FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Sixteen-year-old Lisa Rene screamed in terror and begged a 911 operator for help as men claiming to be FBI agents broke into her apartment and dragged her away.
Over two days, she was raped repeatedly, beaten with a shovel and then buried alive in what prosecutors said was retaliation against her two brothers for a drug deal gone bad.
The short and chilling recording of Lisa's 911 call was played for the jury Tuesday, the opening day in the first federal capital punishment case filed under the crime bill enacted last year.
"They're trying to break down my door! Hurry up!" Lisa told the 911 dispatcher on Sept. 24, 1994. A muffled scream is heard seconds later, with a man saying, "Who you on the phone with?" The line then went dead.
The case became a federal one when Lisa's abductors crossed the Texas line and drove her to Pine Bluff, Ark., where she was buried in a park. Among the 60 crimes covered under the federal law are kidnappings that result in death.
Three of five men charged have pleaded guilty to kidnapping in exchange for leniency when they are sentenced. They agreed to testify against Orlando Hall, 24, of El Dorado, Ark., and Bruce Webster, 22, of Pine Bluff, Ark.
Hall is on trial now. Webster, who also faces the death penalty, is scheduled for trial March 4.
Prosecutors said Hall was a drug dealer who had come to Texas to buy $5,000 worth of marijuana from Lisa's brothers, Stanfield Vitalis, 28, and Neil Rene, 19. Hall and Webster paid the money but never got the marijuana.
Hall found out the brothers were staying in their sister's Arlington apartment. They abducted Lisa when they couldn't find her brothers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said.
Hall's brother Demetrius testified Tuesday that he, his brother, Webster and 23-year-old Steven Beckley dressed in camouflage fatigues, armed themselves with two pistols and a baseball bat and drove to the apartment. Lisa was home alone.
Demetrius Hall said he and Webster raped the girl during the car ride to Arkansas, and Beckley raped her again once they were in a Pine Bluff motel room, where she was kept with a hood over her head.
Webster, according to a statement Orlando Hall gave to the FBI, "took me to the park and showed me a grave that had already been dug. He said that's where he's going to bury the girl."
"We walked the girl into the area. (Webster) hit the girl on the back of the head with the shovel while Steve held her. She tried to run but I caught her," Orlando Hall told the FBI.
Orlando Hall said Beckley also hit Lisa with the shovel. Webster, he said, hit her four or five times "and finished her off."
The coroner said Lisa was still alive when she was buried and died of asphyxiation in the grave, where she was found eight days later.
Lisa was buried naked. Her clothes were burned using gasoline they brought from Arkansas to light her brothers on fire, Orlando Hall said.
Her brothers were indicted a year ago on charges involving a package of crack. Neil Rene got five years in prison, Vitalis received five years of probation.
Michael Ware, one of Orlando Hall's lawyers, told jurors in his opening statement that his client played only a minor part in the kidnapping and murder.
"There was never any plan to abduct Lisa Rene," Ware said. "From that point on, things got out of hand, with Bruce Webster in charge."