Mother, teen son indicted in killing

Child had easy access to gun in dresser, DA says

Liquarry Jefferson was fatally shot by his cousin.

The mother and teenage half-brother of Liquarry Jefferson left a loaded 9 millimeter handgun in an unlocked dresser drawer in a bedroom where the 8-year-old boy often played, making it tragically easy for Liquarry's 7-year-old cousin to take the weapon and fatally shoot the boy last summer, prosecutors said yesterday.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley blamed the death on what he called the stunning failure of Liquarry's mother, Lakeisha Gadson, 31, and his half-brother, Jayquan McConnico, 16, to protect the child. Both were indicted yesterday on charges including involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The indictments were the latest sad chapter in a story that has shocked the city, with an outcome that police and social workers had worked desperately to prevent for the troubled family, whose long history of violence and gang involvement became public after Liquarry was killed in June.

Prosecutors said they had no choice but to file charges.

"This was a death that was entirely preventable and predictable when you think of leaving unattended a fully loaded gun," Conley said in an interview. "That kind of behavior is wanton and reckless, and persons responsible for that have to be accountable."

In addition to involuntary manslaughter, McConnico and Gadson face charges of misleading police and improperly storing a gun. Gadson, who will be arraigned tomorrow in Suffolk Superior Court, also faces charges of child endangerment, unlawful possession of a gun, and wantonly permitting bodily injury to a child. McConnico will be arraigned in Boston Juvenile Court on Monday.

Conley, during a press conference at which he and Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis announced the indictments, said Liquarry and his cousin were playing in McConnico's room late on the night of June 24 when they found the gun in a 2 1/2-foot-tall dresser. Liquarry's cousin took the gun, a Norinco semiautomatic pistol that has no safety, and accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet struck Liquarry in the abdomen.

McConnico called police from his cellphone and said that someone had shot his brother through the window of their home, a statement Conley described as the first of at least four lies the family told police that night.

When emergency workers arrived, Liquarry was alive in McConnico's bedroom. He died on an operating table at Boston Medical Center.

The family immediately began changing their story, Conley said. McConnico told police at the scene that a gunman dressed in a hooded sweatshirt pulled tight around his face had stormed into the apartment and shot his brother.

In a separate account, Gadson told police three men in hooded sweatshirts came inside and fired three rounds. Later, Conley said, McConnico gave a similar account.

But in the early morning hours of June 25, police began to question their statements, and the mother and son admitted they had lied, Conley said.

They told police that McConnico, with his mother's knowledge, had taken the gun and ammunition, wrapped them in his boxer shorts, and hid them in the back hall after the shooting, Conley said. Gadson, who has three other children, had then made up a story and told McConnico and his siblings to repeat it to authorities, Conley said.

Prosecutors convened a grand jury soon after Liquarry's death, but it took nine months to develop their case, Conley said. Investigators and police interviewed other witnesses, to corroborate the story Gadson and McConnico told them. They also had to examine hundreds of pages of court documents and records from the Department of Social Services and the Department of Youth Services, two agencies that had been heavily involved with the family.

Conley said it was important to review the family's history to determine which charges should be brought against the suspects. Police also listened to dozens of hours of tapes of conversations recorded in jail to help them develop the case. Conley declined to say whose conversations they heard.

McConnico has been in DYS custody since Liquarry's death.

"To get the truth is a much more tedious and difficult, long, lengthy process," Conley said. "We follow the facts of the law, and we strive to leave no stone unturned. That takes time."

Under an initiative launched in 2003, Boston police had begun focusing on families, including Liquarry's, who they believed were responsible for a disproportionate share of crime. The idea was to target families with social services that might help break the cycle of violence.

In 2004, school officials and representatives from city and state agencies began working with Gadson's family, focusing especially on McConnico, who was bright and charismatic, but at age 12 was already associating with gangs.

Police arrested McConnico's stepfather, a gang member, to get him out of the house. School officials and social workers placed McConnico in a school where he had no enemies or friends who would tempt him back into gang life. Social workers helped place Gadson's other children in summer camp. Gadson, who had faced a string of assault charges before 2004, had steered clear of trouble and was talking about making a career working with troubled children. Then, Liquarry was shot.

Gadson, who received the summons to court yesterday, could not be reached for comment. Her mother, Elaine, hung up when she was reached on her cellphone.

Earnestine McConnico, Jayquan's grandmother, reached by telephone at her home in Alabama, expressed shock at the charges. "I thought this was over with, and this had ended," she said.

McConnico, described her grandson as "very, very smart," and said she doubted that he was responsible.

She said she had tried in vain to get in touch with the family.

"I was hoping someone would be getting in touch with me," McConnico said.

Jamie Vaznis of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.