It was supposed to be a birthday party slightly on the naughty side. In the wee hours of Feb. 20, strippers arrived at a home in Penn Hills to strut their stuff.

But things turned deadly, police said, when the host refused to pay the hourly $200 fee because he and his friends thought that one stripper was too skinny and flat-chested.

The celebration soon became a massacre.

After a flurry of phone calls by the women, armed men burst into the home, police said. They killed the birthday honoree, shot his half-brother dead and sent the party's host to the hospital in critical condition.

All the victims were unarmed and defenseless.

Yesterday, Allegheny County police announced three arrests in last month's double homicide, including that of a woman nicknamed "Black Cherry" who allegedly helped orchestrate the killings and was the strippers' manager. A fourth person charged in the killings remains at large.

Police first learned of the homicides when a Penn Hills officer responded to a home in the 8600 block of Westwood Road at 2:47 a.m. Feb. 20.

The call to 911 had come from Kevilin Middleton, the resident, who was shot and cowering in his dark basement. He had been chased through the house, but for some reason was not followed down to the cellar.

Middleton played possum until the shooters left. Upstairs, Chaoe Davis, 22, lay dead. The body of his half-brother, T.C. Preston Lyerly, 36, whose birthday it was, lay in the front yard.

As detectives began working the case, their first step was to identify the strippers. They did: "Spice" and "Odyssey."

Black Cherry, aka Geneva Burrell, 27, of Swissvale, acknowledged to police on the day of the killings that she had been at the house to manage the affair, according to an affidavit. However, she told them she left with the strippers after the disagreement over money.

That contradicts the accounts told to police by both Middleton and an unnamed witness.

Middleton said that after the money dispute, Burrell and Spice made calls on their cell phones. "Middleton heard Spice and Burrell say that their 'boys' are coming," the affidavit said.

Ten minutes later, before anyone stripped, before any money changed hands, at least two gunmen burst in, according to Middleton's account. It was unclear where the women were at the time, but Middleton told police he thought a stripper let them in.

"At least one of the males began to shout about the girls not getting paid for dancing," the affidavit said.

Then the shooting began.

The story told by the unnamed witness places Burrell in the thick of things. Burrell, according to the affidavit, gave directions over the phone to "male associates," at one point even walking outside to read the house numbers.

The witness told detectives that Burrell flagged down the suspects' vehicle, a van, and directed them to the house. They exited with guns drawn.

The affidavit said the witness recognized Alfon Brown, 29, for whom there is an arrest warrant. Court records show Brown is the father of Spice's baby, the affidavit said. The witness also recognized the men taken into custody yesterday, Erik Surratt, 17, of North Braddock, and Ramone Coto, 20, of Braddock.

There was a fourth shooter, whom the witness did not know, as well as a getaway driver, according to the affidavit.

"The witness heard Geneva Burrell direct the suspects, specifically telling the suspects that one of the victims was running toward the back of the house," the affidavit said.

Police found Surratt in Burrell's bed two days after the killings when they executed a search warrant at her home in the 7400 block of Fleming Street, according to the affidavit.

All three suspects arrested yesterday were arraigned at the coroner's office.

Argie Lyerly Davis, mother of the two homicide victims, saw the suspects' faces for the first time yesterday evening on a television newscast.

"I feel nothing," Davis, 55, said. "It's just like numbness. When you see them, you don't see them. All I see is my sons in caskets. They're never going to come through my front door. That's the part that really hurts."

Davis, who is black, railed against violence in the African-American community. She's seen more than her share. Davis lost a 29-year-old son to gunfire in 1999.

"These men, they're empty. They have no feelings. They're cold. They have no morals. They have nothing. And you know where their power lies? In their guns. Their guns are their power because they don't have nothing else," Davis said.

She said she is developing a campaign to distribute purple ribbons in memory of black men and women who die violently. She is working with Tree of Hope, a group that counsels families affected by violence.

"I want the murderers and I want the thugs to see these purple ribbons," she said, "and I want them to see the devastation they have caused."