EVERETT — A senior at Everett’s ACES High School told a jury Friday that he thwarted an attempt to abduct Rachel Burkheimer from his home in Lynnwood, but didn’t warn her of the danger.
Nathan Thomas Lovelace said he suspected something bad would happen to Burkheimer, 18, of Marysville, so he used a ruse to get two of her abductors out of his house.
The testimony came as the state began to wind down its case against Yusef "Kevin" Jihad, a man Lovelace said appeared to be the leader of a group of thieves involved in Burkheimer’s kidnapping and shooting death.
He told jurors he was a friend of two of the defendants, who at the time attended Lynnwood High School. He also told jurors he was acquainted with others who were charged with murder and other crimes in the woman’s death.
Jihad is on trial for aggravated murder and other charges. The state is expected to conclude its case on Monday or Tuesday. Jihad’s lawyer, Mickey Krom, told a jury that Jihad will testify in his own defense.
Lovelace’s testimony bolsters the prosecution’s contention that Jihad, 34, of Everett was the boss and gave the orders to have Burkheimer killed on Sept. 23, 2002.
The defense maintains that Jihad had nothing to do with the death, and blames everything on another member of the gang, John Phillip "Diggy" Anderson, Burkheimer’s former boyfriend. Krom told the jury that Anderson flew into a jealous rage because she had dated other men.
On the afternoon Burkheimer disappeared, Lovelace overheard Maurice Rivas and Mathew Durham talking on the telephone, presumably to Anderson, 22, of Everett, the man prosecutors have accused of shooting Burkheimer.
He heard them talking about parking a car in the Lovelace garage, and something about the trunk of a car, he told jurors.
"I heard them say Kevin Jihad and Diggy were coming over and they were going to park in the garage. It didn’t feel very comfortable," Lovelace said. He also heard them say something was going to happen to Burkheimer, but they didn’t say what, he testified.
Lovelace said he made up a story about his dad coming home, causing his friends Rivas and Durham, both 19, of Lynnwood to change plans.
Soon after Burkheimer arrived at the Lovelace home, she was driven by Durham to Jihad’s residence, a south Everett duplex, where she was beaten, hogtied and eventually hauled off in a large duffel bag to her death in the foothills east of Gold Bar.
She was made to strip, crawl into a 2-foot-deep grave and was shot multiple times.
Lovelace said he had been to Jihad’s home and was present once when there was an impromptu meeting of gang members.
"It looked to me he was somewhat in charge," Lovelace said of Jihad.
Prosecutors say Jihad and the gang members believed Burkheimer was a threat to their organization because she had been associating with rival gang members. Altogether, eight people were charged in her disappearance, all of whom are now between the ages of 19 and 23.
Lovelace testified that he wasn’t really familiar with the structure of the gang, but it appeared to him that Jihad "was the older one looking out for everybody, maybe. I couldn’t be 100 percent sure he was the leader or anything like that, but just putting the pieces together," Lovelace told jurors.
Others have testified that Jihad was the top boss.
Lovelace had the least involvement in the case, prosecutors said.
He originally was charged as an adult with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. He later agreed to testify and was charged as a juvenile with rendering criminal assistance because he lied to police.
He was kept in jail 116 days before the case was resolved, and sentenced to time already served.
When the police investigation focused on members of the gang, Lovelace lied at first, telling officers he knew nothing of Burkheimer’s disappearance, and later that Anderson wasn’t hiding in his home. He eventually told officers that Anderson was there, and Anderson was arrested.
Deputy prosecutor Michael Downes asked him why he lied.
"I was scared. I was scared of Diggy and all of them. I didn’t know what to do," Lovelace said. "I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into."
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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