Series: Day One - Article Four

MAN GETS OUT OF JAIL AND PAST CATCHES UP WITH HIM

Frazie Hall Jr. always slept more soundly when his son was locked away in jail.

At least then, Hall said, he knew that Larvell "Bogil" Burham, a heroin
addict and drug dealer, would live another day.

"I had always wished that they would have given him five years, so he would
have time to think about the choices he'd made," Hall said. "But every time
he went to jail, he would get out in a couple of months."

Burham, 24, had pleaded guilty on June 17 to crack possession, received a
two-year suspended sentence. On July 10, less than a month after his
release from Orleans Parish Prison, he was dead of multiple gunshot wounds
in the Iberville public housing development.

"That call that I got, I had been dreading that since he's been 14 years
old," said Hall, who was notified by a friend in the Iberville development.
"I dreaded that like so many parents out there. Dead in the driveway, in
the project, multiple gunshot wounds."

Hall said he believes his son was killed because he was an Uptown drug
dealer poaching on Downtown turf. But the father also partly blames himself.

Hall said he wasn't prepared to take on the responsibilities of raising his
son. And when he overcame his own drug problem and immersion in the city's
cycle of violence and retribution, it was too late to save his son, Hall said.

"He really didn't have anybody to push him and steer him in the right
direction," Hall said.

Burham's mother had problems that cost her custody of the boy, and his
aunts were of little help, Hall said.

Burham was a gifted student but dropped out of McMain Magnet School to buy
and sell drugs, Hall said.

There's no telling what he could have become, Hall said. "It's all about
choices.

"At 15, he was an IV drug user," the father said. "His drug of choice was
heroin. That was the life he led."

Burham's record reflected several drug arrests and a conviction for
carrying a concealed weapon. He spent two months in parish prison in 2002
on drug and weapons charges, including heroin possession, but was released
when prosecutors failed to charge him within the time specified by law.
Within four weeks, he was back, booked with criminal trespassing. The
charge was refused a month later.

But, despite the May 2003 drug charge that led to Burham's brief
incarceration, in the weeks before his death Burham seemed to be trying to
make better choices, for his 4-year-old son if not for himself, Hall said.

"He was looking good," Hall said. "I really felt like he was going to give
a try and change."

Burham had cocaine and codeine in his system when he died, according to the
autopsy report, but along with the watch and wallet returned to the family
from the city morgue was a packet of dental floss.

"No matter what kind of bad habits he had, he would always floss," Hall said.

No arrests have been made in the case, but Hall has a theory: "It wasn't a
stranger that killed him," he said. "It was someone that he knew. That's
the way with all of them out there."