CRIME PLAGUES NEW ORLEANS CEMETERIES.

Byline: The New York Times

Pearl Davis, wrapped in a white veil and speaking with a soft Caribbean accent, seems perfectly at home walking down the narrow pathway of the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, founded in the 1790s, where tombs and family vaults are filled with French, German, Creole, Italian, African-American and Chinese residents of the city.

"Do not go any farther than this," she warned as she gestured beyond the wall of the cemetery toward a sea of two-story, red-brick buildings in the distance. "Everything after here is madness."

Davis, who lives in the sprawling, low-income housing project known as the Iberville just across the street, is angry. Leaning against the 6-foot-thick brick wall, built originally to contain the diseases that killed the people buried there, she said, "These kids here will kill anything that moves."

As a case in point, she mentions the killing on Christmas Eve of a 33-year-old tourist who was shot outside the nearby St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 as she chased two men who stole her purse.

"That girl was just minding her own business," Davis continued. "It's a shame." In fact, the victim, Connie Reasor, a special education teacher from Dryden, Va., was, by exploring one of the oldest and most unusual cemeteries in the nation, only doing what thousands of visitors here do every year.

Although there are more than two dozen cemeteries in New Orleans designated as national historic sites, people are especially attracted to the twin St. Louis cemeteries, just outside the French Quarter, because of their links to the world of voodoo and the occult. The legendary "Voodoo Queen" of the 19th century, Marie Leveau, is thought to be at rest in one of two tombs in either of the cemeteries, both of which are covered with X's scrawled in brick dust for good fortune.

Others come to the cemeteries for the architecture. "The tomb styles range all the way from classic to Gothic to the baroque," said Mary Lou Christovich, a member of the local Save Our Cemeteries organization, a preservation group.

Perhaps the biggest draw for the cemeteries is their use of an efficient, if rather gruesome, form of recycling. For centuries, New Orleans residents have used the same vaults for generations of family members, emptying the remains of any casket entombed for more than a year into the tomb's pit, which is already filled with the bones of past family members, making way for caskets containing the newly dead.

But both cemeteries have also seen their share of danger and violence in recent years. More than a dozen people have been assaulted or mugged in the past five years - including a tour guide who was hit over the head with a stolen camcorder, a German man who was stabbed in the shoulder, and a Colorado couple who were slashed with a knife during a robbery attempt.

The cemetery has no guards except those provided on the weekly Sunday visits by the preservation group. Many local sightseeing operations, meanwhile, including the National Parks Service, have scratched the St. Louis cemeteries from their regular tours.

But even though the city's official tour guide books caution visitors not to explore the cemeteries alone, and a small sign tacked to the front gate of St. Louis No. 1 warns that visitors are welcome but enter at their own risk, many residents here expect continued popularity of the two cemeteries, which together are home to the remains of more than 5,000 people.

"I will still go if I need to go," said Phillip Arbo, a drummer who has attended the jazz funerals of New Orleans music legends Paul Barbarin and Oscar "Papa" Celestin, among others, at St. Louis No. 2. "I'll just keep my eyes open, like I would in any other dangerous place."

Charlene Sinclair, who daily leads a guided tour through St. Louis No. 1, noted that relatives of the deceased who come every November to whitewash, plaster and paint family tombs on All Saints Day will no doubt continue their yearly outings. "They have to because they know that someday they're going to be buried there too," Sinclair said.

The New Orleans Police Department on Dec. 29 announced the arrest of a 15-year-old boy, Andre Wheeler, in the killing of Reasor and said more arrests were expected. A police spokesman urged tourists and residents alike not to make too much of the incident, saying that the cemeteries are not any more dangerous than other parts of the city.

"They are isolated," said the spokesman, Lt. Marlon Defillo, "but this kind of thing can happen anywhere."

But that kind of statement is not reassuring to people like Daniel Pecquet, whose father and aunt share a tomb at St. Louis No. 1.

"I wouldn't go near the place," he said. "I may want to visit the dead, but I don't want to join them."

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Photo Targeting of tourists by criminals at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and its twin has convinced sightseeing groups to skip the historic locales. The New York Times