A violent death retold
Gang member describes in court how he helped to kill a friend, a suspected snitch.
By Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
September 6, 2010
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The young man, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and shackled at the waist, was poised on the witness stand, politely addressing attorneys as "sir" and "ma'am" as he matter-of-factly described the night he and other gang members took turns stabbing a suspected snitch 80 times in a cramped, cluttered garage.
"He didn't scream or nothing," testified Jose Covarrubias, now 24, describing how he plunged a folding blade hard into 21-year-old Christopher Ash's stomach four or five times as he lay dying on his back.
The testimony of the 204th Street gang member with a youthful face and buzz cut, also known as "Chano" or "Criminal," is at the center of a case on which a Los Angeles jury will resume deliberations Wednesday. Covarrubias' testimony in the high-profile hate crime trial, should the jury choose to believe it, ties the gang to Ash's death and to the slaying of a black 14-year-old girl, which authorities say was motivated by the Latino gang's racial hatred.
Covarrubias, who took the stand last month in exchange for a lighter sentence and escaping the death penalty, offered the jury a firsthand look into the inner workings of a powerful Latino street gang prosecutors said used fear and intimidation to reign over the sliver of Los Angeles known as the Harbor Gateway.
Part of that reign, Covarrubias' testimony showed, was an unsparing willingness to turn on the gang's own members when the occasion arose.
Gang members suspected Ash of talking to police about the killing of Cheryl Green two weeks earlier. His body was found on the side of a road in Carson. Autopsy photos showed numerous gashes in his stomach.
Cheryl was shot and killed in December 2006 while hanging out with friends in broad daylight because of her skin color, prosecutors allege. Jonathan Fajardo, 22, has admitted to the shooting in a police interview; his defense attorney disputes that the killing was motivated by race.
"Basically, we're against all black people," Covarrubias said of the gang.
Fajardo faces the death penalty if convicted of Cheryl's and Ash's killings. A second defendant, Daniel Aguilar, 23, is charged with Ash's murder for luring him to the garage and partaking in the beating and clean-up.
Because of his cooperation, Covarrubias will be allowed to plead to voluntary manslaughter and receive a 22-year prison term.
When police served a search warrant on Ash's apartment in the days after Green's death, the gang grew suspicious, Covarrubias said in his two-day testimony.
A week later, older gang members grilled the younger ones about whether anyone was snitching. Covarrubias testified that he, Aguilar and Ash were all under suspicion. Some mentioned that Ash may be keeping a journal about the gang's activities, and his fate was quickly sealed. It was agreed that Aguilar, Ash's best friend, would take him to the garage, Covarrubias testified.
An old-timer known as Raccoon, one of the gang's leaders, allegedly pulled Covarrubias aside.
"He just told me if I was either with — with them or against them, if I was down for it. And I told him, 'Yeah,' " he testified. "I had no other choice."
After he stabbed Ash, Covarrubias said, he was overcome by the blood and smell and threw up, dropping the knife. Another gang member grabbed the knife and continued stabbing, he said
As Ash lay still on the floor, Aguilar, who had been watching, kicked him in the legs, Covarrubias said.
The body was rolled up in a blanket and tarp, then loaded onto the back of a van. Everyone worked quietly and methodically, helping with the cleanup, at first hosing down the garage, then turning to paint thinner to scrub the floor when bloody water started running down the sidewalk.
In cross-examination, defense attorneys pointed to what they said were inconsistencies between Covarrubias' testimony and earlier statements to the police. He admitted under defense questioning that he was under the influence of methamphetamine the night of the killing.
Aguilar's defense attorney, Antonio Bestard, attacked Covarrubias' credibility, pointing out that he had been dating Ash's sister at the time of his killing.
"You participated in the murder of your girlfriend's brother, right?" Bestard questioned. "And right after that, you would go and then crawl into bed with her, right?"
"That's correct," he replied.
Covarrubias said he told police about the murder a few weeks later when he was pulled over on a bicycle and detectives started asking him about Ash's death.
"I'm like, man, he's telling me that my parents are a good family and everything, good and hard-working, and that's when I broke down and told him," he said. "I just couldn't hold it in no more."
Karen Blish, Ash's mother, recalled how many of the boys now accused of killing her son drank sodas out of her refrigerator and played video games in the family's second-floor apartment on 204th street. That apartment had been the gang's hangout before her family moved in because of the vantage point the balcony provided on the gang's territory, she said.
The family moved into the two-bedroom unit even though it had two bullet holes in the balcony because they were assured that gangs were gone from the neighborhood, recalled Blish, who has since moved to Texas but was called to testify in the case.
Blish disputed that her son was a gang member, saying he had no tattoos. She said he had just been friends with many of the 204th Street members since they were young.
In a tearful testimony, Blish recounted the night Aguilar came to pick up her son, the night of his murder. She said she thought they were going over to a friend's house.
She gave her son a hug and kiss, then turned to Aguilar to give him a hug and kiss as well. As she pulled away, Aguilar hugged her tighter and quietly whispered, she recalled, sitting just a few feet away from the man now on trial for her son's killing.
"Everything is going to be OK," he told her before leading her son away to his death, she testified. "It's going to be OK."
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