Victim: Kimberly Rae Harbour, 26
Age at time of murder: 15
Crime location: Boston
Crime date: October 31, 1990
Killers: Anthony Ayala, 15, Carlos Garcia, 18, Che Barnes, 17, Corey James, 19, David Sampson, 16, Ezekiel Hogan, 15, Michael Williams, 16, & Terrance Wade, 15
Crimes: Kidnapping, gang-rape, armed robbery & murder
Murder method: 132 stab wounds, at least eighteen blunt-force injuries, & excessive bleeding
Summary
The gang attacked Kimberly and her friend, kidnapped Kimberly, took her to a ditch, ripped off her clothing and gang-raped her. They killed the young mother, inflicting 132 stab wounds and 18 blunt force injuries. The killers got varying sentences, some of which were reduced after a 2013 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision banning juvenile life without parole (LWOP).
Details
Boston Teen-Ager Gives Motive for a Rape and a Slaying: Boredom
May 27, 1991
The suspects’ accounts of the slaying of Kimberly Rae Harbour seem as senseless as the crime itself: Several members of a street gang set out to look for a party on Halloween night but instead ended up beating, raping and stabbing a woman 132 times before leaving her in a field to die.
The motive, one of them told the police, was boredom.
“There was nothing to do, and so I guess we had the impression of going out to the field and kill somebody,” Terrance Wade, 15 years old, told the police in a statement taped shortly after his arrest on Nov. 19, 1990, and made public in the last few days.
In a separate statement, another defendant, Michael Williams, 16, said one member of the group had wanted to “go across the field and rob the hookers.”
The brutality of the attack on the 26-year-old Ms. Harbour has been stunning enough for this city. Random Violence by a Gang
But just as troublesome, the police and residents say, is what the teen-agers’ statements, made public at pretrial hearings in the last few days, portray as an act of random and extreme violence by a roving street gang.
The five juveniles, Mr. Wade, Mr. Williams, Anthony Ayala, 16, Ezekiel Hogan, 15, and David Sampson, 16, have all admitted being present at the attack, although each tells a slightly different version of the night’s events.
Several said they started out the evening looking for something to do. “We met at the teen center ’cause they was supposed to have a party, but they didn’t,” Mr. Sampson said in his taped statement.
They decided to go instead to a gang member’s house where they drank beer for about two hours. Then, they decided to roam the streets of the Dorchester neighborhood where they all live to find another party.
But as they walked down the street, some of the teen-agers said, their plans changed. Two women, Ms. Harbour and her friend, Laura Peterson, were walking on Talbot Avenue near Franklin Field, a park-like area near a housing project, when a number of the gang members set out after them.
Ms. Peterson was hit on the head with a stick and robbed before she fled, the police said. The police said the teen-agers chased Ms. Harbour, a former Census Bureau employee and the mother of a 7-year-old girl, onto Franklin Field where she was stripped, raped, robbed and killed.
Ms. Harbour was carrying $1 when she was attacked, the police said. A crumpled dollar bill was found several yards from her nude body on the morning of Nov. 1. Life in Prison Is Possible
The five juveniles have been charged with murder, aggravated rape and armed robbery. A judge will decide next month whether they can be rehabilitated and tried as juveniles, meaning they could be held in a detention center until the age of 21. If they are tried as adults they will face life in prison.
Three other teen-agers, Che Barnes, 17, Carlos Garcia, 18, and Corey James, 19, face an additional charge of armed robbery. They will be tried as adults and face life in prison if convicted.
All the suspects, with the exception of one adult, are reported to have made incriminating taped statements. All the juveniles have identified Mr. James and Mr. Barnes as the leaders of the gang.
Although all of the juveniles admit that they were present at the killing in Franklin Field, not one has taken responsibility for the committing the slaying.
Mr. Hogan told the police that Ms. Harbour had told the group, “Please, I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt me.”
Possible murder motive puzzling
Jun 3, 1991 Updated Feb 25, 2019
BOSTON (AP) – It was not only that Kimberly Rae Harbour
had been gang-raped, beaten, stabbed 132 times and left
to die, it was the possible motive that put her murder in
its full, grim focus.
“There was nothing to do and so I guess we had the impression
of going out to the field and kill somebody,” a 15-year-old
among the eight teen-agers arrested in the case told detectives.
The eight, ranging in age from 15 to 19, face murder charges
in the killing last Halloween. A judge is expected to rule
later this month whether all eight will be tried as adults
or if the five who were 16 or younger when the attack occurred
will be tried as juveniles.
Harbour, 26, was walking with a friend when the two were
accosted by a gang of youths. The friend escaped, but Harbour
was stabbed, raped, kicked and beaten.
Some of those arrested said she pleaded for her life, telling
her attackers she had a 7-year-old daughter and offering
to have sex with them if they did not hurt her.
The attack “goes beyond imagination,” said Assistant District
Attorney Daniel Mullane.
Several experts said it is not that unusual for groups of
people to engage in a level of violence that would be unusual
for one person to carry out on their own.
“People will do horrible, brutal, sadistic things in a
group that they would never do on their own,” said James
Fox, a Northeastern University criminal justice professor.
“It’s as if the collective sense of conscience is spread
over the whole group of people, compared to residing in
one individual,” said Fred Kelso, a psychologist who evaluates
juvenile offenders for the Massachusetts court system.
For troubled teen-agers, organized gangs or groups of friends
can fill the void left when families disintegrate.
“It’s almost like `Lord of the Flies,’ ” said Dr. George
Hartman, a psychiatrist who also evaluates youthful offenders.
“When the external structures break down, the gang takes over.
“They feed off of each other. It becomes very difficult
for someone to turn their back and walk away,” Fox said.
“For teen-agers, social acceptance is everything.”
Videos, television shows and movies that portray women as
willing victims also may contribute to violence, experts say.
“Violence by males against women is a lot of times motivated by
depersonalizing the woman,” said Paul Tracy, a Northeastern University
criminal justice professor who specializes in juivenile crime.
In their statements to police, the teen-agers charged with Harbour’s
murders said the evening began innocently enough.
“Thay was supposed to have a party, but they did’nt,” one 16-year-old
told police.
Instead, police said, the group headed to one youth’s house,
drank beer there for a few hours, then went looking for
another party. According to a taped statement by another
16-year-old suspect, someone suggested they rob prostitutes instead.
The suspects allegedly then came upon Harbour and her friend.
The other woman was hit on the head with a stick and robbed,
but escaped the mob.
A $1 bill – all the money Harbour had with her – was found
crumpled on the ground near her body.
The three teen-agers who are being tried as adults have
been identified as Che Barnes, 17; Carlos Garcia, 18; and
Corey James, 19.
The other five have not been identified because of their
ages. Dorchester District Court Judge Gerald Alch is to
rule whether they should be tried as adults.
If convicted as juveniles, each could be jailed until age
21. If convicted as adults, they could face life in prison
without parole.
COMMONWEALTH vs. EZEKIEL HOGAN
The defendant, age fifteen years at the time of the incident, and seven companions were drinking beer together on the evening of October 31, 1990. A short time later, someone suggested that they “go across the field and rob some prostitutes.” The defendant agreed, and the group left the house and began walking toward Franklin Field in the Dorchester section of Boston. The eight males split into two groups to look for prostitutes. The defendant was part of the group that initially identified and chased Kimberly Rae Harbour, caught her, and carried her to a ditch in Franklin Field. The defendant helped to rip off Harbour’s clothing, which the group later took away with them, and was the second male in the group to rape her. The defendant was also the second of the group to stab Harbour, and it was estimated that the defendant stabbed her ten times, stating at one point, “look how her skin cuts.” The defendant also participated in assaulting Harbour during the attack, and he kicked her in the head. Harbour died from the assault, having
Page 427
suffered 132 stab wounds, at least eighteen blunt-force injuries, and extensive bleeding.
COMMONWEALTH v. JAMES
Facts. We summarize the pertinent facts as they could have been found by the jury. On October 31, 1990, Halloween evening, the two defendants and six other young men 5 gathered at James’s residence, drinking from a case of forty-ounce bottles of “Private Stock” beer that James had acquired. After approximately one-half hour of drinking, the group left the house with the intent of robbing “prostitutes.” As they walked together across Franklin Field they decided to form two groups. Emerging from Franklin Field, they saw two women, the victim, Kimberly Rae Harbour, and another woman, Linda,6 who were conversing on a sidewalk across from Franklin Field. The two women, seeing the group approaching them, became apprehensive and tried to run away. The young men gave chase. They quickly caught the two women, who were by then on different sides of the street.
After catching Linda, one of the men struck her forcefully across the back of her head with a tree limb. Three of them then intrusively searched her for money but, finding nothing of value, released her. They then crossed the street to join the others who had caught Harbour. Linda testified that she heard Harbour calling for help, witnessed several of the young men kick her as she fell to the ground and then continue to chase her as she attempted to run away again.7
The two defendants were part of the group who initially chased Harbour as she attempted to flee. At trial, another participant, a juvenile, described the events that followed and the roles played by the two defendants. The group caught the victim and, as she shouted for help and struggled, carried her to a remote location in Franklin Field. There, the victim tried to fight and pleaded for the group to let her go. They ignored her entreaties, stripped off her clothes and six of the eight attackers then took turns raping her. The eyewitness testified that James was the first to rape Harbour. Garcia did not rape her. While she was being raped, others repeatedly kicked her, and Garcia struck her in the face with a beer bottle which shattered on impact. James was the first to attack her with his knife. He and at least one other slashed Harbour with a knife, stabbing her arms, stomach, back, and legs. The stabbing wounds inflicted were consistent with cuts inflicted by two different kinds of knives and with cuts from the neck of a broken bottle. One or more of the group also beat her with the tree limb which had been used to assault Linda. The eyewitness also said that Garcia struck her a second time in the face with another beer bottle.
The attacks on Harbour lasted for about one-half hour; she begged for mercy throughout. The group then gathered the victim’s clothes which they took away with them. As they were moving away, they discussed whether Harbour was still alive. James turned back to Harbour and with a running jump landed on her, causing her to scream. He then returned to the group and they all left Franklin Field. They threw Harbour’s clothes into a dumpster and agreed with each other that they would not say anything about the attack on Harbour.8 The nude, lifeless body of the victim was discovered the next morning.
At the scene of the crime, police found the broken glass fragments of a forty-ounce “Private Stock” beer bottle under and around the victim’s head. Near her body they also found the broken parts of a large tree branch, pieces of a condom, and articles of the victim’s clothing. A footwear pattern was discovered on one of the pieces of discovered clothing.
The medical examiner determined that Harbour had died from 132 knife wounds covering her entire body, at least eighteen blunt force injuries, and extensive blood loss. The pattern of blood loss suggested that Harbour had sustained the wounds while she was struggling, and that she had died slowly from loss of blood. He further determined that there were variations in the knife wounds that were consistent with wounds caused by both single-edged knives, such as the knife later found in James’s residence, and double-edged knives, such as the knife found later in Garcia’s residence.
During the subsequent investigation, one of the attackers gave a statement to the police identifying the assailants, including both defendants.9 On November 18, 1990, the police obtained warrants to search the defendants’ homes for “007” or similar knives, dark clothing, face masks, and sneakers.10 At James’s residence, the police recovered an “007” knife and five pairs of sneakers. The police seized a knife and two pairs of sneakers from Garcia’s residence.
On November 19, 1990, James waived his Miranda rights and made a statement to the police that was recorded. He told the police that on the night of the killing he had been at home drinking beer with friends. He identified Garcia as one of those present. He said that at approximately 8 p.m. he and the others left his house; they walked with Garcia to his nearby residence, left him there and then all went their separate ways. James said that Garcia mentioned in passing that he might go to his girl friend’s house, but James did not know whether he had done so. James told the police that he himself had gone to his girl friend’s house, where he stayed for the remainder of that night. He recalled that the next day, at approximately 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., he had received a telephone call from “one of [his] boys,” whom he thought was Garcia. James denied participating in the rape and murder of Harbour.
This young woman testified at trial. She contradicted the statement James had given to the police and denied that he had been with her on the night of Halloween, 1990. James did not testify. Garcia presented an alibi defense. His brother and his brother’s girl friend each testified that from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. on the night of the attack on Harbour, they had visited Garcia’s home where he lived with his mother. They said that Garcia was at home during that entire time, studying for a Spanish test.11
Jury convicts two gang members in Boston ‘wilding’ attack
BOSTON — Two gang members were convicted Thursday of taking part in the vicious Halloween night ‘wilding’ rape and murder of Kimberly Rae Harbor and immediately sentenced to mandatory life prison terms without chance of parole.
Corey James, 20, and Carlos Garcia, 19 — members of the ‘Pistons’ gang in the city’s Dorchester section — were found guilty of first- degree murder and aggravated rape.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury deliberated for three days before convicting the young men in what has been called perhaps the most vicious murder in the history of Boston.
The defendants were among eight members of the gang who allegedly attacked Harbour in Dorchester’s Franklin Field on Oct. 31, 1990. Harbour, 26, a reputed prostitute, was repeatedly raped, beaten with sticks, cut with a bottle and stabbed 132 times, according to evidence at the trial.
James, Garcia, the second and third defendants to be convicted in the case, lived in a nearby housing project along with other ‘Pistons’ members. The first-degree murder convictions carried mandatory life terms without parole.
To bolster its case, the district attorney’s office enlisted the cooperation of one of the gang members, 17-year-old Michael Williams, who was tried as a juvenile instead of an adult in return for his testimony. Williams will reportedly be free in December.
The other five defendants are still awaiting trial.
Assistant District Attorney Daniel Mullane called Harbour’s slaying a ‘Halloween horror,’ and said the gang ‘set upon her to perform things that are unimaginable.’
But defense lawyers attacked Williams’ credibility, pointing out he changed his account of the crime several times. James’ lawyer, Robert Nelson Jr., said there was no physical evidence linking his client and Garcia to Harbour’s gang rape and murder. James was accused of beating Harbour with a club, while Garcia was charged with attacking her with a bottle.
The case was likened to the ‘wilding’ assault and robbery of a Central Park jogger in New York in 1989.
Police, who arrested the eight almost three weeks after the attack, were criticized at the time by black community leaders for keeping details of the slaying quiet while they investigated the case.
They said the gang members presented a danger to rest of the community, and compared it to the highly publicized murder a year earlier of Carol Stuart, a white suburban attorney who was fatally shot in another minority neighborhood in Boston. That slaying, which triggered a massive police hunt for the killer, was originally blamed on a black gunman, but was later attributed to Stuart’s husband just before he leaped to his death.
Police defended the Harbour investigation, saying the lack of publicity was necessary to gather evidence against the gang, and said the suspects were not regarded as a threat to other residents in the area.
`WILDING` SPREE OUTRAGES BOSTON
New York Times News ServiceCHICAGO TRIBUNE
T
hree weeks ago, when the body of a slain woman was found in a park here, the police seemed to treat the case as routine. They called no special attention to it-just another killing in a city that has seen 128 of them this year.
But it turns out that the killing was far from ordinary. The victim had been raped, beaten and stabbed more than 130 times. This week, eight gang members were arrested and charged with killing the 26-year-old woman, Kimberly Rae Harbour, as part of a Halloween ”wilding” spree.
Throughout Boston, the case has drawn outrage, and not just at the crime. People want to know why the police at first played down the case.
The victim was a poor black woman who the police said was a prostitute, and some blacks argue that had she been a middle-class white woman, investigators would not have been so reticent.
”If it had happened in any other community, they would have let people know that there was harm out there,” said Louis A. Elisa, president of the Boston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The Boston police, who did not disclose the extent of the brutality of the crime until Monday, when they announced the arrests, responded that they were trying to conduct a thorough investigation outside the spotlight of public attention and that they had done their jobs, eventually arresting suspects.
A spokesman for the district attorney`s office, David Rodman, said the authorities had been wary of prematurely disclosing information to news organizations since the 1989 murder of Carol DiMaiti Stuart.
In the Stuart case, officials were severely criticized for publicly accepting Charles Stuart`s story that his wife was shot to death by a black man, a story that generated tensions between blacks and whites here.
Investigators produced three suspects, all of whom were black, only in the end to have Stuart, who was white, turn out to be their main suspect. He then apparently jumped to his death from a bridge.
In the recent case, however, fear of racial tensions does not appear to have been a factor in the police actions.
The victim and two of the three suspects who were old enough to be publicly identified were black. The third identified suspect is Hispanic.
”We have no obligation to tell the media anything other than scant details when things are under investigation,” said Rodman, the spokesman for District Attorney Newman Flanagan. ”In the Stuart case, the community was upset with the police and the prosecution for publicizing the case. Now they are criticizing us. You`re really just damned if you do and damned if you don`t.”
Harbour, the mother of a 7-year-old girl and a former Census Bureau employee, was raped, beaten with a tree limb, stabbed 132 times with a knife and a broken beer bottle, and left to die naked in nearby Franklin Field, according to the police.
The suspects, Carlos Garcia, 18; Corey James, 19; and Che Barnes, 17; and five juveniles aged 15 and 16 years old were arrested Monday. Each was charged with murder, aggravated rape and two counts of armed robbery in Dorchester District Court.
All the suspects, who prosecutors said were reportedly out ”to rob females,” lived in the Franklin Field housing development where Harbour was also a resident.
IDLE HANDS BLAMED FOR EVIL DOINGS TEEN MURDER SUSPECTS SAY THEY WERE BORED
New York TimesTHE ORLANDO SENTINEL
The alleged assailants’ accounts of the killing of Kimberly Rae Harbour seem as senseless as the crime itself: Several members of a street gang set out to look for a party on Halloween night but instead ended up beating, raping and stabbing a woman 132 times before leaving her in a field to die.
The motive, one alleged assailant told the police, was boredom.
“There was nothing to do and so I guess we had the impression of going out to the field and kill somebody,” Terrance Wade, 15, told police in a statement taped shortly after his arrest on Nov. 19, 1990, and made public in the past few days.
In a separate statement, defendant Michael Williams, 16, said one member of the group had wanted to “go across the field and rob the hookers.”
The brutality of the attack on the 26-year-old Harbour has been stunning enough for this city.
But just as troublesome, police and residents say, is what the juvenile defendants’ statements, made public at pretrial hearings, portray as an act of random and extreme violence by a roving street gang.
The five juveniles – Wade, Williams, Anthony Ayala, 16, Ezekiel Hogan, 15, and David Sampson, 16 – all have admitted being present at the attack, although each tells a slightly different version of the night’s events.
But several said they started out the evening looking for something to do. “We met at the teen center because they (were) supposed to have a party, but they didn’t,” Sampson said in his statement.
They decided to go instead to a gang member’s house where they drank beer for about two hours. Then they decided to go roam the streets of the Dorchester neighborhood where they all live to find another party.
But as they walked down the street some of the teen-agers said their plans changed. Two women, Harbour and her friend, Laura Peterson, were walking on Talbot Avenue near Franklin Field, an open area near a housing project, when a number of the gang members set out after them.
Peterson was hit on the head with a stick and robbed before she fled, the police said.
The teen-agers allegedly chased Harbour, a former Census Bureau employee and the mother of a 7-year-old girl, onto Franklin Field where she was stripped, raped, robbed and killed.
Harbour was carrying $1 when she was attacked, police said. A crumpled dollar bill was found several yards from her nude body on the morning of Nov. 1.
The five juveniles have been charged with murder, aggravated rape and armed robbery. A judge will decide next month whether they can be rehabilitated and tried as juveniles, meaning they could be held in a detention center until the age of 21. If they are tried as adults they will face life in prison.
Three other teen-agers, Che Barnes, 17, Carlos Garcia, 18, and Corey James, 19, face an additional charge of armed robbery. They will be tried as adults and face life in prison if convicted.
All the alleged attackers, with the exception of one adult, are reported to have made incriminating taped statements. All the juveniles have identified James and Barnes as the leaders of the gang.
Hogan told the police that Harbour had told the group, “Please I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt me.”
https://www.mass.gov/doc/anthony-ayala-life-sentence-decision/download
https://www.mass.gov/doc/terrance-wade-life-sentence-decision-0/download
