NORFOLK
Seventeen-year-old Skyler Hayward, known as "Little Drama," popped an Ecstasy tablet and chugged a concoction containing Hennessy cognac at a Bounty Hunter Bloods party last summer before she witnessed a mob attack on three young men in East Ocean View.
Hayward, who joined the Bloods when she was 16, testified in U.S. District Court Wednesday about the mob attack that led to the killing of 19-year-old James S. Robertson. She also provided more inside details of how the street gang operated.
Two accused leaders of the gang, Mikal Mustafa Mix and Gary Lynn Toliver Jr., are on trial and face dozens of counts of racketeering, assault, kidnapping, drug dealing, illegal firearms possession and being accessories to murder. If convicted, they could be sentenced to as much as life in prison.
Hayward said she and two friends lured Robertson, his cousin and a friend to 16th Bay Street the night of July 27 last year. As the three men got out of their car, a mob ran out from behind a house and began attacking them.
"They were kicking and stomping. Everyone participated," she said, except for her.
In the middle of the attack, Hayward said, she became frightened at what was happening and shouted "Police!" even though no patrol car was in sight.
After the attack, she said, she and other Bloods, including Curtis Wayne Newby, spent the next 24 hours or so hiding out in area motels. She said Newby slapped her as discipline for shouting for the police.
She testified that she also overheard arrangements being made to get Newby out of town and in hiding. Mix was to help, she said.
Newby was arrested last week in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and gang members testified this week that Mix had Newby hiding out with his relatives there.
Police arrested Hayward at one of the hotels along with several other bloods. She has since pleaded guilty to murder and related charges and is awaiting sentencing. At first, after her arrest, she was a reluctant witness.
"I didn't want to snitch," she testified.
"Why?" asked one of the prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherrie Capotosto. "What happens when you snitch?"
"You get killed," Hayward answered, matter-of-factly.
Mix's attorney, Lawrence H. Woodward Jr., got Hayward to agree that she lied several times on the stand about some of the details of the attack.
"I'm sorry," she said at one point. "My nerves are just in a bunch right now."
Hayward said she joined the gang by withstanding a 31-second beating, known as "shooting a 31." She said she is called "Little Drama" because she "doesn't give a lot of drama."
Also on trial is Elizabeth Horne, charged in one of the gang's signature home-invasion robberies.
The trial is expected to last another week or two.
Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com
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