'Nobody is trying to hide anything'

Jason Fernandes longed to be with his parents in Cape Verde.

His sister and guardian, Elisa Fernandes , was thinking of buying a plane ticket for the 14-year-old this month. But now, she and her family are trying to gather enough money to fly his mother to Boston for his funeral.

"This is the first nightmare of my life," Elisa Fernandes, 30, said yesterday, standing on the porch of her grandmother's house in Dorchester, near where her brother was shot on New Year's Day, Boston's first homicide of 2007. She pressed her hand to her chest and said, "I have a pain stuck right here."

As relatives and friends gathered at the house yesterday to console one another, detectives continued to investigate the killing. This time, they were able to speak with family members, who agreed to help police after a news conference Monday in which Commissioner Edward F. Davis expressed outrage at their apparent lack of cooperation.

"Nobody is trying to hide anything," said Alina Resendes , an aunt of Jason Fernandes. "Believe me, if I or someone saw a face, we'd tell somebody."

Elaine Driscoll , spokeswoman for the Police Department, said relatives spoke with Davis and detectives yesterday. "We still need a lot more information," she said. "With or without witness cooperation, homicide investigators continue to intensely review evidence, conduct interviews, and seek more."

Relatives interviewed by the Globe yesterday said they did not know what led to the shootings that killed Fernandes and seriously wounded his cousin, Christian "Manny" Resendes , 18, who family members said may be paralyzed from the waist down. The cousins were shot at Hamilton and Clarkson streets at about 5:45 a.m. Monday following an annual family reunion at the home of Fernandes's grandmother.

It is a residence police know well, according to department records.

In September 2005, a passerby reported finding the shell casing from a .40-caliber gun in front of the house, about a week after shots were reportedly fired at the house.

In March, Fernandes's cousin, Dominic Resendes , who is listed in police reports as a 21-year-old associate of a Cape Verdean street gang, was arrested at the house for probation violations.

A month earlier, Christian Resendes, also described in the reports as a gang associate, was arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace after he and two gang associates allegedly threatened someone at Dorchester District Court.

Alina Resendes and Elisa Fernandes said yesterday that they were not aware of any gang associates present at the party. Elisa Fernandes said she arrived shortly after midnight with Jason, who had come reluctantly.

"He didn't want to come out," she said.

The party was peaceful until about 5 a.m., when she left at the behest of her exhausted brother. She agreed to give Christian Resendes a ride to his Boston home. She piled her children, a 5-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son, into the car and was sitting in the front seat when she heard the shots.

Resendes screamed, "I'm hit. I'm hit," but Jason Fernandes was face down on the pavement, silent.

Elisa Fernandes said a car behind her had flashed its headlights just before the shooting began . Her 7-year-old son later told her he saw two men behind the car, but could not describe what they looked like.

"We're hoping the person who did it can somehow get caught," she said. "My brother was a good boy. He didn't deserve to get shot."

Fernandes moved her family to Brockton several years ago, hoping to keep her children away from the dangers of Dorchester. Twice, she sent her brother to Cape Verde to visit his parents.

But the large family occasionally had trouble.

In May, representatives from the state Department of Social Services came to the Fernandes' house after receiving a call, said agency spokeswoman Denise Monteiro , who declined to say who called or what the report was about.

Fernandes confirmed the visit, saying agency workers showed up after her brother fought with her 16-year-old son.

"They were just very overwhelmed," Monteiro said of the family. The agency provided the family with afterschool services and programs for the children, she said.

"There was no abuse whatsoever," Monteiro said. "This was a good family."

Fernandes, an eighth-grader, was mostly a peaceful youth, said Mark St. Louis , principal at BB Russell School in Brockton, which hosts Phoenix Alternative Programs for students with behavioral problems.

"He seemed quiet and he seemed well mannered," St. Louis said. "A lot of kids come in cocky and thinking they're beyond authority. He didn't seem to have that edge to him."

But since September, he had missed about 40 days of school.

"He just wasn't motivated," he said. "In all honesty, it seemed like he was pining away, wanting to go back to Cape Verde."

Suzanne Smalley of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com, Maria Cramer at mcramer@globe.com.