BURNING DEATH STUNS BAY AREA

Social Workers Finally Coaxed Leslie May Off the Streets of San
Francisco, but She Was Abducted and Killed Over a $150 Drug Debt.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hers was a hard-won success: a chronically homeless
drug addict on city streets for decades finally steered -- in baby
steps -- into housing and the promise of a future.

But the death of Leslie "Jill" May has now become one of the most
dismaying tragedies of San Francisco's pervasive homeless culture.

Known as "Jilly," the 49-year-old was beaten and stripped as warning
to repay a $150 drug debt -- possibly her boyfriend's, authorities
say. Then, after reporting the assault to police, the birdlike woman
who had once stunned the Tenderloin sex trade with her leggy beauty
was forced into a car in broad daylight, driven to the city's
desolate football stadium, doused with gasoline and burned alive.

"A gust of wind would blow her away. She was not a threat to
anybody," said city social worker Ben Amyes, who spent years coaxing
May onto methadone and off the streets as part of Mayor Gavin
Newsom's Homeless Outreach Team.

"Street life is difficult," Amyes said. "For a $150 drug debt, I
wasn't surprised to hear that they beat her up and stripped her
naked. But the manner in which she was murdered is shocking."

Two women are now in custody in connection with the Jan. 12 slaying.
Mia Sagote, 29, was charged with murder and kidnapping after her Jan.
23 arrest. She also faces a robbery charge in connection with the
Jan. 11 incident in which May's clothes were taken.

Authorities waited until the arrest of Leslie Siliga, 30, on Tuesday
to go public with the case. Siliga faces charges of murder,
kidnapping and conspiracy, and prosecutors expect to add a conspiracy
charge to Sagote's case.

The women, who are not homeless, also face three special circumstance
allegations: that they committed the murder while engaged in a
kidnapping and to avoid arrest and prosecution for the robbery, and
that the crime was "especially heinous, atrocious and cruel,
manifesting exceptional depravity."

"In 17 years as a prosecutor, I've seen people do terrible things to
each other, but this is sickening," San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala
Harris said in a statement Thursday. "We're going to aggressively
prosecute and convict the individuals responsible for this shocking crime."

The charges make Sagote and Siliga subject to the death penalty or
life in prison without possibility of parole, if convicted, said
district attorney spokeswoman Debbie Mesloh. A panel of senior
prosecutors will review "all the facts surrounding the case, the law
and the evidence" to determine which is appropriate, she said.

Attorneys for Sagote and Siliga could not be reached for comment.

The murder has gained attention less than a week after a homeless
couple in Corona was doused with gasoline and set ablaze by unknown
assailants. Their injuries were not life-threatening.

In San Francisco, May's slaying stunned even the street-savvy
outreach workers who worked so hard to help her -- and others like her.

The deaths of chronically homeless people rarely make news. Severe
medical ailments, untreated psychoses, drug addiction and crime are
among the plagues that shorten life expectancy on the streets. Still,
May's demise came as she at last seemed to be accepting the hand up
that had been offered for years.

About 3,000 of San Francisco's more than 6,000 homeless are
considered "chronic," said Trent Rhorer, executive director of the
city's Department of Human Services, which runs the Homeless Outreach
Team and helps fund the more specialized Homeless Outreach and
Medical Emergency team, which targets frequent users of city
emergency health services.

San Francisco pioneered the use of such a specialized team, and it is
being emulated around the country. The Homeless Outreach Team,
meanwhile, was modeled after one in Philadelphia. The mobile bands of
social workers have become key to San Francisco's goal of moving the
chronically homeless into permanent housing that includes services
for addiction and mental health.

May, Rhorer said, was "a prime case study" in what it takes to get a
chronically homeless person off the street.

While the method of her brutal death "is the exception rather than
the rule, it also points out why this work is so important," he said.
"If they stay on the streets, they are going to die."

"Jilly," who was toothless when she died, came to San Francisco in
the 1970s as a young prostitute and was so stunning that other
prostitutes cut deals with her to keep her off their corners, Amyes said.

In the decades since, she and her boyfriend and onetime pimp became
fixtures on the gritty Tenderloin corner of Jones and O'Farrell.

"They set up camp on the sidewalk," said San Francisco Fire Capt.
Niels Tangherlini, a paramedic who heads the HOME team and teamed
with Amyes to coax May to get help. "You had to step around them."

Tangherlini's team focuses on the severely medically compromised --
such as the addict with maggots in her open wounds or the dope-sick
man who crawled into a Pacific Gas & Electric underground vault for
shelter and could not get out. May didn't fit that profile. But in
working with Amyes since late 2004, Tangherlini often found himself
swinging by her street corner with the social worker to reach out.

The frequency of the visits ranged from several times a day to a few
times a week, said Amyes, who first met May, amped on crack cocaine
and heroin, at 4:30 one morning.

Usually, she'd tell the team to leave her alone. But finally she
accepted help getting into a methadone program. Amyes would make each
appointment. Another social worker would show up to prepare her and
get her there.

There were many hurdles. Simply getting her enrolled in one
government assistance program took 2 1/2 years.

Sitting in May's first temporary hotel room, the outreach team cried
along with her. "She didn't have anything," Amyes recalled. "We got
her some toiletries and a towel. She was so thrilled to be able to
sleep on that bed for the first time in years."

Other "stabilization rooms" would follow. May would relapse and
return to the street to join her boyfriend.

Then last fall, the team found her a permanent room. She was doing
relatively well, even though she returned to her old haunts by day --
a habit that contributed to her death.

"She was living inside," said Amyes, who described May as kind,
complex and "goofy," with a self-deprecating humor. "She was happy.
She'd come up and she was smiling. She had things to look forward to."

Outreach workers have taken up a collection to pay for a burial, so
she will not be forgotten among the forgotten.

"She was a good human being," Amyes said. "We want to give her some
dignity because she died in such a horrible way. We want to make sure
we remember her."