The Valley of the Shadow of Death

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  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  Prelude

  1. An Empty House

  2. There Were No Strangers

  3. From Jim Crow to Mudtown

  4. Charcoal Alley

  5. Mama, Go Get ’Em

  6. Our Family Isn’t Like That

  7. The Hundred-Year Drive

  8. I Need to Go to the Hospital

  9. The Lost Litter

  10. Black Tommy, Sweet Daddy

  11. Eternal Rest Grant unto Them

  12. Alone

  13. The Mayor Wants to See You

  14. I’m Afraid He’ll Turn into One

  15. An Epidemic of Violence

  16. Hyde Park

  17. Gladiators, Panthers, and Tales from the Crypt

  18. Little Cat Man

  19. He Took a Wrong Turn

  20. It Went to My Heart

  21. The Third Man Faces Death

  22. Horace vs. Horse

  23. Nothin’ about Nothin’

  24. Kill Them All

  25. Do You Know Who That Is?

  26. Autumn in Watts

  27. Born of the South

  28. So Drive

  29. Don’t Cry

  30. Let Him Die on the Rocks

  31. The Gray Goose to the AC

  32. An American Tragedy

  33. To Reign in Hell

  34. I Cannot Forgive the Choice

  35. The Dream

  36. A Superhero

  37. The Wilderness

  38. The Land of High Mountains

  39. We Can’t Do This

  40. We Take Them All

  41. News That Demands a Chair

  42. Thirty Years After

  43. A Full House

  Acknowledgments

  About Kermit Alexander, Alex Gerould and Jeff Snipes

  Notes on Sources

  Bibliography

  Index

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Ebora; my sister, Dietra; and my nephews, Damon and Damani.

  Psalm 23

  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.

  He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  My name is Kermit Alexander, and this is my life story. The events in this book are based upon my own recollections. As to episodes for which I was not personally present, the narrative relies upon discussions with other family members, interviews with law enforcement and prison personnel, the newspaper coverage of the case, trial transcripts and legal documents, as well as the historical record. Source references are included at the back of the book.

  PRELUDE

  THE INCIDENT THAT gave rise to the events set forth in this book took place on the evening of October 4, 1983, in a now-defunct nightclub on the corner of Vermont and Gage in South Central Los Angeles. A young woman was dancing inside the tavern when a fight broke out involving fists, knives, furniture, and a .38-caliber revolver. After the altercation the young woman lay paralyzed. It was her twenty-first birthday. The events launched by this incident would devastate a family, haunt the community, and find their way to the heart of California’s death penalty wars three decades later.

  1

  AN EMPTY HOUSE

  IT IS ONE month since my family was massacred inside their home. The quadruple homicide remains unsolved. The police have no suspects.

  Last week, the landlord told me to clean out the house. He wants to rent it as soon as possible. So along with movers and a cleaning crew, I return to the scene, 126 West Fifty-Ninth Street in South Central Los Angeles.

  No one else in the family could bear to join me. It is the first time I have been back since my mother, sister, and two nephews were killed.

  It is a hot September afternoon, the Santa Ana winds driving the desert air off the Mojave and into the valley.

  As I walk the pathway to the one-story bungalow, the lawn on either side is scorched. My mother would have been ashamed.

  Instinctively I pat my hip. Reassured that the pistol is secure at my side, I continue up the walkway.

  Overhead, tall palms rustle in the dry wind.

  I take the two broad stairs onto the porch, where I am met with more signs of disorder, as dirt, dead leaves, and uncollected papers litter the entryway.

  I am already sweating. I exhale, brace myself, and open the front door into the living room. It stands frozen at 8 a.m. on August 31, 1984. The TV with outstretched rabbit-ear antennas still sits in the corner. Trophies crowd the mantel. Only the plants show the effects of time, the greenery by the front window dried and wilted, the poinsettia on the coffee table dead.

  I direct the movers, and continue into the dining room.

  It too remains unchanged. A white lace tablecloth lies undisturbed. Place mats, salt and pepper shakers, and a bottle of hot sauce stand in place, awaiting the next meal. A pair of reading glasses sits atop a stack of unopened mail. All the signs of everyday life are intact. I wait for family members to come rushing in at any moment, to restore the house to its rightful din. I listen, but only the shuffling of the movers breaks the silence.

  On a credenza, beneath the dishware, rows of family photos line a shelf, graduations, football games, proms, weddings, reunions, and picnics. I stare at the pictures of brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, grandchildren, grandchildren, my freshman picture with the UCLA Bruins, my rookie shot with the 49ers, another on the Rams, more grandchildren. The photos are stacked as thickly as LPs in a record store.

  Finally I look away, break the trance. For the first time I notice how hot it is inside. I open a window.

  I start boxing the photos.

  In the breeze a tiny felt Santa dangles from the chandelier above the dining room table, a fugitive from last year’s holidays. I reach up, remove it, and toss it into a box, then head for the kitchen.

  Nothing in either the living or dining room hints at what occurred. The killers walked through both rooms, but left no trace.

  The kitchen is a different matter. Though previously cleaned of blood, the smell lingers in the heat. Gnats swarm the spot where my mother was slain.

  I push open more windows to drive away the stench.

  I pat the weapon at my side.

  In the kitchen, a kettle of burned beans remains on the stove. A half-finished cup of coffee sits upon the counter. An overturned frying pan lies on the floor. Bullet holes riddle the east wall.

  After clearing the kitchen, I move on to the front bedroom. It defies house norms. Even my mother, with her iron rules of order, was no match for her visiting grandsons. Heaps of clothes bury the furniture. Boyish clutter squeezes the room small. Fingerprint powder coats smooth surfaces. Gnats cluster to the kill sites where my sister and nephews slept.

  I direct the movers to pack the room,
then head to the rear of the house. I pass by the back door where the killers fled.

  I put off the rear bedroom closet until last. As I remove the clothes, I try, but fail, to block out my nephew’s nightmare. The boy had saved his life by hiding in the closet, as the sound of gunfire, screams, and shattered glass tore through the house.

  Otherwise, the room is untouched. The beds lie unmade. A desk is covered with books. Against the wall sits a couch with one arm singed by fire.

  Now, as the movers pack the final pieces of furniture into the truck, I watch the house empty. The absence of long-familiar items drives home the finality. Gone are my mother’s clothes laid out for the day ahead, her favorite armchair, the crucifix and rosary that hung above her bed, the couch where siblings once elbowed for space.

  After the movers finish, I conduct a final walk-through.

  The cleaning crew then goes to work, erasing all signs of crime. Soon the home will be ready for its new tenants. For the first time in seventeen years it stands bare.

  My mother’s familiar refrain rattles about my head.

  Forever surrounded by a large family and constant company, she would always say, “There’s nothing worse than an empty house.”

  For the moment, and for the first time in weeks, sorrow has drowned out rage. But I feel it stirring, clawing for release. With the house packed, the hunt can continue.

  As we load the final boxes into the truck, I grab the one with the family photographs and place it in my car. I turn the ignition, but cannot make myself drive.

  Before me, the movers’ truck pulls away. Still I sit. I unroll the window. With a nervous tic I again feel for the gun.

  From above, the palms shake in a harsh gust of desert air. A frond falls to the side of my car.

  Still unable to drive, I begin rummaging through the box of pictures.

  From inside the house the cleaning equipment hums and whirs, to my left, the sound of a passing car, then another. Across the street a man grabs a hose and waters his lawn. The wind drives the hundred-degree heat into my face. A plane drones overhead.

  I am alone. The movers and cleaners are just doing their job. The cars, the man, the plane, all indifferent.

  I pull out a photo of each of the departed and place them on the passenger seat beside me. My mother, just short of her sixtieth birthday, smiles from behind big round glasses. Her name is Ebora, but we all call her Madee (pronounced muh-DEE), short for mother dear. She wears a powder-blue dress and matching earrings, the colors of my alma mater, the University of California, Los Angeles. My youngest sister, Dietra, “the baby,” is twenty-four years old and awaits her wedding day. My nephews, Damani, thirteen, and Damon, eight, grin from school yearbook pictures.

  I cannot stop staring at the photos.

  The car motor continues to run.

  They are the last pictures taken of them in life, a portal to the other side, my window into their final hours.

  I want to drive, floor the car, get as far away from that house as possible. But I just sit there, immobilized.

  To leave is to concede defeat.

  Over and over, I replay that morning, hoping somehow to will a new outcome, desperately trying to unwind time.

  I dwell on that date. I curse it. August 31, 1984. The day the light went out of my life.

  2

  THERE WERE NO STRANGERS

  ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1984, as she did every morning, Madee arose by five. She got into her bathrobe and slippers, put on her glasses, and made her way across the dark hallway. In the kitchen she turned on the lights and began making a pot of coffee.

  She then walked through her dining room and living room to the entrance, opened the front door, and collected her morning paper.

  As always, she swept the low, wide stairs and front porch.

  Ritual and routine were important; cleanliness and appearance vital. She was proud of her home and things had to be just so.

  Next she watered the flowers and plants surrounding the porch. The stream from the hose gleamed silver beneath the streetlamp.

  With daybreak still an hour away, it already felt hot. The last day of August would be another scorcher in South Central, with the temperature once again hitting one hundred. As she reentered, she left the front door open to cool the house. The screen door rattled closed behind her. She left it unlocked.

  Madee’s home at 126 West Fifty-Ninth Street was known to all as an open house, where family, neighbors, and local kids were always welcome. She loved to play the hostess, and her home represented a community resource, a sanctuary where the residents of South Central could gather informally, and talk about family, the church, local politics, or neighborhood goings-on. At Madee’s it was always “community time,” a place where the private and public were one, where the word stranger was unknown, and the word family meant everyone who walked in the door. As usual she expected people to come and go throughout the day. Madee had raised eleven children. She liked it best when the house was full.

  Lately, however, many of us had quarreled with her over the house. We stressed that the neighborhood had changed. East-side problems kept creeping west. She’d been there seventeen years. It was time to move on, somewhere nice, farther west, like Ladera Heights.

  She would listen and tell us that she’d think about it. But we all knew she was in no rush. I’d even gone so far as to make a down payment on a house in a better part of town. But even that didn’t convince her. Yes, she admitted she’d seen changes over the years. Her neighborhood of Florence had become blacker, poorer, and though she tried not to think about it, more dangerous. Gunshots and drive-bys were frequent, the police helicopter a constant. Just over a year ago, Madee herself was mugged, her purse ripped from her hands.

  But despite the encroaching disorder, she remained. The robbery was a fluke, she insisted. The media exaggerated the decline. She resented her community being labeled “a ghetto.” A tour of her neighborhood revealed mostly good people going about their lives, caring for their properties. Certainly it bore no resemblance to the burned-out Bronx, or Chicago’s high-rise hells. It was mostly single-family bungalows, small yards, and palm-lined streets.

  Now, in the early morning, as she made her way onto the porch and looked about at her plants and yard, the thought of leaving made her sad. She was loyal to her home and neighborhood, and she felt a sense of duty. She provided a service. She reached out to the community and literally brought it into her home. She was doing God’s work, playing a part in His plan. She brought stability. She was one of the few remaining role models. Why should the good people, like her, move—forfeit what they had worked for, dreamed of—and abandon the neighborhood?

  She wanted the community to “stick together,” and she wasn’t going to be the one to leave the kids behind. “If I left,” she asked, “then who would give them hugs and make them peanut butter sandwiches?” She always said that little acts made for big differences: hug a kid, save a block, then a neighborhood, and so on. And no one could deny it, she had presence, a way about her that made kids listen.

  And besides, Madee was tough. She had survived eleven childbirths, eleven children, Jim Crow segregation, a cross-country migration, a marital split, public housing, and the Watts Riots. Surely another tough neighborhood was just another hurdle, another one of His tests. And as always she would pass, she would muscle through. We all told her she was stubborn, but she just took it as a compliment. There was nothing wrong with a little stubbornness, she’d say; it showed heart, it helped you hold on. And besides, it was her home, she liked it, and she did not feel like moving. And that was that, she harrumphed to herself as she walked from the porch back into the house.

  As she returned to her kitchen, carrying the morning paper, she passed the front bedroom where my sister Dietra slept. She would soon move out of the house for the first time, following her upcoming wedding. My nephews Damani and Damon also slept in the bedroom. Damani, as he did every year, came south from the San Francisco
Bay Area to spend the summer with his grandmother, while Damon, an L.A. native, was visiting for the weekend. Both boys would return to school following Labor Day. Madee would miss them. She said the kids “made it a true home again.”

  In the kitchen she poured her first cup of coffee and made some toast. She then put a kettle of beans on the stove to simmer. They took hours to cook. She planned to serve them for dinner. Madee’s red beans and rice were legendary.

  The house was quiet save for the hum of the Harbor Freeway to the west. In the back bedroom two other family members slept: my brother, Neal, thirty-three, and nephew Ivan, fourteen. Madee knew she would be the only one awake for hours to come. She enjoyed this predawn solitude; it gave her time to reflect, plan her day, and prepare for all the activity soon to come.

  As she sipped her coffee, she reflected on another fulfilling week at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she worked in food services, always arriving an hour early to pray in the chapel. She also looked forward to her upcoming activities at the nearby St. Columbkille Catholic Church. Madee sewed and ironed the vestments for the clergy, helped the parish principal manage the children, and then let loose with multiple rounds of bingo.

  But as she pondered her pleasant week, she wasn’t able to shake a negative feeling that continued to intrude. The previous evening when my sister Daphine dropped off her boys, Damon and Ivan, she told Madee that lately Damon seemed troubled and insecure. She said he would follow her around the house, refusing to be out of her presence. He had requested that she read him reassuring Bible stories, and even mused as to what a wonderful place Heaven must be. He cried uncharacteristically and insisted on sleeping in his mother’s bed. When asked what was wrong, he was unable to say, simply answering with an unconvincing “nothing.”

  Madee had tried to push the thoughts aside. Like most childhood fears, she would have assured herself, Damon’s insecurities would soon pass. The cause was probably just sadness over summer’s end, anxiety over entering a new grade.