Slain Teen Buried; Suspect Found

On the same wet, gray Saturday afternoon when a community came out to bury high school senior Corie Williams, police announced the out-of-state apprehension of her 16-year-old suspected killer.

The teenager, who allegedly shot into the bus the 17-year-old girl was riding home from school in an attempt to hit a gang rival on board, was in custody at an undisclosed location, leaving only one of the six suspects--Wilbert Eric Pugh--still at large.

Police say Pugh, 20, instigated the Jan. 16 confrontation at Avalon Boulevard and Imperial Highway when he boarded the bus, exchanged gang signs with a rival sitting in the rear, then exited before the shooting began.

Three juveniles and one adult were arrested last week on suspicion of murder and attempted murder for their alleged roles in planning and assisting in the South-Central Los Angeles attack that killed Corie and wounded Tammi Freeman, her 18-year-old friend.

Inside Grant African Methodist Episcopal Church, where Corie’s gleaming white casket matched the white graduation gown in which she was laid to rest, the Rev. Leslie R. White asked a church packed with more than 500 mourners not to focus on her death, but on her life.

“We have gathered to bid farewell to someone who was consumed by the violence and misery around her, but not consumed by violence and misery within her,� White said of the hard-working student, who died with the order form for her graduation clothes in her pocket. “Those who may have lost hope because of this event need to remember that there are more Cories in this world than there are gang shooters.�

Row after row of classmates, teachers, neighbors and elected officials waited in long lines for their chance to speak about the young woman who hoped to attend college next year. Board members of the Compton Unified School District and the Compton Community Colleges received both thunderous applause and audible sobs from Corie’s family when they bestowed upon her her honorary, posthumous diplomas.

Among the words read aloud were some of Corie’s own, from an essay she wrote in December, read by a teacher from Centennial High School.

“We must all work together, love one another and keep hope alive,� Corie wrote. “If we don’t have hope in this world, who will?�

Meanwhile, Lt. John Dunkin, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau homicide unit, said the 16-year-old shooting suspect was arrested at 1 a.m. along with an adult who accompanied him out of state and who faces charges of aiding and abetting a fugitive.

Although police took the unusual step of releasing the boy’s name in an attempt to gain the public’s help in finding him, The Times generally does not print the names of juvenile suspects until they are charged with a serious crime for which they can be tried as adults.

Dunkin would not release any details about the events that led to the boy’s arrest other than to say that police acted on information gathered from local, state and federal officials. The evidence has made police more certain that the 16-year-old was the shooter, he added.

“There is no question about what his involvement is,� Dunkin said. “It’s beyond doubt now.�

Police also continue to receive information on the whereabouts of Pugh, he said.

At Corie’s funeral, as members of the community offered words of support and read poems about the girl, her mother, Loretta Thomas-Davis, kept her eyes down, staring at the floor. Sitting beside her husband and three other children, she cried quietly and tried to avoid looking at the casket in front of her.

After the funeral, when the casket’s lid was raised and the congregation filed past for a parting view of her daughter, Thomas-Davis shielded herself from supporters and her child by asking a row of church ushers to stand between her and the aisle.

Thomas-Davis waited until everyone else had paid their final respects and the pallbearers had wheeled the casket directly in front of her row. Then she stood and, with tears rolling down her cheeks and her husband holding on to her for support, she leaned over, whispered something and smoothed her daughter’s silky dark brown hair one last time.