Cousin seen as accidental killer of boy, 8

In a tragic turn for a violence-prone Boston family, 8-year-old Liquarry Jefferson was shot to death in his Roxbury apartment, and his relatives' initial account that armed intruders had gunned him down was a lie, police and city officials said last night.

Officials said a 7-year-old male cousin playing with a loaded gun accidentally shot Liquarry, a first-grader who loved basketball, pro wrestling, and pizza. His death early yesterday made him the city's youngest fatal shooting victim in five years.

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said last night that police have recovered the weapon used in the shooting. Earlier yesterday, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said that detectives were testing a gun found hidden in a stairwell inside the Seaver Street apartment building. Investigators are trying to determine who brought the gun into the apartment, Davis said.

"It's hard to call anybody a suspect in this case, except for the person that brought that gun into the house," Davis said at a press conference last night at Logan International Airport, where he met Mayor Thomas M. Menino, returning a day early from a conference of mayors in Los Angeles.

Menino and Davis declined to identify the boy, other than to say he was a cousin of the victim. Under state law, Davis said, the boy is too young to be charged.

"This tragedy could have been avoided," Menino said. "This gun did not belong in that home. It was an illegal gun."

The family's original story, involving gang members forcing their way through the door sometime after 11 p.m. Sunday, started unraveling almost as soon as they began telling it, as various relatives gave detectives contradictory accounts, the officials said. In the afternoon, the family acknowledged the cousin had accidentally shot Liquarry in the stomach, one official said.

Liquarry's death prompted anguished outcry from politicians and clergy across the city. Throughout the day, the neighborhood seemed to be in mourning.

Amid the sadness, officials and court records painted a picture of a family all too familiar with violence, with Liquarry's father behind bars, his mother with a criminal past, and an older half- brother shot three years ago.

Liquarry's father, also named Liquarry Jefferson, was sentenced last fall to four years in state prison for a string of armed robberies in various parts of the city, according to court records and a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney's office. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1998 in the stabbing death of a Boston man.

The dead boy's mother, Lakeisha Gadson, 30, has four other children. At least one of the fathers has a lengthy criminal history, officials said. Gadson has a record involving multiple assaults, court records show.

She was placed on probation after admitting to attacking a woman in March 2004. The altercation started when Gadson and others made fun of the woman's developmentally disabled son, and she came to his defense, court records indicate.

In August 2003, Gadson was arrested for allegedly attacking Boston police officers on Columbia Road during an altercation that began when officers told Gadson and others sitting on the steps of her apartment building that the property manager's rules banned anyone from sitting on the steps. Gadson pleaded guilty in 2005 and was given a suspended six-month sentence in the Suffolk County House of Correction, records show.

In September 2001, Gadson and three other women stormed into a Burger King on Washington Street and assaulted the staff with a broomstick after they were told they had to use the drive-through a second time to order more food, court records show. The outcome of that case was not available yesterday.

The dead boy's 15-year-old half-brother, Jayquan McConnico, is under supervision of the Department of Youth Services and, according to press reports, was shot in 2004.

The second law enforcement official said police were also looking at Gadson's relationship with Renardo Williams, who is the father of at least one of her children. He is a longtime Castlegate gang member acquitted last year of a double slaying.

Denise Monteiro, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services, said the agency was involved with the family. "Right now, our goal is to protect and support this family, because an 8-year-old, a very young child, is dead due to violence," Monteiro said.

Criminal justice specialists said fractured families require extensive social services and ensure that children grow up close to guns and violence.

"There are some families where criminal involvement is somewhat of a tradition," said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. "It's not biological. It's about learning and conditioning and who you hang out with it."

"These kids are not predetermined to be criminals," he added. "They just have everything going against them."

But social worker Nia-Sue Mitchum of Lena Park Community Development Corporation in Dorchester, where Liquarry attended an afterschool program, said Gadson had been heavily involved in her children's care.

"It's a beautiful family," Mitchum said. "His mother is really struggling hard to take care of all of her kids. She is working so hard to guide her kids."

"It's a shock," she said. "He's never had any behavioral problems. He's just a wonderful little boy."

Relatives and residents in the Dorchester neighborhood recalled Liquarry as a smiling, good- natured boy who was nicknamed Lapew.

Donniece, a family friend who refused to give her last name, said he liked playing basketball and enjoyed watching professional wrestling, especially WWE wrestler John Cena. "He loved pizza, but he loved mustard with sardines," Donniece said.

She said that just hours before he was shot, Liquarry spent Sunday afternoon with his mother and four siblings downtown, where they had a family portrait taken, ate a seafood dinner, and shopped.

Liquarry had just completed first grade at J.P. Holland Elementary School in Dorchester, where he earned high marks for reading and helping his classmates. He always had a hug or a smile for teachers and school administrators, school officials said, and was one of the few students who always got the teacher's jokes.

"He was a little boy who anyone would have been proud to have for a son," said principal Michele O'Connell, tears in her eyes. "I don't know anybody who didn't love him."

Outside the four-story, 16-unit tan brick apartment building where the shooting happened, television trucks lined the block and police officers stood watch.

Deborah Haskins, whose 9-year-old son Jermaine Goffigan was killed in 1994, wanted to see Liquarry's family, but was stopped by police who did not allow outsiders into the building.

"I came to pay my respects," she said. "It's so bad, because I know how she feels."

John R. Ellement and Maria Sacchetti of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Michael Naughton contributed to this report. Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.