Mattapan killing leaves family bewildered

In their crowded second - floor apartment in Mattapan yesterday afternoon, the sister of a 14-year-old aspiring dancer who was fatally shot on Friday held her cousins' hands and pondered the jagged tragedy her Christmas had become.

Emmanuel Benjamin Saintil was killed as he walked home with a friend along Cummins Highway.

Police do not believe the slaying was random, but try as she might, Tracey Azor could not come up with a reason why someone would want her brother dead.

"He was a good kid, funny and sweet," she said. "He was always dancing, always singing, he wasn't a problem to anyone."

Saintil, an eighth-grader who had just made the honor roll at Clarence R. Edwards Middle School in Charlestown, died on the operating table at Boston Medical Center about 7:30 p.m. Friday, an hour and a half after he was shot in the chest.

Yesterday, the family was making funeral arrangements.

Saintil's friend, who was also shot -- though not seriously wounded -- told the Globe on Saturday that the attacker -- who he believed to be an older teenager -- did not utter a word as he approached the boys from the opposite direction, his mustard colored sweatshirt pulled tightly around his face, and began shooting.

Yesterday, stretching for answers, Azor, 19, speculated that the attack was some sort of perverse dare.

"Why else?" she said.

But Saintil's 17-year-old cousin, Rudy Ilaire, said she was troubled by the killing coming a month after the slaying of Jonathan C. Jacques, 18, another cousin, who was close with Saintil.

"He died right across from where [Jacques's] wake was," Ilaire said. "They were always together, but it just doesn't make any sense."

Jacques was shot at a house party on Milton Avenue over Thanksgiving weekend.

No arrests have been made in that slaying, police said yesterday.

An accomplished dancer, Saintil performed in a seven-member troupe called Phaymus with another cousin, Naomie Ilaire, 21. She said Saintil joined the group last summer.

In October they opened for a musical act in Hartford in front of a huge audience, she said.

"People didn't know his name, but they were like,'Go young one! Go young one!' " Ilaire said. "He was the youngest one, and afterwards he was like, 'Did you hear them cheering for me?' "

Saintil, tall and slender, had hoped to attend the Boston Arts Academy next year.

"He could have gone anywhere. His grades were all A's and B's," his sister said.

Yesterday morning, next to a makeshift memorial adorned with flowers and photographs of Saintil, Bishop Hessie Harris bemoaned the shooting, which occurred outside his storefront church, The Born Again Evangelical Outreach Ministry.

To a packed church, Harris recalled a similar shooting in the neighborhood shortly after he moved to Mattapan.

"That was the beginning of things," Harris intoned from the pulpit. "I believe this is going to be the end of things. But to be the end of things, it's not enough to pray. You're still going to have to get off your knees to do something."

Dozens of worshipers raised their hands and lifted their voices: "Amen," they said in unison. "Hallelujah."

Globe staff writer Scott Allen contributed to this report. Douglas Belkin can be reached at dbelkin@globe.com.