Gang member: 15-year-old was ringleader in killing

Shardise "Kaiso" Malaga on Friday said she pleaded with her 14-year-old cousin as he fiddled with a gun clip as he contemplated killing JoJo Lee Brandstatt on the hill of a West Valley City golf course in February.

"He said, 'You know, Sis, it wasn't supposed to go down like this," Malaga, 19, testified during the first day of a hearing to determine whether the boy will be tried as an adult. "I said, 'Maybe you and the kid can be homies in the future. It don't have to be like this.' "

The boy paused for a moment -- even cried at one point -- but Malaga says anger overruled walking away. The red T-shirt Brandstatt wore was the color of a rival gang that had carried out three drive-by shootings in the boy's West Valley City neighborhood over the summer. He stared down Brandstatt, who stood quietly with his head down and hands folded. Malaga said when an older gang member urged him to pull the trigger, he did.

Friday's testimony in 3rd District Juvenile Court gave new details of Brandstatt's last moments on Feb. 5 and his alleged killer's efforts to bolster his leadership role in his gang.

Malaga said while her cousin acted like a brother to her, he was known for having a temper and served as a gang leader on the day of the murder.

"I think he was a follower before, but with the situation that happened he was a leader," she said.

The boy had decided Brandstatt, 18, "knew too much" about the group's decision to kidnap and

rob Brandstatt's friend Gregory Brown earlier that day, Malaga testified. Brandstatt had angered the boy when he had earlier suggested robbing a home believed to be associated with another Kearns gang that was an ally of the 14-year-old's Outlaw Crips gang, Malaga said.

Malaga said her cousin would often meet with older gang members in their 20s and 30s. He wanted to make a name for himself in the gang, she said, and other kids in the neighborhood were scared of him.

Malaga said she, the boy, and others were involved in an altercation that began with another group when a candy bar was thrown weeks before the shooting. When someone stabbed a person in Malaga's group with a screwdriver, police arrived. The boy exhibited rage at the scene and police repeatedly threatened to use a Taser on him to get him into custody, Taylorsville police Detective Denise Ikemiyashiro testified Friday.

But in the moments after the shooting, Malaga said the 14-year-old joined her in a getaway car and spoke in a panic when asked whether Brandstatt was dead.

"He said, 'I don't know, I don't know. I didn't see him moving after I shot him,' " she testified. "I thought [Brandstatt] was going to get beat up. I didn't know he was going to get shot."

Brandstatt's mother, Elka Fernandez, sobbed in the courtroom as Malaga described a request from Brandstatt to call his family to say goodbye before his execution.

"JoJo was staring at me. He was just standing there with his hands folded. Like he was ready for it. He knew it was over," Malaga said.

Police discovered Brandstatt's bullet-riddled body face down in the snow at the West Ridge Golf Course the next day.

Should the now-15-year-old be transferred to and then be convicted of charges in adult court, he could become the youngest inmate in a Utah State Prison.

That distinction was formerly held by Carlos Adrian Javier Hernandez, now 17, who is serving a sentence at the Gunnison prison, according to Utah Department of Corrections records. Herandez was 15 when he pleaded guilty in 2007 to raping and killing a teenage girl at a St.George park, and he was tried as an adult after a similar juvenile court hearing.

Three adults are also awaiting trial in connection with the case: Malaga, 19; Spencer Isaiah Cater, 19; and Jeremiah Ha'k Williamson, 27. The boy and the adults are all charged with one count of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and five counts of aggravated robbery.

A videotape showed during the preliminary hearing showed the boy's Feb. 6 interview by West Valley City police detectives in which the sobbing teenager confessed to shooting Brandstatt twice. The teen said he was high on marijuana and pressured to pull the trigger by Cater, who allegedly believed the victim "knew too much."

Brown, 19, a drug dealer who has testified in connection with the case, alleges Brandstatt was targeted in part because he wore a red shirt and claimed allegiance to a Norteño gang, a rival of the defendants' Crips gang.

At Friday's hearing, Brown testified that when he met the 14-year-old, the boy acted as if he were 20 and seemed to be the leader of a group of 15 gang members at the boy's West Valley City apartment complex.

"When I was around him, I didn't get that vibe that he was a kid," Brown said, adding he had observed the boy participate in the initiation of another gangster in which the boy beat someone for 30 seconds along with other gang members.

The 15-year-old's attorney argued, however, that he was under the influence of Cater, who egged him on to shoot Brandstatt. Defense attorney Richard Van Wagoner claimed the boy experienced a difficult home life when his parents split up and his mother returned to Samoa for a while.

Brown said he was kidnapped by the four defendants when he met them at a West Valley City Wendy's restaurant to trade marijuana for a gun. The group robbed him and said if Brown was able to get $2,000 by the end of the night through robberies, they wouldn't kill him, he told the court.

According to Brown, he called Brandstatt, who agreed to meet up with the group at Kearns Junior High School with the address of a gang member to rob, he said. When he arrived, Brandstatt was wearing a red T-shirt and red shoelaces, a color that indicated a connection to Norteño gang members. Brown alleged the boy said, "Let's just finish off this Norte."

The defendants drove to the golf course where Brandstatt was shot and allegedly coerced Brown into using a pellet gun to rob three convenience stores afterward. Defense attorneys argued Brown was a willing participant and not a victim.

In August, new charges were filed against the 15-year-old and two adults charged in Brandstatt's murder alleging the trio and Brown worked together to burglarize a South Jordan home thirteen days before Brandstatt's murder.

The 15-year-old, along with Brown, Williamson and Malaga, are accused of stealing a 42-inch Sony television, a Canon printer, a Toshiba laptop, a Sony stereo receiver, four speakers, a DVD player and a Comcast cable receiver, according to charging documents.

The burglary victim was a former roommate of Brown's, according to charging documents filed in 3rd District Court.

Malaga testified she has been offered a plea agreement in exchange for testifying at her cousin's hearing. Prosecutors plan to ask that the murder charge against her be amended to a second-degree felony, but with other charges, she will still face up to life in prison if convicted.

mrogers@sltrib.com