The $3 Murder

"Pay your debt, Crip. Pay your debt."

by Mike Newall

Gordo killed Crip over $3. Shot him point-blank in the chest with a 9 mm in broad daylight. It was winter of last year, around 8 a.m., near an abandoned lot on Westmoreland Street. Cuba was there, too. Cuba's in his 60s and sold drugs out of his house. Gordo's in his 20s, with a reputation for violence. Crip smoked crack. His real name was Nicky but everyone called him Crip because he was partially paralyzed after being shot in the head as a teenager. Nicky was 38 years old, and cleaned out neighbors' chicken coops for extra cash. The original debt was $5. Gordo asked for $3. Nicky didn't have it. Cuba handed Gordo the gun and told him, "Do it. Do it."

That's how Nicky "Crip" Cruz's murder unfolded during a recent preliminary hearing. The courtroom was empty save for a detective and some of the co-defendant's family members. Gloria Marquez sat on the witness stand. A thin woman in a sundress, she said she was sweeping her porch when the shooting occurred. A defense attorney tried rattling her.

"Miss Marquez, you smoke drugs, don't you?" he said.

"No, I do not," said Marquez.

"Yeah, you don't smoke drugs just like I don't wash every morning," said the attorney.

"That's just ignorant," said Marquez.

Marquez testified that after Gordo ran from the scene — and Cuba calmly walked inside his house — she went to see if Nicky was alive. Seeing he was dead, she went back to her porch, choosing not to approach the arriving police.

"I was waiting for them to find me," she said.

The police knocked on her door seven months later and she agreed to testify.

Nicky's mother, Miriam, did not attend the hearing. She is recuperating from an operation. On a recent afternoon, she asked her granddaughter, Kamilah, to go upstairs and get some of Nicky's writings. The young girl returned with an overflowing folder of musings and poems scrawled longhand onto yellow legal tablets. Nicky would sit, writing, in his cramped bedroom overlooking a weed-tangled lot, for hours, said his mother, usually when he was trying to kick his habit.

"He did his writings with his left hand," she said. "He couldn't do nothing with his right hand."

"How did I get here ..." began one page.

Nicky was 15 when he was shot in the forehead during a fight over a girl. The bullet lodged in his neck. Doctors did not expect him to recover. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life, dragging his right leg behind him.

"He had a stroll to him," said Kamilah.

"As I lay awake in my bed, thoughts of you flow like dreams ..." began another page.

When Nicky was 24 he was engaged to a girl named Lissette. He pasted scraps of paper into his scrapbook recalling important dates. "The first time Lisy and I made love," read one. Near it was a receipt for an engagement ring for $84.53. But Lisy was sick with kidney problems, and died while Nicky was in prison for drugs.

"Now I have nothing to offer you and that is part of my suffering," he wrote in a poem dedicated to her.

"She was the love of his life," said Kamilah. "He never got over her death."

"The world is drenched in tears ... " began another page.

When Nicky was using he would spend most nights in a nearby abandoned house with friends. His mother would cook meals for him and if there were leftovers, Nicky would bring them to the house. When he returned home, his mother would always make sure he was alone before letting him back inside.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

"Joy is founded on something too profound to be understood ..." read another of Nicky's writings.

Nicky would always smile and call out, "'Mil!" when he saw his niece Kamilah. The two were especially close. "I need help," he told her about his drug use. "I don't want to die." His family offered rehab but he'd say, "Let's wait a while."

"I sit here looking out the window, not really seeing, just wondering, what lies ahead ..." read one of Nick's final passages.

Nicky's mother collected his $637 disability check for him on the 26th or 27th of every month. Then, the best she could, she made sure Nicky paid back anyone he owed money to. She said he never told her about the $5 debt.

She paid $500 for her son to be cremated. Now she prays to him at night.

Down the block, in the Philip Street Park, Nicky was remembered fondly as a kind of lovable neighborhood pet.

"Crip was a cool boy," said a kid named Victor. "That was my man."

"An ass-whooping would've been better," said another guy, who had a tear-droplet tattooed beneath his eye.

Back in the courtroom, Gloria Marquez described Nicky's final moments.

"Gordo was yelling at him, 'Pay your debt, Crip. Pay your debt, Crip.'" Then Cuba handed Gordo the gun and Gordo pointed it at Nicky and said, "This is what you're gonna get motherfucker."

"Did Nicky say anything in return?" asked the defense attorney.

"No," said Marquez. "He was standing there, smoking a cigarette and Gordo just shot him. It happened really fast."