Trial Opens For Two Men Charged in Girl's Death

It wasn't the only glimpse yesterday into the teenager's dangerous life. Hansen was out after 3 a.m. Jan. 18, Jackson told the jury, looking to get high when she saw Ward kill Evans on the sixth floor of 36 K St. NW. Other such details are likely to emerge as Jackson and fellow Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Sines present their case before the jury and Judge Wendell P. Gardner Jr.

Hansen's mother, Judyann, her eyes shrouded by brown sunglasses, listened to the prosecution's account from the third row of the courtroom.

Hansen was at a friend's rowhouse in the 1100 block of First Terrace NW shortly after 11 p.m. Jan. 23 when trouble flared. Just hours earlier, Ward had assured Hansen that she would be paid for keeping quiet about Evans's slaying, prosecutors said. Hansen was told that Thompson would be the one to take her the money, prosecutors said.

Instead, Thompson burst into the rowhouse with a mask over his face and a revolver in hand, prosecutors said. The young people who had been laughing seconds earlier scattered. A 12-year-old girl was shot in the leg and survived, but she was not the target. Hansen was, prosecutors said, and Thompson chased her through the house, ultimately firing two shots into the back of her head.

In their opening statements, defense attorneys challenged prosecutors' version of events. Thompson and Ward had nothing to do with the crimes, the lawyers said.

"What the government is going to give you is stories," said Thompson's attorney, Rudolph Acree. And the people who will tell the stories aren't believable, he said.

What prosecutors can't provide, he said, is physical evidence -- fingerprints, DNA -- that links Thompson to Hansen's killing.

"This is the wrong person sitting here," Acree said of his client.

Ward's attorney, Steven D. Kupferberg, said the prosecution is trying to mask a flawed case by playing up names such as "Nitti" and "Corleone" in hopes of appealing to the jury's emotions.