By Henri E. Cauvin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006

It has been almost three years since a 14-year-old girl known as Princess was shot dead in the Sursum Corda housing complex. Jahkema Hansen was a victim, prosecutors say, of her own intimate ties to people who made Sursum Corda notorious for drugs and death.

Hansen had seen a drug dealer be gunned down, allegedly by a man she sometimes dated. And, prosecutors say, when the killer decided that Hansen couldn't be counted on to keep quiet, he paid a friend $8,000 to kill her.

The truths of the story of death, intimidation and more death will be tested in coming weeks as the two men accused in Hansen's killing stand trial in D.C. Superior Court, just a mile from where the teenager was shot on a Friday night in January 2004. A jury began hearing the case yesterday.

Franklin Thompson, 24, and Marquette Ward, 31, are charged with first-degree murder, obstruction of justice and other offenses in what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to silence a witness. The defendants say they are guilty only of ties to a place plagued by violence.

Since they were arrested days after the shooting, Thompson and Ward have been held under heightened security at the D.C. jail. Trial dates came and went, largely because of prosecutors' efforts to link the two killings along with the complications of scheduling a trial with two defendants.

In that time, change has come to Sursum Corda, a resident-owned cooperative on nearly six acres just off North Capitol Street, near Union Station. A major police operation flushed out a lot of the drug trade, and a mayoral initiative focused on the complex along with a ravenous appetite for real estate have made Sursum Corda a desirable site for developers. Rowhouses may soon give way to luxury condominiums.

But what happened Jan. 23, 2004, will for a long time haunt the name of Sursum Corda, Latin words that mean "lift up your hearts," words bestowed on the complex by the Catholic organizations that founded it in the 1960s. Over the years, prosecutors say, Sursum Corda had become the site of unbridled gangsterism.

The men accused of killing Hansen were known by nicknames, prosecutors say. Thompson, who lived nearby in the 400 block of K Street, was dubbed Frank Nitti, for the ruthless Al Capone henchman. Ward, who lived in the 1000 block of Euclid Street NW but spent much of his time at Sursum Corda, was called Corleone, after the Mafia family portrayed in "The Godfather."

"Ladies and gentlemen, they didn't play these roles on some silver screen," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Jackson told the jury yesterday in her opening statement. "No -- they lived these roles on the streets of Sursum Corda."

Talking to police was a capital offense in their world. Soon after the Jan. 18, 2004, death of the drug dealer, Mario J. Evans, Hansen and her mother drove to the D.C. police homicide unit. Ward secretly followed them and became convinced that his sometime girlfriend was giving him up to police, Jackson said. Ward is also on trial for Evans's death.

What Ward didn't know, Jackson said, was that another witness had already implicated him in Evans's death. And what Ward couldn't imagine, Jackson said, was that Hansen -- who had been summoned to the police station -- would reveal nothing to detectives.

Even after detectives told Hansen that she was in danger, she told them her sexual prowess was well known in the neighborhood and made her untouchable. When Jackson repeated the boast in the crude words that the 14-year-old used, courtroom spectators were startled.

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.