Eight-year-old Leroy Brown’s basketball teammates remembered him at his funeral last night as a good boy who didn’t deserve to die for witnessing a murder.
Leroy and his mom, 30-year-old Karen Clarke – both potential witnesses in the trial of an accused drive-by killer – were shot to death last week in their Bridgeport, Conn., home.
”He was nice. I don’t know why anybody would want to do that to him,” said 9-year-old Xavier White, Leroy’s cousin.
Xavier led a procession of 11 members of the Bridgeport Boys & Girls Club basketball team, who wore their blue team jerseys as they presented Xavier’s family with a blue-and-white basketball they had signed.
The players were among hundreds who packed the Refuge Temple Church of God to remember a little boy who saw what no child should ever see – a brutal murder.
Clarke’s boyfriend, Rudolph Snead Jr., died May 29 in a drive-by shooting. Russell Peeler Jr. is charged in the murder and in a Sept. 2, 1997, incident in which a bullet grazed Snead’s head.
Peeler was freed after posting $90,000 – 10 percent of his $900,000 bail – and was supposed to be confined to his home. His movements were being monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet.
He was back in jail yesterday after cops busted him for possessing a gun stolen from Milford, Conn., early last year.
Officers found the stolen gun in Peeler’s house when they went looking for his brother, Adrian, 22, who allegedly escaped from a halfway house.
Police Capt. David Boston said the shotgun has ”nothing to do” with the murder investigation.
Authorities said they were trying to reassure another boy, who was near Leroy when the drive-by murder took place.
Police indicated that child hadn’t seen as much as Leroy had, but they wouldn’t comment further.
The slayings of Leroy and his mother have sparked widespread outrage about why the boy was not under witness protection. Many have questioned why Peeler was free on bail on the murder charge.
Bond was set at $750,000 cash on the gun charge yesterday, state police Lt. Ralph Carpenter said.
Peeler’s lawyer, Gary Mastronardi, did not return phone calls. He claims that Peeler was home at the time of the double slaying, monitored by the electronic bracelet.
Anyone with information about Leroy and his mother’s deaths is asked to call police at (800) 978-2828. All calls are confidential.