Trial in ’93 Pasadena Triple Slaying Begins : Court: Three alleged gang members are accusing of shooting Halloween trick-or-treaters. Prosecutor weeps.

A prosecutor detailing the Halloween, 1993, shooting deaths of three Pasadena boys wept during his opening statement Tuesday, telling a rapt jury that just moments before the boys were gunned down by alleged gang members out to avenge a killing, the mother of two of the trick-or-treaters offered the trio a ride home.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Antony Myers told the jury that the boys declined the offer, telling their mother they would beat her home.

They didn’t. In remarks punctuated by the sobs of the boys’ family members, Myers pointed to each of the three defendants and said they were the reasons that Edgar Evans, 13, and Stephen Coats and Reggie Crawford, both 14, never made it home. Three other boys in the group were injured in the attack.

The defendants--Lorenzo Alex Newborn, 25, Karl Holmes, 20, and Herbert Charles McClain Jr., 26--have pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith.

If convicted, each could face the death penalty.

Two other defendants, Aurelius Bailey and Solomon Bowen, will be tried separately next month.

The murders served as a galvanizing force in Pasadena, leading to a greater awareness that urban dangers have not escaped that suburban community. The deaths also led to a communitywide response: the formation of the Coalition for a Nonviolent City, a grass-roots, anti-violence organization.

In their opening statements, defense attorneys said the prosecution case relies on the testimony of convicted felons, witnesses with faulty memories and people hoping to exchange testimony for reward money.

H. Elizabeth Harris, representing McClain, told the jury that she was reminded of one of her father’s sayings.

“When you lay down with the dogs, you come up with fleas,” Harris told the jury. “These people [have] got a bunch of itching going on.”

The prosecution contends that the three young victims died as a result of mistaken identity.

Myers told the jury that a fellow gang member of the defendants, 22-year-old Fernando Hodges, was killed earlier that same night, allegedly by a rival gang.

The three boys, dressed in bandannas and dark clothing, were heading home with their bags of candy after a friend’s Halloween party. The defendants assumed that the boys belonged to the rival gang, Myers said.

“As the boys reach the southeast corner of this yard, a voice comes from the bushes: ‘Now, Blood,’ ” Myers said.

“There is a hail of gunfire, a hail of bullets,” Myers said. “Stephen calls to his brother, ‘Kenny, ‘I’m hit.’ ”

Myers, pointing to color photographs of the bloody teen-agers’ bodies, told the jury that the photos show the result of the attack.

Harris implored the jury to keep an open mind during the testimony.

“No matter how thin the pancake there are two sides,” Harris told the jury. “And this story has two sides.”

Family members of the accused, sitting stoically in the courtroom, said outside court that while they grieve for the families of the slain boys, justice will not be served by their sons’ unjust convictions.

“I think it’s pitiful, it’s a shame,” said Doris Russell, McClain’s mother. “None of these young men had [anything] to do with it.

“These are just the boys they chose to blame,” she said.

The case against the alleged gang members raised controversy long before Tuesday. Calling the gang small, extremely violent and likely to intimidate witnesses in the community, prosecutors said they were forced to take steps to safeguard those testifying.

Instead of a preliminary hearing with witnesses testifying in open court, Myers used a closed grand jury session. Transcripts of the session were sealed from the public and, originally, the names of witnesses were withheld from defense attorneys, in spite of their protests.

Defense attorneys have claimed that their clients have long been singled out for police harassment.