FORT WORTH -- John Lacy was just 7 years old, a second-grader small enough
for the nickname Peanut, when he sat on the back porch of a Dillow Street
house one Sunday and lit up a joint, a witness said.

He returned to the back door hours later, the witness said, startling a
15-year-old neighborhood friend who was supposed to be guarding the dope
house but was dozing on the couch instead. The teen said he fired a
semiautomatic pistol into the dark, hitting the 7- year-old between the
eyes.

"I looked down," the teen said. "It was Peanut."

In mumbling testimony yesterday, the teen recalled events leading up to
John's March 22 shooting death. The testimony came on the opening day of
Ernest Lee Howard's federal trial on drug and weapons charges.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Terri Moore and defense attorney Larry Brown both
rested their cases yesterday after about four hours of testimony before
U.S. District Judge John McBryde. Closing arguments and jury deliberations
are scheduled for this morning.

The teen said Howard hired him to run the drug house, supplied him with the
pistol, and filled him with enough fear of being "jacked," or robbed, that
he fired at the first noise out back.

The teen, who is not being named because he is a juvenile, pleaded guilty
last month to delinquent conduct-murder and was sentenced to eight years.

Howard, 27, of Fort Worth, is the boyfriend of the teen-ager's adoptive
mother. He is charged with nine drug and weapons counts, including one
count of enticing a person younger than 18 to possess marijuana with intent
to distribute it.

Howard had been scheduled to be tried with his roommate, Alfred Brooks, who
was originally charged with the same nine counts. But Brooks pleaded guilty
to three counts Friday under an agreement with prosecutors. Brooks
testified against Howard, saying it was Howard's idea to hire and arm the
teen to run the drug house.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Howard acknowledged previous state
drug convictions but said he had straightened out his life, moving up from
a minimum-wage job flipping burgers to driving an 18-wheeler. He said he
often told the teen to mind his mother and stay in school.

"I was trying to be a role model," Howard said. "I told him [prison] is not
where you want to go. I've done that."

Howard said he had nothing to do with the dope house and had no idea that
the teen and Brooks were involved in it. He said he did not understand why
the teen and his former roommate testified otherwise, although his lawyer
suggested that the two were seeking leniency in exchange for their
testimony.

"I don't know what the deal is," Howard said. "It really hurts."

Howard appeared relaxed and cool on the stand, bragging more than once
about being a "ladies' man." His demeanor appeared to upset members of
John's family, some of whom cried during Howard's testimony.

John's mother, Kimberly Lacy, said she was also bothered by the teen's
testimony that her son smoked marijuana on the day he died.

"I don't believe it's true," she said. "I surely don't."

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