Threatened with jail Friday, a woman broke the "code of silence" in her tough Boston neighborhood and revealed the name uttered to her by a fatally stabbed man as she cradled his bleeding head in her arms.
"I walked over to Patrick (Nee) and said, `Who did this to you?' " Eleanor Nelson testified in the federal trial of James "Jimma" Houlihan, who is charged with Nee's slaying July 30."He said, `Jimma,"' Nelson said, looking at the defendant.
"He collapsed," she continued. "I picked his head up off the ground - I just didn't want to put his head down. . . . He was just gurgling and the blood on his neck was just making sounds because it was coming out so fast."
On Thursday, however, the code of silence still reigned when Nelson, 25, refused to reveal whom her friend had named as the killer. U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner told Nelson she could be jailed for contempt.
Charlestown is a tough, working-class enclave of Irish-Americans known for resenting outside interference in their affairs - and, in some cases, for enforcing the so-called code of silence surrounding criminal activity.
Houlihan, 22, is charged with murdering the 24-year-old Nee in retaliation for testimony Nee's sister, Marie, and mother, Veronica Boyden, gave in a previous federal drug trafficking and murder trial.
The women's testimony helped convict James Houlihan's uncle, John Houlihan, and two other men of killing Boyden's husband and her other son.
Prosecutors said the men were targeted because they refused to stop selling cocaine in an area controlled by the defendants' drug ring.
That trial was the first in which federal investigators managed to persuade several witnesses to break Charlestown's code of silence. Nelson's brother, Michael, another witness in that trial, is now in the federal witness protection program.
Friday morning, James Houlihan's attorneys argued for a mistrial, saying the jury had been prejudiced by Nelson's emotional testimony and refusal to answer the critical question.
"When one of the key witnesses gets on the stand and trembles in fear, breaks down and cries and then refuses to answer . . . there's no way to erase that," said defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro.