to Smith, her friend helped the family while she was having some troubles with her ex-husband.

“I believe that it was meant for one of us. When I get out of here, I’m going to find (him), and we’re going to go to the police together and cooperate with them because my boy is dead,” she said, sobbing.

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Friday for Smith, who is being held at the Las Colinas jail in Santee in lieu of $30,000 bail. She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Wednesday.

National City Detective Lewis Balke, who helped arrest Smith on Monday in National City, said Dwayne and his two half-sisters were with Smith at the time.

Balke, who took the children home, remembered Dwayne as being “a very sharp kid. He wasn’t your usual kid. . . . He was shocked, but he knew what was happening.”

Smith, who said she was arrested in a PCP deal in April but contended she was “set up” in the July arrest, insisted that her son’s death was not drug-related.

Neighbors, however, said that they frequently hear gunshots at night, and that many drug dealers operate in the area.

“You hear shots every night,” said Roberto Lobato, who lives across the street from where the slaying occurred. “I used to look out, to see what happened; now I just get on the floor. This is a bad drug neighborhood.”

Hitchens, who used to live at Dwayne’s house before she moved to Brawley in Imperial County, said the neighborhood used to be quiet and safe. “Now all these gangs have moved in,” she added.

Hitchens said she did not recognize the gunman but suspects he might have been drunk or high at the time.

“I don’t normally answer the door, but I was the only one who could hear it,” said Hitchens, who explained that she was visiting her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “I could hear scratching, and, when I opened the door, he was leaning against it.”

The assailant, described by Hitchens as being about 5-foot-8 and slender, with black hair and wearing a black baseball cap, mumbled something unintelligible, she said. She was unsure of his race.

Hitchens said she asked the man to repeat himself, and then he asked for her granddaughter’s friend. “I told him he wasn’t here,” Hitchens said, and then the man began firing.

“I fell down, then he shot Dwayne,” Hitchens said. “I was crawling up the hall--I didn’t want to get up in case he was going to hit me again--and then my daughter was hollering and screaming. She helped me sit on the bed, and I kept on asking about Dwayne, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

As Hitchens waited to be taken to the hospital, she kept asking about her great-grandson, who is her favorite because they share a birthday, she said.

“Then,” she said, “a policeman told me before I was taken away, ‘He’s dead.’

“And then I wanted to die, too.”