5 Charged in Killing of 3 Boys on Halloween

Five members of a Pasadena gang were charged with murder Thursday, accused of killing three innocent teen-agers Halloween night because a member of the suspects’ gang had been shot earlier that night.

Three of the accused, all adults, were in custody Thursday. Two other adults remained at large.

The deaths of 13-year-old Edgar Evans and 14-year-olds Stephen Coats and Reggie Crawford outraged residents and prompted creation of a Pasadena police task force that pinpointed the suspects after 52 days of investigative work.

Investigators said they identified the five after analyzing bits and pieces of information from anonymous sources, community members and rival gang members.

Police believe the three victims may have been attacked because their dark clothes made them appear to be gang members and they were within 20 feet of a known gang member’s house. Or the gunmen simply may have become frustrated in their futile search for rival gang members, Detective Mike Korpal said.

“Three of our community’s most promising were killed by our community’s most lost,” said Pasadena Police Chief Jerry Oliver in a midday news conference Thursday at police headquarters.

All five suspects belonged to the P-9s, a gang known for its violence. The gang was enraged because one of its members, Fernando Hodges, 22, had been shot earlier Halloween night by rival gang members, Korpal said. Hodges died the next day.

About 20 members of the Pasadena gang assembled, then cruised the residential streets of central Pasadena in a caravan of at least four cars, searching for rival gang members to shoot, Korpal said. The gunmen parked their cars and hid in bushes in front of a house, jumping up to spray the boys with bullets as they approached on the sidewalk.

Though the boys on the sidewalk, none of them much over five feet tall, looked like a group of children, Korpal said, the gang members “were looking for somebody to attack.”

Oliver identified the suspects in custody as Aurelius Bailey, 19, of Pasadena, arrested early Thursday morning; Lorenzo Newborn, 23, of Los Angeles, already in custody on other charges, and Karl Holmes, 19, of Altadena, who surrendered to police at the station while the news conference was being held on the floor above.

Still being sought were Solomon Bowen, 22, of Pasadena, and Herbert McClain, 25, believed to be in Michigan, Mississippi or Missouri. Oliver said Pasadena police have contacted the FBI for help in finding McClain.

Murder charges were filed in Pasadena Municipal Court against all five suspects, said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who was at the news conference. Special charges involving the use of a firearm also were filed to permit the district attorney’s office to seek the death penalty or life without possibility of parole for all five, Garcetti said.

“For those who continue to feel the fear, the fear of random violence, we are there,” Garcetti said. “We are doing something about it.”

Deborah Coats, the mother of victim Stephen Coats, said news of the arrests put her “totally in shock” Thursday morning. Coats, whose house is only a block from the murder scene in the 500 block of North Wilson Avenue, said she saw her son only minutes before he was shot. She passed him in her car as she was driving home that night.

Stephen Coats and his younger brother, Kenneth, 13, were among 10 boys returning home about 10:30 p.m. after an adult-chaperoned Halloween party. Coats said she ran out to the street after hearing shots and found the children on the ground.

Kenneth Coats escaped injury.

“We suffered a lot that night,” Deborah Coats said.

Thursday, she said her children reacted with joy after learning that suspects in their brother’s killing had been arrested.

“That’s the look I’ve been waiting to see,” Coats said.

Florence Crawford, the mother of victim Reggie Crawford, said, “There is no amount of gratitude that we can give” when she learned about the arrests Thursday.

Announcement of the arrests followed a 2:30 a.m. raid by about 40 Pasadena police officers, Korpal said. Two houses in Pasadena and one in Altadena were searched. Evidence seized included a gray Ford Tempo.

Korpal said other gang members who participated in the street cruising that night are still being sought. Police have descriptions of at least four other cars, he said.

The case was particularly difficult for detectives to solve because leads and information were slow in coming, police said.

Despite a $40,000 reward fund, $8,000 contributed by Gannett Outdoor for bus shelter posters advertising the reward and $12,000 spent by Crown Cable on public service announcements, police said they went for weeks without enough evidence to point to a suspect.

Outrage at the killings prompted more than 80 Pasadena activists to create the Coalition for a Non-Violent Pasadena, a group dedicated to improving educational and recreational opportunities for youths and to lobbying for gun-control legislation.

Last week, after coalition members appeared before the City Council, the council agreed to request an opinion from the state attorney general’s office on whether state law allows Pasadena to ban the sale of handgun ammunition within city limits. The idea for the ban came from Oliver.

The council also agreed to inform congressional representatives of Pasadena’s opposition to the production and possession of weapons and to petition state and federal officials for gun control legislation.