WEST FARGO – When Connie Guler talks about that night 20 years ago, she keeps coming back to how "sparkly" her best friend looked. "I just remember she was twisting her necklace, and her hair was shiny," she said. "Sparkly. Her smile." They were sitting in the driveway as Cherryl Tendeland and her husband, Pat, were dropping Guler off at her home in West Fargo. They'd attended a funeral together, and sat in the car talking about getting together more often, not wanting the night to end. But in a split second, a sudden, terrible end came for Cherryl Tendeland. A 16-year-old boy she'd never met shot through the car's window once with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing her in front of her horrified husband and Guler. Long after the shooting, Guler's hand would shake when she'd open her door to step outside, she recalled in a recent interview with The Forum. But the community as a whole was also shaken. The random, unprovoked murder of Tendeland on Nov. 15, 1995, resonated deeply in Fargo-Moorhead. Many were shocked by the ages and the gang affiliations of the teenagers accused in the killing of the 50-year-old grandmother. The trial for Barry Garcia, the 16-year-old shooter convicted of murdering Tendeland, was the first of its kind for a juvenile in Fargo. The crime came as concerns about youth violence were growing. All six defendants charged in connection with her death were juveniles. The murder was credited with jump-starting an anti-gang focus among area police reminiscent of a similar effort launched by area police earlier this year, but it was also lamented in some circles as leading to racist backlash in the community. Two decades later, the most lasting effects of one of Fargo's most notorious murders might be the impact on those personally touched by the case.
Shock and aftermath Guler remembers seeing two boys, "one short and one tall," walking around the berm that night, the bigger one with something long in his hand that Pat Tendeland initially mistook for an umbrella. It made them a little uneasy, unsure of why the boys were lurking nearby. Pat Tendeland told police he'd driven toward the boys, but Guler remembers it differently. He was just going to back out a bit, to take a peek to give her the all-clear to go inside. Suddenly, the taller boy was by the side of the car, and a gun, not an umbrella, was in his hand. She told her friends, "Duck - he's going to shoot!" "I'll never forget how fast it went," Guler said last month. "It was like the snap of a finger." Pat Tendeland and Guler were able to identify the car the teens were driving and describe them. An hour after the shooting, police in Moorhead arrested four juveniles. Police said five of the six boys eventually charged in connection with the murder were affiliated with a street gang called Skyline Piru Bloods. The crime gripped the community. In Cass County, the sheriff's office was flooded the next day with applications for concealed weapons permits. Lawmakers debated how to curb youth violence. A week after the shooting, 1,000 people showed up at a West Fargo park for a candelight vigil. "Now is not the time to hide. If we do, they win by default," West Fargo Police Chief Arland Rasmussen said at the vigil. For Tendeland's family, it was a tragedy that demanded justice. "As far as I'm concerned, they can stay in jail until they rot. I hope they do," Pat, Cherryl's high-school sweetheart husband of 31 years, said the day after the shooting. He and other Tendeland family members declined to comment for this story. Prompted gang focus Months later, area police announced the formation of a task force to fight gang activity. The Tendeland murder was credited with spurring its creation. "We'd been beating our heads against the wall for two or three years trying to convince some of our community leaders we had a problem," said Larry Costello, who was Clay County sheriff at the time. The Tendeland murder "convinced some of our leaders that we may know what we're talking about." Guler said that if the shooting was what it took to raise awareness of the metro's growing gang problem, Tendeland's death might be meaningful. "It got our heads out of the sand," she said, though she admits she's still trying to look for meaning in what's ultimately a senseless death. West Fargo Detective Sgt. Greg Warren was the lead detective in the murder investigation. He's remained close to Pat Tendeland, who survived being wounded in the shooting, and Pat's sons. Things are different now, Warren believes, because local law enforcement officers here are not waiting until someone is killed to take action. "It's not that things got away from us," he said. "The gang thing kind of exploded in our face, when Cherryl Tendeland was murdered." "In a sense, the gloves came off," he added. Violent youth The criminal case itself made North Dakota history, as Garcia's transfer out of the juvenile justice system and into adult court was the first of its kind in the state. He was tried as an adult under a law that was enacted earlier that year automatically treating a teen over 14 years old as an adult if the crime was serious enough. Prosecutors said at the time it was exactly the circumstances for which the new law had been created. Recalling the case in a recent interview, even Garcia's defense attorney, Steve Mottinger, said the shooting was so shocking, he's not sure jurors could ever have gotten past it. "Some homicides, there's just absolutely no explanation for. In the Garcia case, you just scratch your head," he said. For Cass County State's Attorney John Goff, who alleged the boys had stolen the sawed-off shotgun Garcia fired at Tendeland while the group was casing a house to rob, it was the first time in his career he asked a jury to send someone away for life. He believes the maximum sentence was important as "kind of a turning point, in sending a message to gang members," Goff said. "We were trying to put a stop to this kind of activity in the community." Less than eight months after killing Tendeland, 17-year-old Garcia was sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole. Mottinger had sought a 30-year sentence, and he said last month he's still surprised Goff recommended life behind bars. But Cass County District Court Judge Ralph Erickson, now a federal judge chambered in Fargo, said at the 1996 hearing that Garcia had subverted the personal philosophy he'd brought to the case at its outset, that young people "are never beyond redemption." "You haven't given me any reason to believe you can change," Erickson said of Garcia, who had already been convicted 16 times in juvenile court by the time he shot Tendeland. Though there was more public debate about teen violence in the mid-1990s, Goff, who is now in private practice, said he thinks young offenders he defends today who are accused in organized crime cases usually related to drug trafficking, seem more hardened than the teens he dealt with then. "When I was prosecuting, it seems like there was much more remorse," he said. Racial tension In addition to Garcia, prosecutors initially filed charges of murder and being an accomplice to attempted robbery against two 17-year-olds, Catarino Martinez and Michael Charbonneau. Angel Esparza, 16, Juan Guerrero, 16, and Juan's 14-year-old cousin, Jaime Guerrero, all faced robbery-related charges. All but Esparza and the younger Guerrero were also charged with committing a street gang crime. For his part, Mottinger remains skeptical the boys were ever tight-knit enough to qualify as gang members, and thinks it might just have been peers with violent tendencies seeking out - and feeding on - those with similar proclivities. But he recalls Garcia was worried about what the high-profile allegations would mean for his family members, telling Mottinger there'd been a confrontation with racial elements between his relatives and members of the public just outside the Cass County courtroom doors. "I suspect that it didn't do anything positive for the Hispanic community in Moorhead," Mottinger said. At the time, many Latinos thought Tendeland's slaying heightened racial tension in the region. "At the grass-roots level, it was fear," Hispanic Cultural Center director Hector Martinez told The Forum about a year after the murder. "At the professional level, I think it was an image factor - 'Here we go. Here goes all the work we have done.' " One man whose last name was Guerrero, though he wasn't related to Juan or Jaime, told The Forum at the time that he started getting demanding calls about the shooting immediately after the arrests were made. Moorhead Lt. Tory Jacobson, now the department's spokesman but then a young patrol officer in Moorhead, said he doesn't recall any formal reports with his department alleging racial harassment. And he doesn't believe race played any role in how the suspects were treated. But Guler, to this day, said she is still worried about being perceived as racist, and points out, "There are a lot of white people who commit crimes." Simmering resentments Though pleased a judge sent Garcia to prison for life, the Tendeland family was dismayed when days after the shooter's sentencing, Charbonneau was acquitted on all charges after just two hours of jury deliberations. He claimed he didn't know what Garcia was going to do when he got out of their car. Upset and angry, Pat Tendeland accused the boy of lying on the stand when Charbonneau denied he and Garcia had both been huddled over the gun used to kill his wife moments later. "I'll go to my grave swearing that," he told The Forum at the time. "I saw, out my back window, that both of them were working on the gun." Warren said the acquittal came as a surprise. "That was an ugly day when Charbonneau was found not guilty. They had a lot of questions," especially Pat, Warren said. The jury's decision forced prosecutors to the bargaining table on the remaining cases. Martinez was offered a plea deal, getting five years in prison for a lesser plea to hindering law enforcement. Juan Guerrero got one year in jail for pleading guilty to criminal facilitation, after prosecutors admitted there was a real risk of a second acquittal. And Goff had already decided to drop charges entirely against the youngest defendant, Jaime Guerrero, who cooperated with investigators and agreed to testify. Had either of the Guerreros gone to trial and been convicted, both could have gotten 20 years. Esparza was the only other defendant to go to trial, and he was convicted in 1997 of conspiracy to commit robbery and sentenced to nine years in prison. Even though he ended up serving more time than any defendant, other than Garcia, Esparza's sentence apparently caused long-simmering conflict with relatives of Garcia. In a letter filed in Cass County District Court in April 2010, a 31-year-old Esparza argued for a reduction in the six-month jail sentence he was serving for an assault, saying a family member of his had been the real victim in the case. "I am familiar with the family involved and try to avoid them on all occasions," the letter reads. "A previous occurrence caused a family member of theirs to go to prison for life and they feel that since we were acquaintances, that I should be in the same situation." Esparza's family declined to comment, but his letter doesn't surprise Warren, given the disparity of the sentences. "It's something they don't take kindly to," said Warren of the Garcias. "If they think one person took the rap. What they don't understand is the person who decided to pull the trigger is the one responsible." Garcia has been transferred among several different correctional facilities since his conviction. After prison officials suspected him of trying to stir up gang activity in North Dakota's State Penitentiary in Bismarck, he was transferred out of state, Warren said. He is now being held at a federal prison at Terre Haute, Ind. As for Guler, she still worries that some of the boys, now grown men, are still around. She doesn't want to attract attention. And she knows she'd recognize Garcia anywhere. "I hope he never gets out," she said. "I'll never forget what he looks like."
