3 Young Murder Witnesses Learn the Price of Courage : Violence: They helped convict a killer when a friend was slain before he could testify. But now they live in fear.

They stay home most afternoons and evenings, peering out uneasily from behind locked metal doors. The sound of a car backfiring makes them jump. They never approach a street corner without warily scanning all directions to make sure it is safe to go on.

They are three brave boys--two of them 14, the other 16--whose young lives have been forever changed by the murder of a buddy who, with them, had witnessed a drive-by killing in Pomona.

Eduardo Samaniego, 14, a Little Leaguer, was gunned down in an alley near his Pomona home last Aug. 17--only a week before he and his three friends were scheduled to testify in the murder trial of the alleged triggerman in the drive-by shooting.

Eduardo’s death prompted criticism of authorities for failing to protect their witness, the apparent victim of a gang effort to keep him off the stand. His tragic end also brought media attention, a $15-million lawsuit and panic to his three friends, who feared they would be targeted next.

Yet despite those fears, the boys testified last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. Their words helped secure the murder conviction Wednesday of Arthur Melendrez, 22, a gang member from Chino, in the Nov. 10, 1991, shooting death of rival gang member Luis Lopez, 15.

“I just think they’re incredible kids,” the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Teri Schwartz, said of the three boys, who along with Eduardo, had testified during a preliminary hearing.

Although many of the witnesses called to testify in gang-related criminal prosecutions are young, very few have had to fear for their lives, Schwartz said.

“They just really wanted to do the right thing and not let Eduardo die in vain. I think they’re heroes,”

But two of the boys, who asked that their names not be given, said fear still haunts them and they feel more like fools than heroes.

Before the shootings, they lived like most adolescent boys, freely roaming their neighborhood, stopping by friends’ houses, just hanging out for informal games of football or baseball. Now, like prisoners, they stay cooped up at home, glued to their schoolbooks or television.

“I think they’ll probably do something else, or try to come after me,” the 16-year-old said as he sat by his front window with a shotgun beside him and picked nervously at his sweat pants with a pen. “I try to forget and I try to forget, but I can’t forget.”

“Sometimes I don’t think about it,” one of the 14-year-olds said softly as he sat in his family home, the curtains tightly closed. “But then I see something about gangs on the news and I remember what happened . . . I see Luis (Lopez) lying on the ground with his brains lying outside his head.”

Luis Lopez, Eduardo Samaniego and the three boys grew up together in a racially mixed neighborhood in north Pomona that includes gang members and churchgoing boys like Eduardo. Although Luis, a gang member, did not fit in with the other four sports-minded and trouble-free boys, he was still considered a friend worth counseling, the 16-year-old said.

“I used to tell him that he would regret it,” the boy said of Luis’ gang membership. “I told him it was wrong.”

On Nov. 10, 1991, there was a burst of gunfire after Luis identified himself as a gang member to two youths in a car cruising past on Vassar Street. In all, police said, 16 slugs from a .30-caliber, semiautomatic rifle were fired.

Eduardo and the three boys, who had been tossing a football in Eduardo’s front yard, dodged stray bullets. But three slugs slammed into Luis, killing him.

The four youthful witnesses got a good look at Melendrez. A few weeks later, during a preliminary hearing in Pomona Superior Court, they all were able to identify him as the gunman.

Nearly a year later, as Eduardo was preparing to testify in Melendrez’s murder trial, a youth came to his house at about 10:30 a.m., summoning him outside. Eduardo left with him voluntarily. An hour later he was found shot and bleeding from the neck in an alley about six blocks from his home. He died the next day.

Patrick Contreras, 17, of Pomona, who belonged to the same gang as Melendrez, was subsequently arrested and he will stand trial later this year.

Meanwhile, the Samaniego family has filed a $15-million lawsuit against the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the Pomona Police Department. They allege that both agencies fatally downplayed the dangers Eduardo faced.

Police have said that they simply do not have the manpower to provide 24-hour witness protection and that such protection is normally provided through the district attorney. A district attorney’s spokesman said requests for such protection must be initiated by police.

The 14-year-old witness recalled that he at first did not believe the detectives who came to his house with news of Eduardo’s death. Not until he read newspaper accounts did reality hit him, hard.

“Eduardo was a good friend,” the boy said quietly. “I wanted to cry, but I just held back.”

After Eduardo’s death, the boy said he would walk down school corridors and imagine he saw Melendrez coming toward him. He told none of his friends that he had testified at the preliminary hearing.

“I was too scared to tell anybody,” the boy explained. “I was afraid the same thing that happened to Eduardo might happen to me.”

The 16-year-old also said he kept quiet and told none of his friends. Instead, he worried.

“I just thought about it every day,” he said. “I didn’t want to come out or nothing. They knew who Eduardo was, so I guess they knew who I was,” he said of gang members.

Police cars appeared regularly in his neighborhood just after Eduardo’s death, but the patrols stopped after a few days, the youth said.

All three boys told detectives and the prosecutor that they would not testify in further proceedings. But when the Melendrez trial, delayed after Eduardo’s death, finally got under way, they changed their minds.

“I did it for Eduardo,” said the 16-year-old. “We were good friends. If it had been me, he would have done the same thing for me.”

Jurors, who were read Eduardo’s preliminary hearing testimony, but were not told of his fate, said they began to think something was terribly amiss when the other boys took the stand.

“It was a year and a half later and they were still so nervous,” one juror said.

Added another: “They did a good thing. I give them an awful lot of credit and hope they’ll be OK.”

On April 16, Melendrez is scheduled to be sentenced, and could face 35 years in state prison.

But no matter what happens to Melendrez, the boys said they will never be the same. They looked away and were silent when asked when their lives--basically spent going to school or hanging out in their neighborhood, tossing a ball around--will return to normal.

The 16-year-old said he seldom ventures out, except in the family car with his mother and father. Occasionally, he will leave the house and walk as far as the corner, but no farther.

The 14-year-old said some nights he awakens in fear, startled by sound of the family cat jumping to a windowsill.

“I’m still scared (Melendrez) might have told somebody how to get us,” he said. “Luis I understand dying. But I just don’t understand why Eduardo had to die for that.”