When Danielle Coles showed up at her home on Tioga Street near Water in Kensington Friday night she looked pale.

Scared.

And she wasn't very talkative, her sister and mother said last night.

But they had no idea how much trouble the 17-year-old was in - or that she was still in the company of Vanessa Santiago, 22, a former Kensington resident with a violent past.

Hours later, police found the nude and battered corpse of Brooklyn resident Patrice Concleasure, 28, in the trunk of a car Coles was traveling in, which was parked across the street from Coles' home. A shovel was in the back seat.

"I know why you're here," Santiago allegedly told Philadelphia cops, who were alerted by New York police to be on the lookout for Santiago and Coles. "It's because I killed that girl."

Coles' sister, Nicolette Ransom, said if her sister did anything, it was because she was terrified of Santiago.

"I think she had to have been forced because she had to be scared for her life," said Ransom, 22. "Vanessa's crazy. She's always been crazy. She did this before - and with another 17-year-old girl. She has a history of having a younger person with her to manipulate."

Coles and Santiago were being held on abuse of corpse charges here last night. Orlando Rivera, spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office, said officials there are waiting to see if the two fight extradition before deciding if both will be charged with murder.

Police released few details about what led up to Concleasure's murder and published reports gave differing accounts.

According to the New York Post, Santiago and Concleasure were taking a bath together in Concleasure's Brooklyn apartment Thursday night when Santiago allegedly slashed Concleasure with a razor then strangled her with an electrical cord.

The Post said the two were arguing over a man, identified as Divere Simmons, 39, of Brooklyn, with whom they both were having an affair.

A woman who answered the phone at Simmons' home yesterday said he was unavailable for comment."It's an ugly situation," said the woman, who would not identify herself. "A lot of people are hurting. Nothing that anyone says is going to bring the girl back."

After the killing, Santiago and Coles allegedly took Concleasure's body out of the home, wheeled it down the street in a shopping cart and then stuffed it in the trunk before leaving for Philadelphia.

Cops were alerted to the killing by a friend of Santiago's, who saw her and Coles allegedly moving the body down the street and who turned down Santiago's request to help them load the body into the car, the Post said.

Santiago got out of jail in June for a 1998 incident in which she and two accomplices asked a man for a ride in his car, said Patrick Clark, spokesman for the Queens district attorney's office.

"They all got into his car, forced him to drive to a parking lot, forced him out of the car, forced him to strip, slashed his throat, arm and back, stole his car and fled," he said. "Santiago pled guilty in March 1999 and was sentenced to three to six years."

Ransom said Santiago moved to their neighborhood when she was 6. The two were good friends until Santiago moved away when she was 11 or 12 - despite what she described as Santiago's violent temper.

"She was always getting into fights," Ransom said.

Santiago continued to visit her old neighborhood through the years. In fact, she came back to Kensington after being released from jail in June, Ransom said.

"She was bragging about what happened and how she got away with it because she wasn't in jail very long," said Ransom. Ransom said Santiago also told her she'd just received a settlement from a sexual-abuse case from when she was a child.

Ransom, who had lived with Santiago in New York City a few years back, asked Santiago to help her locate the father of her daughter back in the Big Apple. Santiago agreed and on Saturday, Oct. 19 picked up Ransom and Coles in Philadelphia.

They came back to Kensington the next night. Ransom went up to her apartment, above her mother's tidy brick rowhouse.

Coles apparently went back to New York City with Santiago because the next day, Anna Coles started getting mysterious phone calls from her daughter, which were abruptly cut off.

"Once I said, 'Why are you hanging up? Is it because Vanessa's there?' And she said 'Yes' and then the phone clicked off," Anna Coles said.

Danielle Coles called Ransom on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

"On Wednesday she said Vanessa and that guy [Simmons] got in a fight over that girl and Vanessa broke out the back windows of his car..." and he was trying to stop her, Ransom said. "Then the phone clicked off."

Danielle called back but that conversation ended abruptly, too, Ransom said.

That was the last she heard from her until she showed up Friday night.