Eric Burke, disenchanted Yahweh, hothead dissenter, reported a crime in 1981: Two men cut his phone line and picked at his door lock.

Burke, 44, a welder, scared them off. They dropped knives on the stairwell. Burke told police that Hulon Mitchell Jr., then known as Moses Israel, was out to get him.

Police logged the offense routinely: Attempted burglary. Just another complaint in Liberty City.

Nine years later, it's not so trivial. It was the first act of violence that federal prosecutors now cite in a sprawling racketeering indictment against Mitchell and 16 disciples of his Yahweh religious sect.

The indictment against Eric Burke's would-be killers took almost a decade in coming. It also alleges 14 homicides between 1981 and 1986.

Defense attorneys are wondering: How come? What took so long? If Hulon Mitchell ordered his "Death Angels" to kill "hypocrites, " why isn't anyone charged with murder?

The answers are fuzzy and complicated. The entire Yahweh case got caught in a web of obstacles: slim resources, agency wrangling, witness-management problems, disagreements over case strategy, personality clashes, religious, racial and political concerns, and distrust.

The case saw four federal prosecutors, four state prosecutors, two federal grand juries, two FBI case agents, and two lead homicide detectives.

Out of fear, two prosecutors and a defense lawyer packed weapons. Federal authorities joked nervously about blustery language in sect-published leaflets, fliers and books.

Mitchell's teachings once suggested "suicide" and a "race riot" should anything ever happen to the flock.

Some defectors were more scared of Yahweh than the armed lawyers. And often they didn't trust investigators, seeing them as part of the same outside world that treated society's poor with indifference and neglect.

One defector, interviewed a thousand miles from Miami, said the law enforcement community simply couldn't understand the sect experience.

"It takes someone who's been there. They should have had people saying, 'I done the same thing and I'm living.' And people would have poured out their hearts over certain things."

Barbara Malone, a Miami Legal Services lawyer who represented victims of sect-connected violence, said politics and institutional racism inadvertently stalled the investigation.

The victims, mostly black or poor, lacked the clout of a savvy black man who catapulted himself into a Black Economic Messiah.

"Black victims don't go around contributing to election campaigns, " Malone said. "They don't have a fantastic voting record, and what percentage is in it for a prosecutor who goes to the mat for all those black victims?"

Privately, some law-enforcement officials acknowledged racial, religious and political undertones during the investigation. They wanted to make sure they had a solid case because they feared any charge would be denounced as persecution. Publicly, though, they won't say anything about why the prosecution took so long.

What is clear is that within a week of Eric Burke's 1981 complaint, the police suspected Hulon Mitchell of ordering murder.

The day after Burke's report, a killer beheaded another Yahweh drop-out, Aston Green. His roommates, both defectors -- Carlton Carey, an accountant, and Mildred Banks, a postal worker -- went to the police. Carey told them he thought Mitchell ordered it.

Returning from the police station, they were ambushed. Carey was shot to death; Banks survived machete wounds.