Here’s what we had, hours after someone had stabbed my brother Brian to death:
We had sketchy details about the evening. We knew Brian had been drinking at a restaurant bar with two young women. We knew they all closed the bar and left the building. We knew an incident occurred in the parking lot outside the restaurant. It resulted in a stabbing. One of the women called 911 but Brian somehow was left alone to die in the parking lot. An ambulance rushed him to the hospital but they couldn't save him.
We had a suspect, and we had his name. Lucio Fernandez— his face went all over the news that evening.
The police brought my family into the station. In those early hours, they told us a witness— Fernandez’s friend, the driver of the car, came forward and reported the parking lot incident and Brian’s death. He had said Fernandez acted in self-defense.
We had a motive. One of the young women drinking with Brian had purchased cocaine from Fernandez and owed him fifty dollars. Fernandez showed up to collect, it got heated, and Brian was in the wrong place at the wrong time…
…and crossed paths with the wrong person. The police told us Fernandez had a long criminal record.
What we didn’t have was two things: No Fernandez— he was in the wind, on the run.
And there was no murder weapon.
We agonized in the months following the murder. I fretted myself sick over that missing knife. I’d watched enough Law & Order to assume a murder weapon’s an important piece of freaking evidence.
New Hampshire had a wonderful department called the Office of Victim/Witness Assistance. The fantastic advocate assigned to our case, Allison, called us every few weeks with an update.
However, the updates were torturous. “Still no sign of Fernandez. We had a lead on him in Florida, but it looks like he’s moved on. Don’t give up hope. We’re doing everything we can.”
But I had given up hope.
Then the U.S. Marshals got him.
They caught up with Fernandez all the way out in Los Angeles. And…
they had the knife.
Here’s how it happened:
The night of the murder, Fernandez’s friend witnessed the killing. He’d volunteered himself to the state police and claimed Fernandez had killed Brian but it had been in self-defense. He’d also told them they both had knives—Brian and Fernandez. The police had recovered no knives. This made no sense. I’d never known my brother to carry anything other than a key-chain bottle opener. A knife? This had to be bullshit.
It was bullshit. This friend of Fernandez’s had given false testimony.
Weeks later, he made a second trip to the police and recanted everything.
Fernandez’s buddy wanted to make another statement.— I’m not naming him here. You’ll see why in a sec.
“You’ve already made a statement. You said it was self-defense,” they said.
“I was lying. I’m ready to tell you what really happened,” he said.
When asked why he lied the first time, the witness said Fernandez had threatened to kill him and his family unless he told the police he’d killed Brian in self-defense. Now that Fernandez was out of state, he felt safer to tell the truth.
He gave his second statement, this time giving the real details: They came to collect coke money from one of the young women. Fernandez became angry when the women told him they had the cash, but couldn’t find the money. (She later found the money tucked inside her bra. Another story for another post.) Brian was drunk to an incapacitating level. He couldn’t have put up a fight if he’d tried. Fernandez became aggressive over his owed cocaine money, his anger escalated towards the women, and Brian stepped in the middle.
“Did Brian O’Neill have a knife?” the police asked.
“No. No knife,” the witness said.
“Fernandez was the only one with a knife?” the police asked.
“Yes,” the witness said.
His new statement alone changed the course of the trial.
Then this Fernandez friend sealed the deal:
“Take me out on the highway. I’ll show you where he threw the knife.”
Miles from the murder, on 495-S, Fernandez had dumped the knife from their moving vehicle. The witness took them to the spot he’d estimated. Miraculously, they found a knife by the river. Was it the knife? Yes— outside in the woods for a whole brutal New England winter, it somehow held onto Brian’s DNA.
Two years after Brian’s death, we finally went to trial. The state called sixteen witnesses during the procedure, including the teary-eyed, remorseful women from the bar, the bartender, and the responding officers. They all painted the same picture: this was not a case of self-defense, but rather a bad dude who reacted with senseless violence. A few, though, needed extra coaxing from the prosecution. Fernandez’s withering stare crumbled the constitutions of several witnesses. One woman from the bar nearly backed off her sworn statement. She visibly feared Fernandez.
Next, the prosecution brought out the secret weapon— Fernandez’s friend.
The D.A. called him to the stand. As he walked to the witness stand, he led with his chin and his chest. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone— least of all, Fernandez. I watched Fernandez shake his head in disgust. His friend was about to turn on him.
The first time I laid eyes on the friend, he was exactly what I’d have expected. He looked like a stock character, a stereotype of someone who’d lived a hard life in the streets. His face belied no emotion.
No emotion, that is, until the courtroom doors opened. Several police officers filed in and stood in groups at the main and side doors. They covered every courtroom entrance. When they first arrived, I thought they’d received a terrorist attack or a bomb threat.
Moments later, the courtroom doors opened again and the surplus of police became clear. Several young men came through the doors. Just like Fernandez’s friend, obviously these typecast guys also came from the streets. But they were big. BIG.
Visibly shaken, the witness fidgeted and looked down. He looked like he was mumbling to himself, like he couldn’t believe his eyes. These were his people, and it seemed he hadn’t expected them. Or, I thought then, he’d seen someone specific he wished he hadn't. A brother? A cousin?
I’d have to check the court record for the actual count, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say twenty street thugs showed up in force that morning. Their mission was clear. Someone had choreographed their appearance to intimidate the witness and to threaten. They’d timed it to the exact moment he had sat down in the witness stand.
Fortunately for us, their plan didn’t work. The friend, though initially shaken, stood fast. He gave the truth with a stone cold delivery. When he finished, his twenty band mates walked out of the courtroom, scootched along by the police. He stepped down from the stand and walked by an offended Fernandez. Not a look passed between the two.
I watched him walk out of the courtroom, escorted by an officer but utterly alone.
The court recessed for a short break. The gang-showing was all the buzz as we filed out into the hall. Several of Brian’s friends headed outside to smoke. They huddled into one another in the cold, ripping cigarettes and talking. Brian’s pal Barry looked across the courtyard and saw the former Fernandez friend. He was heading towards them.
When the witness approached the smoking circle, he said, “I’m sorry about your boy. That night was fucked up. My boy? Me and him, we’ve seen a lot of shit. When someone deserves it, they deserve it, you know? Your boy?… It never should have gone down like that. That night was fucked up.”
And then he left.
I don’t know if he reflected on what he’d done with his second statement, out in the woods off of 495-S, or in that courtroom. If he saw the big picture, he’d know he validated my brother’s life that day. Fernandez was convicted and sentenced to forty years to life. Without the recanted statement, the found knife, and standing before twenty gigantic thugs and delivering the truth, I think I’d be telling you about a different outcome. And although justice doesn’t bring your loved one back, it says their life counted. Someone took it away, it’s not acceptable, and the person responsible has to face consequences.
I don’t know if that witness is alive today. I suppose his way of life is hard. And I remember thinking he’d probably gotten himself killed with his sense of justice and gangster morality. I think of him often. I doubt his was an admirable life on the whole, but he strung together a period of bravery. He did the difficult thing— he told the truth when none of his tribe wanted it told and threatened to kill his family if he did.
His is a story of redemption, really. I shudder to think what he meant by “we’ve seen a lot of shit”. I know I heard things in that courtroom I can’t ever forget. I learned of a frightening, soulless subculture of violence of which books, tv, and film only scratch the surface. I’m sure his was (or still is) a life full of evil acts. While my brother lay bleeding in the snow, Fernandez’s friend left him there and drove the car away. One day soon after, though, he drew the line in the sand. He said no to the injustice. As he said, “It never should have gone down like that,” and he did what he could to make it right.