Victim's Family Endures Trial Full Of Heartbreak

Robin Boswell and her relatives sit on a bench inside courtroom E-753 every day and listen to testimony they'd rather not hear.

One day Boswell hears that her brother, Jay Johnson, 22, was taunted and tortured moments before he was shot and killed Dec. 9, 1996.

Another day she hears that her brother's girlfriend, Raquel Rivera, 22, was shot point-blank as she was apparently screaming for mercy.

And for several days she hears that her brother's pet dog, a mixed pit bull named Chief, also was shot and killed that morning at the couple's South Park home.

Boswell and her relatives don't want to hear these things. Indeed, they would prefer not to be at the King County Courthouse at all, where for the past six weeks they have been a captive audience to grisly details, heartbreaking photographs and, most disturbing of all, two men accused of killing the people they loved.

In his opening statements, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Tim Bradshaw referred to the slayings as "the South Park slaughters" and, along with co-prosecutor Greg Jackson, has consistently characterized the deaths of Johnson, Rivera and the couple's dog as one of the most brutal and ruthless killings to occur in recent years.

Throughout the trial they have told jurors that Johnson's killers shot him at close range once in the right leg, twice in the left leg, then taunted, threatened and tormented him before firing two fatal bullets into his stomach.

Boswell also hears these disturbing details. And she knows to expect to hear even more of that, now that the prosecution rested its case yesterday and the defense started calling the first of its witnesses.

But sometimes the details are so disturbing that Boswell and her family seek solace and support from Mary Kirchner, the victims advocate in the King County Prosecutor's Office, who has sat through most of the trial with them.

Kirchner provides soothing words when she can, a shoulder to lean on when necessary, and a gentle ear during those moments when her own words are unable to reduce the family's pain and frustrations.

There are times, however, when Kirchner is not there. And Boswell, left to the vagaries of sometimes brutal and disturbing testimony, squints her eyes, glances sadly to her left and right, clasp her hands, sighs deeply and rushes out of the courtroom in anger and tears.

But she always comes back.

She has to come back.

"We are Jay's voice," said Boswell, the victim's oldest sister, as she nodded in the direction of her two aunts who sat on a bench next to her down the hall from the courtroom.

"We are the ones standing here to say my brother was a good person who didn't deserve to die the way he died."

Boswell says she and her relatives will continue to sit only a few feet away from two men - Kenneth Leuluaialii, 23, and George Tuilefano, 24 - who have been charged in the case.

Prosecutors allege that the men kicked down the door of the couple's home, then shot the dog, Johnson and Rivera.

Reportedly Leuluaialii and Tuilefano, along with at least three other accomplices who have since reached plea agreements with prosecutors in exchange for testifying against the two murder defendants, were hoping to find drugs.

But one accomplice testified last week that no drugs were found at the house, and police and prosecutors have yet to link the victims to drug dealing.

"In my heart I will never believe that he sold marijuana," said Janet Hightower, Johnson's aunt. "But even if he did, that was no reason for him to die."

Leuluaialii faces two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the slayings; Tuilefano is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Leuluaialii also is charged with first-degree animal cruelty for allegedly shooting and killing the dog.

Attorneys for the defendants, who began calling witnesses yesterday, have insisted all along that someone other than their clients was responsible for the killings.

Ironically it was the dog's death - and not the deaths of Johnson and Rivera - that initially pushed the details of these murders into the national spotlight. DNA taken from the dog is being used as evidence to identify the alleged killers.

It is believed to be the first time that dog DNA has been used as evidence in a criminal case.

Boswell and her relatives hope the dog's evidence will help convict the men accused of killing her brother and his girlfriend. But they are quick to add that people shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the biggest tragedy is not the death of Chief but the death of Johnson and Rivera.

Boswell misses her brother's smile. Misses the way he made her and the rest of her family laugh. And she and other relatives miss the hope he represented and symbolized in the family circle.

"Jay was born prematurely," Hightower said. "He was born into this world weighing 1 pound and 4 ounces, and he was not expected to survive."

But he did.

The family rallied around the baby they all began to regard as their miracle child, their little boy who'd overcome adversity at birth.

And his will to survive - along with the love he gave them as he grew into manhood - gave the rest of his family hope about life and its possibilities, Hightower said.

But some of the family's hope, she admits, died with his death.

"The people who kicked in Jay's door and killed him broke our family circle," Hightower said.

But still the family, especially Boswell, sits inside Room E-753 every day and listens to testimony that makes the heart hurt.

"Jay was a good person. And I'm here to say he was a good person. I only hope that the people who killed him feel some kind of remorse someday," Boswell said. "Because they didn't just kill Jay, they killed our family. Jay was a part of everybody."