Oregon Mother Who Fought Gangs Charged In Killing -- Plot Alleged In Death Of 18-Year-Old

EUGENE, Ore. - Mary Thompson used to come by Aaron Iturra's house to take him to meetings. There, they would spread the alarm about the growing gang problem in the Willamette Valley.

Iturra, 18, knew about gangs firsthand. A self-portrait shows him flashing gang signs and wearing gang clothes.

Thompson, 40, knew about gangs, too. She had enlisted Iturra in her campaign to lift her 16-year-old son, Beau Flynn, out of the gang life that had landed him in McLaren School, a juvenile prison.

A security guard, she could talk the talk and walk the walk of the gangs. She was a charter member of a community task force dedicated to fighting back against gangs.

But somewhere, things fell apart.

Iturra is dead, shot by two teenagers as he slept. And Thompson is accused of recruiting the two to kill Iturra, so he couldn't testify against her son about a knife fight that would send him back to McLaren.

Thompson "was one of those community members who was out pounding on our doors, telling us we needed to do something," said David Piercy, assistant to the superintendent of the Eugene School District.

COMMUNITY WAKES UP

Ironically, he said, her arrest has done more than all the meetings, fliers and newspaper articles to convince people a gang problem exists.

District Attorney Doug Harcleroad says the number of gang members in the Eugene area has grown from 100 two years ago to 300 now.

The problem mirrors the pattern in California, he says, but appears to be limited primarily to local kids who want to be tough and break into houses.

"I try to fight back against gangs, but I also try to understand the gang issues," Thompson told The Register-Guard newspaper last October. "They're people, too, and they're doing this for a reason. . . . I figure if I can get close to the source, I'll be able to understand it a little better."

In that interview, she told the story of how her smiling child turned into a hardened gangster at age 13, looking for a sense of family he didn't have at home.

Nicknamed Bishop, he sold guns under the table at an ice-cream parlor, held police at bay with a handgun, and landed in juvenile prison.

Thompson drew Iturra into her family to stand between her son and the gang life when her son was released from McLaren School last July.

But her son wasn't home long before he was back in trouble.

On Sept. 13, he got in a fight in front of a store. Iturra was there, too.

Police reports say Thompson's son had a knife and cut one of the other kids, telling them it was payback for ratting to police about a stolen gun that sent him to McLaren a year earlier.

Police arrested Beau Thompson three days later. Iturra was arrested, too. He told police the youth had asked him to back him up. He said when he saw Thompson had a knife, he took it so no one would get hurt. Iturra said he didn't see the youth cut anyone, and returned the knife after the fight.

Iturra's mother recalls an angry phone call from Mary Thompson, blaming Aaron for her son's troubles.

SHOT DEAD WHILE SLEEPING

On Oct. 3, James R. Elstad, 17, and Joseph R. Brown, 18, snuck through the garage and laundry room to Iturra's room, where he was sleeping next to his girlfriend. Elstad fired one shot from a stolen revolver.

The two teens, arrested within days, pleaded guilty to murder and are both in prison. Brown was sentenced to 10 years; Elstad, to 15.

Authorities arrested Mary Thompson last February, alleging she arranged for the two teens to kill Iturra and drove them to a highway bridge to drop the gun in the Willamette River.

Thompson is in jail awaiting trial for aggravated murder. If convicted, she faces a possible life sentence without parole. Her son was sent back to juvenile prison.

It is another irony, says Iturra's mother, Janyce Iturra-Holland: "The thing about Mary Thompson is the support that she always wanted to give her son - and by these actions, she'll never be there."

Nor will Aaron. On the mantel of his family's home is an old Coors beer bottle, where family members toss their spare quarters.

When they have enough, they will buy a tombstone for Aaron's grave.