Posted on: Saturday, March 26, 2005

Maui victim of gang killing 'like a little sister,' witness says

Associated Press

BOSTON — Ana White paused and looked away when a prosecutor showed her a photograph of Io Nachtwey, the friend she allegedly helped kill to send a message to other recruits in their fledgling gang.

"She was innocent," White testified yesterday. "She was like a little sister who just wanted to be around, who wanted to be grown up."

White befriended the former Maui woman in the Harvard Square "pit," a gathering spot for young runaways in front of the Harvard Square subway station, in late October 2001.

Days later, White and Lauren Alleyne, 21, held Nachtwey down as four men stabbed her to death and tossed her body into the Charles River on Nov. 3, 2001, prosecutors allege.

White and Alleyne, who were originally charged with murder, pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter and kidnapping in exchange for testifying against the other four suspects.

The trial broke for the weekend before White, now 21, could describe Nachtwey's murder. During her first hour of testimony, she explained how one of the accused murderers, 27-year-old Ismael Vasquez, recruited her to join his self-styled gang of "Crips."

"He was introducing it like (it was) a family, because the people in 'the pit' don't really have a family," White said.

But there were "consequences" for failing to follow orders, White testified.

White said Vasquez and Harold Parker, 31, told recruits they only had three strikes: A first strike would result in a 30-second "bounce," or beating. A second strike merited a minute-long bounce. A third strike meant death, White said.

Prosecutors claim Parker, Vasquez and his brother Luis Vasquez, 22, and Scott Davenport, 31, killed Nachtwey, a graduate of King Kekaulike High School who had dropped out of Maui Community College before moving to Boston, to warn recruits that disobedience wouldn't be tolerated.

Two weeks ago, one of the four defense attorneys told jurors that White and Alleyne could not be trusted to tell the truth.

"Ana White and Lauren Alleyne, who were Ms. Nachtwey's friends, led her to her death like a lamb to slaughter," said Jonathan Shapiro, Parker's attorney, in his opening statement.

White is scheduled to resume her testimony Monday. Alleyne hasn't taken the stand yet.