Mother’s Mission Ends With Sentencing of 5 Killers

Charlotte Austin stood in court Friday and looked right at the five gang members who fired 11 bullets into the body of her 13-year-old daughter.

“You took my child and shot her like she was an animal!” she shouted, her words carrying the strain of the past three angry, painful years. “Your souls are going to hell.”

But as she spoke, two of the men laughed. Later, as convicted killer Deautri Denard stood to leave, he announced with a smirk, “Gangsterism continues,” and flashed the sign of the Eight-Trey Gangster Crips.

The five gang members left the courtroom shackled, each sentenced by Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor to two terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

All five had been convicted of first- and second-degree murder for killing Austin’s daughter, Jamee Finney, and another teen-age girl in a case of mistaken identity during a search for the sister of a man who had bilked them in a drug deal. They also were convicted of kidnaping for ransom and four were found guilty of raping another woman.

During the agonizing years of waiting for justice, Charlotte Austin became a symbol of courage and tenacity as she struggled to overcome despair in the face of a tragedy common in Los Angeles and other major U.S. cities.

Refusing to let her daughter’s death become lost in the court system, she kept vigil, “representing my baby” at every step of the trial. She persevered even while the defendants mouthed profanities at her and attorneys described her daughter’s violent death.

When she felt paralyzed by grief, Austin devoted her time after court hearings to counseling other victims and speaking to juveniles in detention halls who had committed crimes similar to the one that took her daughter’s life. Her works were chronicled in The Times and other local media, and she was recently featured on “60 Minutes.”

Her courtroom speech Friday was the conclusion of her relentless mission.

“I forgive you because you are stupid and you know not what you do,” she told the five gang members.

But their chilling response in the courtroom Friday also underscored the intractable nature of gang violence in Los Angeles. Two defendants stood to speak before sentencing, aiming their words at Austin.

“Me and my homeboys, we didn’t kill your daughter,” said Lyndell Jackson, smiling. “But me and my homeboys, we came out to stand trial.”

Denard turned to Austin, saying, “You don’t deserve no respect. All you did was come in here and instigate.”

A group of relatives and fellow gang members of the five sat behind Austin, her family and friends. One said, “Right on!” as Denard spoke.

Before handing down sentence on Denard, Connor described him as a “particularly cold, brutal, very cold man,” who “seems to have absolutely no remorse.” She said he had been disrespectful throughout the trial, “swaggering and smiling” at the victims’ families.

None of the five shows remorse, she said.

Ken Bell, a 22-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department gang unit who has worked the last six years as an investigator in the district attorney’s office, said the behavior of the defendants at their sentencing jolted his senses.

“I feel so devastated to see that at least the two individuals who spoke are so far from the spectrum of what human beings normally feel about remorse,” Bell said. “For the first time I believe that they truly bought into the subculture concepts that being a gangster and a life of crime is an acceptable way to live.”

“I know the gang problem is bad,” Bell said. “But today is the first time I really felt a deep pain for the level of life that a lot of young people in this city are in.”

Denard, 28; Dayon Lively, 24; John Porter, 27; Vincent Burks, 27, and Lyndell Jackson, 31, were arrested May 9, 1988.

Earlier that day the five had kidnaped a 20-year-old woman who was the go-between in a failed drug deal. Armed with assault rifles and handguns, four drove off in two cars searching for the drug dealer’s sister, who, they believed, was driving a red car.

Instead, they spotted the red Pontiac driven by Latonjyia (Nicki) Stover, 18, and Jamee, who were friends and neighbors and were driving home from a hamburger stand. They riddled the Pontiac with bullets, killing both girls.

Austin said Jamee’s hands, which she used to try to shield her face, were so shattered by gunfire that they were covered with gloves during the funeral.

The court proceedings and trial were marked by long continuances that dragged the case on for three years, during which Austin lost her job because of her resolve to be in court every day.

“The deceased is just a name, a picture,” Austin said. “I was a reminder to the jury that Jamee was a person. I knew I had a purpose and that was to represent my child.”

The most difficult day in court was when prosecutor Anne Ingalls brought in a life-size mannequin with 11 skewers through the body to show where Jamee had been shot.

“When I saw that doll with all those sticks through the arms and one clear through her head it was really hard,” Austin said. “But I kept on going. I couldn’t back down.”

Her routine for three years involved court attendance and work with a support group called Loved Ones of Homicide Victims. A year after the killings, she began speaking at the California Youth Authority’s Fred. C. Nelles facility, showing young offenders pictures of Jamee, trying to explain the wrenching loss of her daughter in the hope that other youngsters would steer away from crime.

Now she is apprehensive about her life ahead, her heart still singed by anger, hate and grief.

“I have spent so much time in court it’s like closing the book on this chapter,” she said. “But even after all this, there is still a void, a blank inside me.”

Her goal is to earn a bachelor’s degree in social behavior or sociology and to continue to work with juveniles. Her father died last year, leaving her a house that she hopes to turn into a “safe house” for youths who want to get out of gangs.

“On Jan. 31, I officially put my baby to rest,” Austin said. “She will no longer be a floating name in the court system. But my future is scary. Now I have to go on.”