When Bethany Hyde left a party, she had no idea her fate was partly tied to the color and kind of car in which she was riding home.
That same night a year ago at another party across town, a gang, Tiny Oriental Posse, had decided to go "hunting" for members of a rival gang, Oriental Laotian Gangsters, or as they called them, OLGs.So, when a carload of TOP gang members pulled up to the intersection at 2700 West and 3500 South about 2 a.m. Nov. 7, 1998, and saw a dark green Honda Accord stopped at the traffic light, at least one of them opened fire on the car, believing it belonged to an OLG gang leader called "Samslao."
In the car, however, were Hyde, her sister and a friend, heading home from a party. One bullet passed through the back window and struck Hyde, who was in the back seat leaning up talking to her sister, under her right arm. The .380-caliber bullet pierced her heart and the 16-year-old died a short time later.
"We look for them and when we see them we try to kill them. We shoot 'em," is how a former teenage member of TOP described "hunting" OLGs Wednesday in 3rd District Court.
The teen was testifying in the preliminary hearing of Steven V. Keomanivong, accused of firing the fatal shot. Following the day of testimony, Judge Dennis Fuchs found probable cause that Keomanivong, 19, fired the shot that killed Hyde and bound him over for trial on a charge of murder, a first-degree felony. The charge, to which Keomanivong pleaded not guilty, carries firearm and gang enhancements, which could add to any potential prison term.
The former TOP member, being held in juvenile detention and facing a prison term of 14 to 42 years for armed robbery once he turns 18, also testified that he saw Keomanivong take a .380-caliber revolver that night and get into the car with those going "hunting." Had he been in the TOP car himself, which was also a dark-colored Honda Accord, the teen said he would have opened fire on the car Hyde was in.
"I would probably have shot it because I would have thought it was an OLG," he said.
A former jail cellmate of Keomanivong also testified thatKeomanivong bragged of the mistaken-identity killing and showed no remorse that the victim was not an OLG member but an innocent girl on her way home from a party. The former cellmate's testimony chilled Hyde's family when he said Keomanivong told him that had he known of his victim's beauty, he would have had sex with her first.
"I couldn't believe he would say such a thing about her. It's very heartbreaking," Hyde's mother, Merlinda Bradshaw, said.
Bradshaw also took no comfort in knowing her daughter was not the intended target. Instead, she was disgusted at the callous and casual way the gang members viewed life, violence and their criminal behavior. The teen gang member who testified seemed unfazed at the long prison term that awaits him.
"They have no regard for human life whatsoever. They just don't care, and as a result my daughter's dead," Bradshaw said.
Another gang member testified that Keomanivong also bragged of the killing and asked to borrow money to travel to Portland, where he was eventually arrested.
Mohammad Elquanni, 19, was driving Hyde and her sister home that night and testified that while at the traffic signal he suddenly heard about three loud pops that sounded like an explosion. When he felt glass hit his face and saw the bullet hole in the rear window, he opened his door, grabbed his cell phone and rolled out onto the street, where he called 911.
He got up a few seconds later and saw another dark Honda Accord driving away. He said the car's occupants were Asian, but he could not identify one of them as being Keomanivong, he testified.
Megan Hyde, 21, testified she was talking to her sister when she heard a loud pop and the car's back window shatter. When she asked her sister what was going on, "she just kind of looked at me and said she didn't know. But she said something had hit her," Megan Hyde said.
Elquanni said after dialing 911, he checked Bethany Hyde and noticed a bullet hole under her arm.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said.
Megan Hyde testified she also saw the dark-colored Accord next to their car right after the loud pops. However, she also was unable to identify Keomanivong as one of the occupants.
Keomanivong is scheduled to appear Nov. 29 before Judge William Barrett for a scheduling conference. He remains in custody at the Salt Lake County Jail.
His brother, Phokham Keomanivong, is wanted by Midvale police in the Nov. 18, 1995, slaying of Nicholas Dirkson, 17, who was gunned down outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken where he worked.