From Witness to Victim : Crime: A cocaine dealer's murder conviction came only after the slayings of two women who agreed to testify against him. Their deaths illustrate the difficulty of protecting witnesses.

By EFRAIN HERNANDEZ JR

May 30, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Cocaine dealer Charles Lafayette’s recent conviction in the killing of customer Willie T. Bogan left police investigators soberly remembering the two women who had agreed to testify against Lafayette.

Gloria Lyons and Georgia Denise Jones are both dead--shot in separate attacks in South-Central Los Angeles, allegedly by Lafayette’s gang buddies as pay-back for being “snitches.”

Their deaths serve as grim reminders of the ongoing difficulty police and prosecutors face in keeping witnesses safe from street violence.

Jones’ death in particular touched Lafayette’s prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jennifer Lentz.

“She is an example of the greatest failure of the system: to [not] protect someone who came forward to testify,” Lentz said. “We told her we’d try to protect her. We failed.”

The violence began about 10:30 p.m. on March 4, 1993, when Jones, a drug addict known on the street as “Neecee,” took Bogan to buy cocaine from Lafayette, then 17, in the part of South-Central Los Angeles where she spent virtually all her time.

Bogan, 42, drunk and already buzzing from cocaine and PCP, had been walking near Manchester and Wadsworth avenues with Gloria Lyons, who knew Jones from the neighborhood. Lyons lingered behind as Bogan spoke to Lafayette.

Almost immediately Bogan and Lafayette began arguing about a $5 nugget of rock cocaine, a sliver one-third the size of a thumbtack. Moments later, Bogan’s bullet-riddled body lay dead in an alley. Both Lyons, 31, and Jones, 33, saw the killing.

Investigators persuaded the women to testify in court against Lafayette, even though their agreement made them vulnerable to retribution, even with the suspect in custody.

Jones accepted witness relocation assistance from the district attorney’s office and stayed away from the neighborhood temporarily. Lyons declined it, moving in with relatives instead.

It didn’t matter.

On April 3, 1994, Lyons was shot in the head near 88th Street and Central Avenue, a few blocks from where Bogan was murdered. She had yet to testify.

Two months later, Jones--who had testified days earlier at Lafayette’s first trial, which resulted in a hung jury--was shot repeatedly in the head and upper body at 87th Place and Wadsworth Avenue.

“Nobody deserves to die like that,” prosecutor Lentz said. “You have to take into consideration the vast network that gangsters have. We face tremendous odds.”

Jones’ alleged killer--Rico Wilson, 21, a known gang member--is in custody awaiting trial. Lyons’ killer remains at large.

Several officials said the case provides graphic evidence that the battle against witness intimidation and attacks requires an infusion of new rules.

The Los Angeles Police Department is essentially limited to moving witnesses and their families away from the place where they may be in danger. There are no new names or jobs provided for witnesses, as is the case in the federal witness protection program.

The district attorney’s witness relocation program follows strict criteria for determining who qualifies as being in danger. For the most part, it will pay first and last month’s rent on a new apartment in a safer area.

Officials with the district attorney’s office and the Police Department said statistics were not kept on how many witnesses were killed in recent years in Los Angeles. One reason, officials said, was that many potential witnesses--including Lyons and Jones, both drug abusers--live surrounded by illicit activities and gangs, so the reason for their deaths often cannot be precisely linked to their roles as witnesses.

The only good to come from the Lafayette case, officials said, was that a terrified Neecee Jones testified during Lafayette’s first trial, and that her testimony was read in court to a new jury earlier this month during the second Lafayette trial.

Lentz and other officials said they felt somewhat responsible for Jones’ death, but they also blamed her and Lyons for returning to a neighborhood where they knew their lives would be in jeopardy.

The women had longstanding personal ties to South-Central, but they could have picked up their lives somewhere else much more easily than someone who owned a home or a business in the area, authorities said.

Superior Court Judge J. D. Smith, who handled the Lafayette case, said he warned Jones about the risks related to appearing in court.

“I had spoken to her and told her not to go back to her neighborhood,” Smith said. “She went back and made an easy target for them. At least change your corner. You can’t just go back.”

Lentz and Detective Rosemary Sanchez, one of the homicide officers investigating the three killings, said Jones spotted her killer as she stood by 87th Place and Wadsworth Avenue shortly before 11:30 a.m. last June 13.

“She screamed, ‘Oh my God!’ ” Lentz said. “She died on the corner.”

Because of the violence already demonstrated by the Bogan, Lyons and Jones killings, the identities of several witnesses in the murder case against Jones’ alleged killer are being kept confidential by court order.

In the year between mid-1993 and mid-1994, the district attorney’s office provided relocation funds to witnesses or victims in 142 cases. The average amount authorized per case was $1,345, with the year’s total at nearly $191,000.

Lt. Sergio A. Robleto, homicide commander of the LAPD’s South Bureau, which routinely records the city’s highest homicide rate, said 39 families from South Bureau neighborhoods were moved out of dangerous areas for safety reasons last year. More than 300 murder suspects were arrested, he said.

“I’m not trying to terrify the community. But there are a few groups out there that are quite capable of going to this extremely violent point,” Robleto said. “I generally believe that 95% of these cases will never result in any retribution, but 5% is a hell of a lot.”

Robleto said efforts to protect witnesses may be improved if legislators and other decision-makers become more aware of the details behind some cases.

“Our goal is to do all we can to make sure people are safeguarded,” he said. “But why the heck should a good person have to leave the neighborhood? There’s just a tremendous injustice there.”

Judge Smith, who became a jurist 14 years ago after serving 25 years with the LAPD in various positions including detective, said that while Lafayette faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced June 6, those convicted of killing witnesses should face the death penalty.

In addition, anyone convicted of helping to kill a witness should face the same punishment as anyone convicted of carrying out the murder, Smith said.

“You have to deter them from even thinking about it,” he said. “If it costs money then so be it. You can’t let a murderer go free because of dollars.”

In March, FBI and LAPD officials announced the formation of a joint task force to investigate more than 1,000 unsolved murders in South-Central Los Angeles.

Some officials said the unsolved murders indicate that hundreds of gangsters are getting away with killing, at least temporarily.

Sanchez, for one, fully understands that residents in some city neighborhoods face a serious threat if they cooperate with police.

Recently, while Sanchez and Robleto were visiting a murder scene, they responded to a radio call regarding a potential witness in a separate case, in which a home on 102nd Street and car were shot at by two unknown gunmen.

The stunned witness was escorted by police to another location, where she stayed with relatives rather than accept police relocation.

“You have to remember that if your witnesses and your suspects are from the same area then they’re going to know each other,” Sanchez said. “The witnesses are afraid to get involved.”