A Bronx Tale

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Speaker 5 I'm Josh Mankiewicz.

Speaker 6 Don't testify in your own defense.

Speaker 9 The prosecution will carve you to pieces on the witness stand.

Speaker 11 That's the advice a lot of attorneys give their clients, especially in a murder case.

Speaker 9 This is the story of a young man who took that advice and later regretted it.

Speaker 3 It's the story of a police investigation, if you can call it that, that ended in a perversion of justice.

Speaker 5 How all of that was undone is a story I've always found more inspiring than depressing, because a good part of this is about people doing the right thing again and again.

Speaker 5 It's also about the value of knowing you're right and never losing hope.

Speaker 5 That said,

Speaker 3 how would you like to lose 18 years out of your life?

Speaker 9 This is a Bronx Tale.

Speaker 19 Sing Sing Correctional Facility, the maximum security prison in New York.

Speaker 22 This is the big house, home to some of the worst of the worst. Killers, rapists, drug dealers.

Speaker 27 Thank you.

Speaker 29 It is not where you'd expect to find this gentlewoman.

Speaker 27 In Sing Sing, they call me Grandma.

Speaker 30 Grandma is Sister Joanna Chan, a Marinole nun.

Speaker 27 I began working in Sing Sing

Speaker 27 more than 12 12 years ago.

Speaker 32 This is the battle about General Don.

Speaker 34 Grandma volunteers at the prison, working with inmates in a theater program.

Speaker 29 She even teaches them Chinese.

Speaker 38 Through the years, Grandma has helped dozens of men, but she says this inmate here on stage, a convicted killer, has changed her.

Speaker 27 He's just so brave. Watching him all these years, I take such courage myself watching him.

Speaker 39 Sister Joanna remembers the first time she met this inmate.

Speaker 31 He was sitting alone eating.

Speaker 27 He said, my family sent me 30 pounds of food. So I said, your family must love you very much.

Speaker 27 And he said, yes, because they know I'm innocent. And that's how the whole story began.

Speaker 23 A story that began with the unlikely friendship between a nun and a convicted killer would grow into a quest that would shake the faith of even those sworn to uphold the law.

Speaker 27 I thought if he was innocent, God has to see him through.

Speaker 8 So who is this convicted murderer?

Speaker 19 He is inmate 97A7088,

Speaker 45 38-year-old Eric Glisson.

Speaker 46 We first met him in the spring of 2012 when a dateline producer working on a different story in Sing Sing met Eric in his cell.

Speaker 32 You're gonna film me?

Speaker 47 He had been locked up for 18 years.

Speaker 32 You wanna see what it's like to live in here?

Speaker 32 I can test the walls with my hands.

Speaker 49 Eric told us he didn't belong here.

Speaker 32 My story is I've been unjustly convicted for a crime that I didn't commit.

Speaker 32 And from February 3rd of 1995 until the present day, I've been sitting in here lingering every day wondering whether this mistake could be corrected.

Speaker 50 We've heard that before, many times.

Speaker 24 But what if he was telling the truth?

Speaker 29 So over time,

Speaker 32 how'd you get up here?

Speaker 16 We began visiting Eric.

Speaker 51 What's up? You looking good?

Speaker 29 And listening to his story.

Speaker 32 When I got arrested, I was always under the impression that people who are guilty actually goes to jail. I didn't believe that I would be convicted of a crime that I didn't do.

Speaker 24 When police put the cuffs on him in 1995, Eric was 20 years old, the brand new father of a one-week-old baby girl.

Speaker 2 Since then, their only time together has been spent in Sing Sing's visiting room.

Speaker 32 I have a family who I love and who loves me. My daughter, I need to get home to her and be a father.

Speaker 36 Eric often shared his story with sister Joanna.

Speaker 11 Over time, she felt compelled to do something, anything for him.

Speaker 2 So she called the only lawyer she knew.

Speaker 27 The first person I could think of was Mr. Peter Cross.

Speaker 51 I trust her judgment. To me, it was worth investing my time in.

Speaker 36 Attorney Peter Cross agreed to at least see if there was some truth to Eric's story, but there was still one problem.

Speaker 46 This is not the kind of law you normally practice.

Speaker 51 No, not at all. I'm a corporate lawyer.
I do corporate litigation.

Speaker 51 I don't do criminal work.

Speaker 20 Charmaine Chester is Peter's assistant.

Speaker 36 This was also new territory for her.

Speaker 53 You know, out of the blue one day, I get this call. You have a collect call from an inmate at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

Speaker 2 I'm like, okay.

Speaker 37 Soon she found herself spending hours on the phone with the inmate.

Speaker 53 At first it was all you know business is case is case. But you know by the time you talk to somebody every day the personal things start to slip in.

Speaker 29 Friendship.

Speaker 53 Friendship.

Speaker 2 In the meantime, her boss was checking out Eric's claims of innocence.

Speaker 29 Did you believe it at the beginning?

Speaker 51 I'm not going to say I didn't disbelieve him. I just

Speaker 51 been practicing law for a long time, okay?

Speaker 8 And people lie.

Speaker 51 They certainly colored the truth. Now, this is the man who was convicted of murdering someone.
So, of course, I approached it with some skepticism.

Speaker 54 But once Cross learned the facts, he agreed to take Eric's case at no charge, representing a man who didn't seem hardened by prison, but almost frightened.

Speaker 32 It's terrifying because you could just be walking in the yard and then you could be shanked.

Speaker 32 That's the life of prison.

Speaker 10 A life he's lived for nearly two decades.

Speaker 19 The story he was telling us, if true,

Speaker 14 was as explosive as it was tragic.

Speaker 32 It turns out that the police and the district attorney had all the evidence at their disposal to

Speaker 32 solve this crime from the beginning.

Speaker 20 Not only was Eric insisting he was wrongfully convicted,

Speaker 7 he said others were too.

Speaker 25 All of them locked away for life for the same crime.

Speaker 2 Five other people.

Speaker 32 Five other people was also convicted of this crime.

Speaker 11 Six people?

Speaker 10 Could all of them actually be innocent?

Speaker 21 Time now is approximately 7.15.

Speaker 14 To find out, we'll go back almost two decades and take a hard look at how it all began.

Speaker 5 Coming up, is it possible to get something so important, so wrong about so many people?

Speaker 6 When we come back, we'll investigate what the police did not and find out what one witness really saw from her window the day of the murder.

Speaker 51 How the detectives could have decided to run with this still shocks me today.

Speaker 2 Within the walls of Sing Sing, A convicted murderer has convinced a nun and a corporate lawyer that there's been a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Speaker 36 Eric Glisson is in the 18th year of a 25-to-life murder sentence.

Speaker 22 He claims he's innocent.

Speaker 2 You ever been in prison before this?

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 2 What's it like to live in prison?

Speaker 35 As how?

Speaker 57 730 Sue, a brutal killing of a FedEx recruiter is under investigation.

Speaker 44 Eric Glisson's nightmare began on the night of January 18th, 1995. The New York City detectives lining this hallway in the Bronx were entering a crime scene as chilling as it was violent.

Speaker 57 In her bedroom, she had three pairs of handcuffs on her wrists. A sock was stuffed into her mouth.

Speaker 56 The victim's name was Denise Raymond.

Speaker 42 She was an executive with FedEx.

Speaker 26 Cops videoed the entire scene and anything that might seem important.

Speaker 1 Detectives are mystified over the vicious killing of a successful executive.

Speaker 10 The case went to Detective Tom Aiello, a 20-year veteran.

Speaker 8 Aiello led a team of detectives who worked through the night, knocking on doors and collecting evidence.

Speaker 10 Then, as the sun rose the next morning, some of those cops turned their attention to another murder, another bloody crime scene.

Speaker 8 This is the video police recorded of that second murder scene.

Speaker 37 It was seemingly unrelated, but just a half mile away in the same precinct.

Speaker 8 This was a busy night for the murder business in the Bronx.

Speaker 21 Time now is approximately 7.15 a.m. on January 19th, 1995.

Speaker 41 This time, a livery cab driver named Bath Diop had been found slumped over his steering wheel, shot multiple times, the victim of an apparent robbery.

Speaker 44 The driver's money and cell phone were missing.

Speaker 10 The investigation of the cab driver's murder would be headed by 31-year-old Detective Mike Donnelly, who worked alongside Detective Aiello.

Speaker 16 The two detectives, Donnelly and Aiello, ended up putting their heads and their cases together, concluding the same group of several people committed both murders.

Speaker 2 Did you know the other people?

Speaker 32 I knew two of them.

Speaker 61 These are good friends of yours?

Speaker 32 Acquaintances. It's February 4th, 1995.

Speaker 62 One of those guys was 19-year-old Michael Cosme, the first suspect arrested.

Speaker 32 I only have one thing to say, though.

Speaker 51 When Mr. Cosme said, I didn't do it.

Speaker 32 I wasn't there.

Speaker 10 Eric was also questioned at the precinct, where he adamantly denied knowing anything about either killing.

Speaker 55 Please don't blame me for something I have not done. Why is this happening to me?

Speaker 55 I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 55 I just want to be with my daughter. If I knew what took place that night, if I knew who did anything, I would tell you.
I'm going to give you your rights one last time.

Speaker 35 Sir, you have the right to make a statement.

Speaker 56 Detectives did not believe him.

Speaker 13 Eric Glisson and five others were arrested for both murders.

Speaker 58 Originally, you were charged with both murders, with the Denise Raymond murder and the cab driver murder. Yes.

Speaker 8 But by the time Eric went to trial, prosecutors dropped charges against him in the Denise Raymond case, citing lack of evidence.

Speaker 18 So what evidence was there against him in the cab driver case?

Speaker 20 It's really pretty simple.

Speaker 11 There was a witness against him.

Speaker 36 Her name, Miriam Taveras.

Speaker 41 Taveras told the cops she looked out her window and saw it all.

Speaker 33 Eric and the others.

Speaker 60 Smack in the middle of the cab driver robbery that ended in murder.

Speaker 10 Is it possible that Miriam saw you commit a crime?

Speaker 25 No.

Speaker 30 Not any crime.

Speaker 32 I wasn't there.

Speaker 60 Bad blood between you and Miriam?

Speaker 2 Yes, bad blood.

Speaker 26 Eric says he had a brief sexual relationship with Miriam that did not end well.

Speaker 32 You have a fling with a girl and then you just cut her off abruptly. You know, she may feel slighted.

Speaker 34 Slighted enough to make you a murder suspect?

Speaker 32 I guess so.

Speaker 54 Whatever her motivation, the question is, how reliable was she as a witness?

Speaker 58 All these years later, Eric finally had someone to take another look at Miriam's story, Attorney Peter Cross.

Speaker 51 There's no doubt that this woman was lying.

Speaker 51 I went out to the crime scene, and she could not possibly have seen what she said occurred.

Speaker 6 So what could Miriam Tavares really see?

Speaker 46 Here's the problem with Miriam's story.

Speaker 60 From that police video, we know this is where the cab came to rest.

Speaker 2 But we also know the shooting happened a couple of car lengths back, sort of where that red SUV is.

Speaker 2 We know a man in that building called 911 when he heard the shots, and he said he saw only one person running away from the scene.

Speaker 7 Now, a couple of weeks later, Miriam Taveras comes forward.

Speaker 2 She lives in that building over there.

Speaker 41 Now you're looking at me from just outside the window through which Miriam says she saw all of this happen.

Speaker 2 Now this has to be easily 100 yards away.

Speaker 41 And she says she saw six people from the neighborhood commit the crime. She says she heard what they said and she saw what they stole.

Speaker 16 And she said she saw all of it looking through this bathroom window.

Speaker 2 The only problem is, if you go back to where the shooting actually happened,

Speaker 41 it's pretty clear Miriam Taverus couldn't have seen anything at all.

Speaker 51 She said from her bathroom window she heard these conversations going on inside the car. I mean, it's just incredible testimony.

Speaker 10 But what disturbed Cross even more, Detective Donnelly never looked at the crime scene from the perspective you just did.

Speaker 61 Wouldn't that sort of be standard operating procedure to check out what witnesses say?

Speaker 51 You would think so. I think they got on a horse early on in this case

Speaker 51 and they rode that horse and they weren't going to change direction.

Speaker 31 We wanted to speak with Miriam Taveras. She died of a drug overdose in 2002.

Speaker 10 Other than her testimony, there was no physical evidence, no forensics, no prints, nothing that tied Eric or the others. to the cab driver's murder.

Speaker 14 Even so, detectives Donnelly and Aiello went with what they had had and closed both murder cases.

Speaker 33 Within three weeks, they arrested their suspects and the Bronx district attorney tried them.

Speaker 16 In all, six people were convicted.

Speaker 46 We'll call them the Bronx Six.

Speaker 62 Five men and a woman, all sent away facing 25 to life.

Speaker 52 One of them was Eric Glisson.

Speaker 35 What's it like to hear that verdict, Ren?

Speaker 32 It's like a shot in the chest. It's like your heart just melts,

Speaker 32 just dissolves. You actually think that

Speaker 32 they read the wrong verdict,

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 32 this can't be true.

Speaker 10 The NYPD was quite proud of detectives Donnelly and Aiello's work.

Speaker 8 So proud that five months after the arrests, the department allowed the detectives to be featured in New York magazine about how they amazingly cracked the cases.

Speaker 51 How the detectives could have believed that and decided to run with this and send them to jail for the rest of their lives on the basis of this garbage. It still shocks me today.

Speaker 36 All these years later, Attorney Cross knew his opinion of the detective work in this case wasn't going to free Eric Glisson or anyone else.

Speaker 51 I think the only kind of evidence that's going to sway a court is if we can point to who the real killers are.

Speaker 25 That was quite a lot to hope for.

Speaker 10 But from behind bars, Eric Glisson was already on the trail.

Speaker 32 I got some documents, and so I see this guy's real name Pete coming up.

Speaker 2 A surprise visitor and an answered prayer.

Speaker 32 He said I'm sorry. I know you're innocent and I know the guys who committed this crime.

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Speaker 4 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

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Speaker 10 These are the people we're calling the Bronx Six, five men and a woman, all convicted and sent away for 25 years to life for committing murder.

Speaker 63 All insisted they were innocent.

Speaker 54 We met one of them, Eric Glisson, in Sing Sing, where from behind bars, he'd been trying to get answers ever since he was locked up.

Speaker 32 I've been fighting these people for years, asking for documents which they deny me at every turn. You're not going to convict me for something that I didn't do and just expect me to accept it.

Speaker 32 I'm going to fight to the end. I'm a fighter.

Speaker 32 I die on my feet, not on my knees.

Speaker 36 As the years passed, Eric took college courses offered by the prison.

Speaker 46 He learned about the law and fought his case.

Speaker 32 How did he get that evidence in his possession?

Speaker 2 The courts denied all his appeals.

Speaker 32 I don't have any appeals left. Nothing.

Speaker 46 It was a lonely fight.

Speaker 10 And then in 2006, he met Sister Joanna Chan in one of the prison's programs, the woman he calls Grandma.

Speaker 27 There's a particular dark time.

Speaker 27 He would say, Grandma, it's really hard.

Speaker 32 I told her, Grandma, I just lost my last appeal. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Speaker 27 And I always say, you know, Eric, let's keep the faith and let's go on praying and i said we have many many sisters praying with you

Speaker 11 sister joanna offered more than just her prayers that's when she brought in peter cross who was now fighting for eric on the outside so you have detective donnelly as the officer assigned yeah with eric as his guide cross got up to speed

Speaker 44 To have any chance at having another day in court, Eric knew he'd need powerful evidence, evidence of actual innocence.

Speaker 31 He started thinking, if he and the other five co-defendants had nothing to do with the two murders,

Speaker 34 then who did?

Speaker 8 After more than a decade of trying, finally, some of Eric's requests for documents in his case began trickling in.

Speaker 32 I came across one document which had my name as well as my other co-defendants, but one name stood out. It was an individual who I found out was part of a game called Sex Money Murder.

Speaker 10 Eric was on to an important lead.

Speaker 36 Sex Money Murder.

Speaker 42 Even veteran cops knew those three words meant danger.

Speaker 20 A notorious gang from the Soundview section of the Bronx.

Speaker 68 1997, October, Sex Money Murder became my assignment.

Speaker 42 Pete Forselli was an NYPD detective assigned to take down the gang.

Speaker 46 This was all sex money murder territory. Yeah, we're in the heart of it.

Speaker 34 While Forcelli was investigating the gang, an informant told him details of a crime crime the gang members had committed.

Speaker 68 There was a cab driver who had been killed in the vicinity of Soundview.

Speaker 20 So Forselli went to the 43rd Precinct in the South Bronx to see if there was any truth to the story.

Speaker 68 Early 1998, walked in the precinct, went upstairs, walked into the detective squad room.

Speaker 41 So you go in there and say, what about this murder?

Speaker 46 What do you know about a murder?

Speaker 68 Yeah, I wanted to know about a cab driver murder in Soundview or the area around Soundview.

Speaker 46 And the response?

Speaker 68 It had nothing to fit that description.

Speaker 19 But Forcelli's informant insisted the murder did happen.

Speaker 46 You didn't only make one trip to the 43rd Precinct. Two.

Speaker 68 Made two. And again, came out saying, look, we have nothing that fits that description.

Speaker 46 Is there any conceivable reason why the police department wouldn't tell you the truth?

Speaker 2 Well, I thought about that.

Speaker 7 Forcelli says the answer might be simple.

Speaker 11 As far as the NYPD was concerned, this homicide was solved, closed.

Speaker 68 The detective may have looked only... in the open homicide drawer and never bothered to even look to see if there was anything other than an unsolved homicide that fit that description.

Speaker 2 And as far as you know, that was the end of it. Right.
Like I said, I had moved on.

Speaker 34 Forcelli soon retired from the NYPD, not knowing six people had already been convicted.

Speaker 15 In the meantime, Eric was stuck in prison.

Speaker 2 It wasn't until 2012, 14 years later, that he hit pay dirt.

Speaker 23 And it came in the form of cell phone records.

Speaker 10 Remember, the cab driver's cell phone had been stolen by whoever killed him.

Speaker 32 And I found hundreds of calls after his death.

Speaker 61 The records showed the first call was made from the victim's phone minutes after the shooting.

Speaker 62 The numbers called traced back to relatives of two sex money murder gang members named Jose Rodriguez and Gilbert Vega.

Speaker 10 Eric believed he finally had evidence showing who the real killers were.

Speaker 32 It took me 16, 17 years to get those. through Freedom of Information.

Speaker 36 They were never provided to the defense?

Speaker 32 No. It turns out that the police and the district district attorney had all the evidence at their disposal to solve this crime from the beginning.

Speaker 63 So he wrote a letter to the U.S.

Speaker 44 Attorney, proclaiming his innocence and detailing the information he'd found out about the sex money murder gang.

Speaker 36 It was a Hail Mary Pass.

Speaker 37 In an amazing stroke of luck, Eric's letter landed on this man's desk.

Speaker 26 His name John O'Malley, an investigator for the U.S.

Speaker 22 Attorney in New York.

Speaker 10 Days after reading Eric's letter, O'Malley made a personal trip to see Eric in Sing Sing.

Speaker 32 Immediately, John O'Malley just stood up and he asked me, did you write this letter? And I said, yes. He shook my hand and he said, I'm sorry.
And I said, sorry for what?

Speaker 32 He says, you know, I know you're innocent. When he said that, I said, what are you talking about, sir? He said, listen, I know the guys who committed this crime.

Speaker 23 How did O'Malley know?

Speaker 42 It turns out O'Malley worked with Detective Forcelli on that gang case 10 years earlier.

Speaker 14 And back then, those two gang members, Jose and Gilbert, actually confessed the cab driver's shooting to O'Malley.

Speaker 32 He said, when I read this letter, everything just came back to me from that day I put it all together when these guys confessed to me.

Speaker 8 O'Malley didn't want to appear on camera, but told us he also checked with the NYPD after getting those confessions back in 2002.

Speaker 2 And, like Detective Forcelli before him, O'Malley was told there was no record of the crime.

Speaker 18 After getting Eric's letter in 2012, O'Malley addressed the court in a sworn affidavit stating that Eric Glisson and the others were innocent of the cab driver shooting.

Speaker 2 Armed with that kind of statement, you'd think Eric would be literally home free.

Speaker 25 You'd be wrong.

Speaker 2 Coming up.

Speaker 43 Eric Glisson isn't giving up.

Speaker 25 This is my wall of hope.

Speaker 32 Everyone here has been unjustly convicted and

Speaker 32 freed.

Speaker 29 Will his own picture ever be on it?

Speaker 51 Tears welled up in my eyes.

Speaker 2 For the first time in his 18-year struggle to prove that he didn't pull a trigger, Eric Glisson finally had his hands on a smoking gun.

Speaker 37 An affidavit from a federal investigator saying Eric was innocent.

Speaker 32 He asked me, do I have an attorney? And I told him, yeah. He says, I promise you I will call this lawyer today.

Speaker 51 So I was standing on line in a bank.

Speaker 46 Peter Cross remembers that phone call.

Speaker 51 Mr. O'Malley tells me, Peter, I'm with the U.S.
Attorney's Office. We know your client is innocent.
That was such an emotional moment for me.

Speaker 51 Like, tears welled up in my eyes right in front of the teller.

Speaker 32 I thank God every day for John O'Malley. When I looked in that man's eyes, you know, I seen a man who has integrity.
I seen a man who was honest.

Speaker 42 O'Malley's affidavit was enough for the Bronx DA to reopen the case and to get in front of a judge.

Speaker 5 But that would take time.

Speaker 24 Two more months.

Speaker 31 But now at least, Eric had reason to hope.

Speaker 37 And in his cell, he assembled a little photo gallery of others who'd been exonerated.

Speaker 25 This is my wall of hope.

Speaker 32 Everyone here has been unjustly convicted and

Speaker 24 freed.

Speaker 42 On August 5th, 2012, Eric's lawyer goes to court.

Speaker 51 Is this our first appearance to try to get the judgment vacated?

Speaker 42 Cross is joined by his assistant, Charmaine Chester.

Speaker 36 By now, they've worked on Eric's case for six years.

Speaker 53 I want to see him out.

Speaker 53 I told him the last time I went up to Sing Sing, I said, I'm not visiting you here again.

Speaker 4 This is it.

Speaker 63 Finally, Cross argues his case to the judge.

Speaker 51 My client has already spent 17 years plus in jail for a crime he hasn't committed.

Speaker 39 But it doesn't go down like a Hollywood script.

Speaker 28 Prosecutors do not admit there's been a terrible mistake.

Speaker 48 At this point, you're on our arrest after 30 days.

Speaker 25 Another month?

Speaker 22 Cross is frustrated.

Speaker 51 He told me they were starting their investigation in June looking into this matter. I was able to get my papers ready.

Speaker 51 It seems to me that another couple of weeks should be enough to get a response to the motion.

Speaker 20 You've heard the saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly.

Speaker 42 Now you've got a front-row seat.

Speaker 71 We've been trying to put together facts and circumstances surrounding this now 15-year-old trial.

Speaker 70 If at any point in time you make a determination that you're going to concede, I will advance the case.

Speaker 43 Translation?

Speaker 28 This isn't going to end today.

Speaker 31 Eric stays in prison.

Speaker 33 But two weeks later, Peter Cross heads to Sing Sing.

Speaker 34 Earlier that morning, he'd gotten a call from the DA's office, and he has good news for Eric.

Speaker 51 I received a call from the DA and the Bronx telling me that they were ready to make a deal.

Speaker 51 I'm going up now to see Eric to talk to him about the conditions for his release.

Speaker 13 Eric's used to visits from his lawyer.

Speaker 42 Good to see you.

Speaker 26 And very used to keeping his own hopes.

Speaker 23 On ice.

Speaker 51 Absolutely. Get you out of the yard?

Speaker 35 Yeah, I was working out running through jogging.

Speaker 32 So you know I wouldn't be coming up here.

Speaker 36 Cross wants to make sure this sinks in.

Speaker 16 And so he slowly reveals the details.

Speaker 51 I was very surprised today. Well, I got a call from Ed Talty today saying

Speaker 17 that

Speaker 51 we have a proposal for you. The DA is now prepared to give you a conditional dismissal of the indictment

Speaker 51 and vacate the conviction. Today?

Speaker 51 It's not going to be today, but it'll be by the 13th, I think.

Speaker 51 Do you believe that?

Speaker 51 What hasn't set in yet?

Speaker 32 The initial shot,

Speaker 32 all the fighting that we've done over these years,

Speaker 32 I don't know what to say right now.

Speaker 11 But unfortunately for Eric, a month later, he's still behind bars.

Speaker 32 These people just don't want to let me go. They want to continue to hold me and torture me.
You know,

Speaker 32 the mental trauma I'm going through right now because of this, I'm wondering whether... you know, they may reneg on this agreement.

Speaker 37 But as excruciating as these hours are, Eric shares with us something beyond that wall of hope that's helped him wake up every morning.

Speaker 32 There's a bench by the water that each time I go to the barbershop, I look at that bench and I wonder if I'll ever be able to sit on it and look back up here instead of looking down there.

Speaker 32 That's been one of my main, you know, goals while I was in here, to sit on that bench as a free man.

Speaker 18 Coming up, will Eric Glisson ever get to sit on that bench?

Speaker 63 He finally gets his day in court.

Speaker 64 We have made a decision to take this unprecedented and exceptional step.

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Speaker 38 This bench outside Sing Seng is only a few hundred yards from the prison.

Speaker 22 But to Eric, it might might as well be in China.

Speaker 47 How many times do you look at that bench?

Speaker 32 Every day.

Speaker 30 And thinking I'll be on there one day.

Speaker 32 I want to see what it looks like from that bench to the window, because all I know is what it looks like from that window to the bench.

Speaker 23 Finally, on October 22, 2012, four months after a federal investigator vouched for Eric's innocence, his day in court has come.

Speaker 20 Eric's been transferred from Sing Sing and is waiting in a holding cell in the Bronx County Courthouse.

Speaker 74 Apparently, the court court officers were advised.

Speaker 61 It's also been a long, painful road for lawyer Peter Cross.

Speaker 74 This is the one case that kept me up at night

Speaker 74 for six years because I knew we had to find

Speaker 74 really like the one-armed man to get him out of jail.

Speaker 25 Eric walks into the courtroom.

Speaker 75 Numbers four and five on the calendar. Eric Liftson and Kathy Watkins.

Speaker 30 Standing next to him is Kathy Watkins, the only woman of the Bronx 6.

Speaker 58 Like Eric, she was tried only for the cab driver's murder.

Speaker 37 And in 1997, they went on trial together.

Speaker 28 Eric says he doesn't know her now

Speaker 34 and didn't know her then.

Speaker 32 When trial started, the officers was bringing us up to the court and one of the officers says, this is Watkins. And I said, you're Kathy Watkins.
And she said, yeah, who are you?

Speaker 32 And I said, I'm Eric Glisson. And I said, how are you involved in this? And she says, I don't know.
How are you involved? What's going on? And we both didn't know. We was confused.

Speaker 8 Now, 18 years later, Assistant District Attorney Nicole Ceary says her office believes there may have been an injustice, but only agrees to release Glisson and Watkins if they wear monitoring bracelets as the DA's office continues to investigate.

Speaker 64 We have made a decision to take this unprecedented, as you know, judge, an exceptional step that we are going to consent to the conditional vacating of the conviction for these two defendants, and the condition being that the defendants do wear those electronic monitoring bracelets.

Speaker 42 All that's left now is for the judge to make it official.

Speaker 51 The record will reflect that the conditional vacator of the conviction as to Mr. Glisson and Ms.
Watkins is granted, and each defendant is released on their own recognizance.

Speaker 58 Eric's friends and family, and the news media, are waiting for him outside.

Speaker 20 And now, for the first time in nearly two decades, Eric Glisson is about to take his first steps as a free man.

Speaker 41 Eric, what's your emotion right now?

Speaker 32 This is major pivotal points in my life.

Speaker 32 And I worked hard, I persevered, and with effort and determination, I'm standing here before you.

Speaker 8 Now it's his co-defendant, Kathy Watkins, turn.

Speaker 39 Also wrongfully convicted.

Speaker 64 17 years, almost 18 years.

Speaker 23 She was 29 when she went away.

Speaker 14 Now she's 46.

Speaker 17 I didn't do it. I didn't do it.

Speaker 32 I'm 100% innocent. And this is what our judicial system did to me.

Speaker 25 Innocent all the way.

Speaker 42 By January 2013, the convictions for the rest of the Bronx 6 were overturned for both the cab driver murder and FedEx executive Denise Raymond.

Speaker 54 This is Carlos Perez,

Speaker 10 25 when he was locked up.

Speaker 68 I even wrote the president.

Speaker 28 We were talking about 1995.

Speaker 7 Clinton Bush, I don't know.

Speaker 25 I wrote the president.

Speaker 38 I tell him it's the president. We're innocent, but nobody makes sense.

Speaker 42 Devon Ayers, he was 19 when he was convicted.

Speaker 40 I spent all my 20s and most of my 30s there, so I'm just trying to get on with life as I know it as today.

Speaker 2 And Michael Cosme, remember him?

Speaker 32 I only have one thing to say, though.

Speaker 51 When Mr.

Speaker 32 Cosme said, I didn't do it, I wasn't there.

Speaker 20 This is Michael today,

Speaker 16 18 years later.

Speaker 28 Finally, someone believed him.

Speaker 42 And while we now know those two gang members confessed to the cab driver murder, FedEx executive Denise Raymond's killer, or killers, have never been brought to justice.

Speaker 28 We wanted to speak with someone from the NYPD or the Bronx District Attorney's Office, but both declined comment, citing the multiple civil suits that they now face, as the Bronx 6 seek millions in damages against New York City.

Speaker 59 And those two detectives, Donnelly and Aiello, who were portrayed as super sleuths back in 1995, are now both retired and didn't have anything to say to us.

Speaker 37 But in court filings, attorneys for the city of New York deny that either detective threatened witnesses or falsified statements and point out that several juries heard the witnesses' testimony at the time and believed them.

Speaker 45 As for Eric, it's finally a new day and a new life.

Speaker 46 One full of amazing discoveries.

Speaker 17 Hello. No, no, no.

Speaker 53 It's upside down.

Speaker 54 Coming up, no prison bars, no prison guards,

Speaker 10 and doors he can open himself.

Speaker 39 Eric Glisson's first night of freedom in almost 20 years.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 And a reunion with the woman who helped him win it. Oh my God.

Speaker 17 Grandma.

Speaker 15 It's October 22nd, 2012.

Speaker 42 After living in a prison cell for 18 years, Eric Glisson is finally a free man.

Speaker 52 And we are by his side as he experiences all of it. Oh!

Speaker 32 I've seen this in the magazine.

Speaker 20 Eric's first few hours of freedom

Speaker 7 are part exhilaration.

Speaker 24 Hello?

Speaker 16 Part discovery.

Speaker 32 Hello.

Speaker 31 He's never actually used a cell phone.

Speaker 32 Wait, where's Cynthia?

Speaker 2 Hello. Got it upside down, Eric.

Speaker 32 Hello? No, no, no.

Speaker 27 It's upside down.

Speaker 24 Hmm?

Speaker 2 Like this. Oh, hello? Huh?

Speaker 32 Can you hear me now? Like the commercial?

Speaker 32 That was my first cell phone call.

Speaker 27 First cell phone call.

Speaker 43 His first meal?

Speaker 2 Lamb chops.

Speaker 74 Let me admire it first.

Speaker 17 Wow.

Speaker 55 It's like...

Speaker 32 Jumping up out of a coffin and walking. You know, it's like being read your last last rites.
And all of a sudden, a miracle happens. Some doctor that just comes, walks in the room, and knows exactly

Speaker 32 how to resuscitate you. And you're back living again.
And you're back out in society, and you're wondering, you know,

Speaker 32 will they accept you?

Speaker 32 Yeah, you see?

Speaker 42 On his first night of freedom, Eric's lawyer treats him to a hotel room.

Speaker 32 Right now, I got a key that's a plastic card.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 32 Oh this is excellent.

Speaker 51 Holy

Speaker 17 Wow.

Speaker 32 It's got to be at least a 46 inch TV.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 32 You know, I used to sleep on a metal frame

Speaker 32 and now I'm on a comfortable bed.

Speaker 58 But the real joy for Eric

Speaker 37 is reuniting with his daughter Cynthia.

Speaker 2 So food titles.

Speaker 32 Ready? Said go.

Speaker 2 She was just a week old when he was arrested.

Speaker 10 Now, she's nearly 18.

Speaker 29 Don't get too excited.

Speaker 74 You cheated. The chill.
You cheated.

Speaker 8 And that degree he began working on behind bars, Eric started taking classes again two days after his release.

Speaker 9 And finally received that long-awaited diploma from Mercy College.

Speaker 37 Today, a fully exonerated Eric Glisson is a businessman.

Speaker 6 an entrepreneur.

Speaker 32 I'm basically doing everything single-handedly, all of the reconstruction of the ceiling. There's going be four tables.

Speaker 43 On the one-year anniversary of his release, Eric opened a fresh juice business that he built himself named Fresh Take.

Speaker 32 Afternoon, sir, how are you doing?

Speaker 39 Nice place you have here.

Speaker 16 Thanks.

Speaker 7 Where'd you get Fresh Take?

Speaker 32 Well, I knew that I had a Fresh Take on life.

Speaker 32 I'm free now. I'm no longer the victim.
I'm the victor.

Speaker 72 I won.

Speaker 2 You seem to have come through this

Speaker 58 remarkably free of bitterness and anger, or you're hiding it very well.

Speaker 32 Well, I don't have any animosity against anybody at this point, except the people who grow strawberries and raise the prices.

Speaker 32 Because the strawberry is the primary thing.

Speaker 2 Because that's a crime.

Speaker 63 Yeah, it is a crime.

Speaker 41 Herrick has a business partner, someone he met when he was still locked up.

Speaker 53 He's become my brother.

Speaker 16 It's Charmaine Chester, his lawyer's assistant.

Speaker 53 I call him my bratty little brother, and I'm the annoying older sister.

Speaker 41 They opened their store in late 2013.

Speaker 59 Eric says he loves it.

Speaker 32 Pivotal point in my life.

Speaker 32 Have I ever done this? It gave me a lot of tools.

Speaker 63 On this day, we had a little surprise for him.

Speaker 19 He hasn't seen sister Joanna Chan since he's been released.

Speaker 11 The woman who put Eric on a quest for freedom all those years ago.

Speaker 32 You know, working together collectively.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Grandma.

Speaker 35 Congratulations.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 25 Oh my god.

Speaker 32 They told me you were in China.

Speaker 24 I was.

Speaker 12 Eric has now been a free man for more than seven years.

Speaker 46 It's been rough.

Speaker 32 It's not the walk into the sunset that everyone expects. It's events that took place in my life that will be with me forever.
I can't unshake them.

Speaker 56 And he says he's not the only one who's been having a hard time.

Speaker 32 Like, especially with my daughter, Cynthia, our relationship has been strained. You can still sense a lot of the resentment.
of my absence for a major part of her life.

Speaker 12 But now there's a new person for whom Eric can be fully present.

Speaker 11 Cynthia has a new sister, meet baby Scarlet.

Speaker 32 I have a second chance to raise a daughter, to be in her life, to

Speaker 32 take her to the park, horsey back rides, you know, all the kisses, and hopefully one day give her hand away in marriage.

Speaker 32 There's no price for that.

Speaker 43 And what's the price for unjustly spending 18 years in prison?

Speaker 39 Eric and the rest of the Bronx Six all filed lawsuits for their wrongful convictions.

Speaker 18 The state and city of New York settled the cases, and the Bronx 6 were awarded $12 million

Speaker 2 each.

Speaker 52 There was one last thing we wanted to do with Eric.

Speaker 38 Remember that bench Eric could see from inside Sing Sing?

Speaker 9 Not too long after his release, we took him back there

Speaker 37 and watched him finally make good on that promise to himself

Speaker 42 to get that other view of the prison.

Speaker 2 This time, from the outside.

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