Letters from Sing Sing - Ep. 3: Eyewitnesses

Speaker 1 A rich life isn't a straight line to a destination on the horizon. Sometimes it takes an unexpected turn with detours, new possibilities, and even another passenger or three.

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Speaker 1 Let's find your rich together, Edward Jones, member SIPC.

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Speaker 3 When I first met JJ Velasquez in 2002, he'd been in prison for three years, serving 25 to life.

Speaker 3 That meant he wouldn't be eligible for parole until he was 48. And getting parole is never a guarantee.
It was possible JJ could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Speaker 3 I saw how JJ lived, locked away in his seven by nine foot cell.

Speaker 3 He told me when he was first sent upstate, he fell into the routine of prison life, sleeping in his cell, hanging out in the prison yard.

Speaker 5 I was going through a lot of pain, and for a long time I was private about my matters.

Speaker 5 But after a while, I realized I can't hold this in mind. I gotta let this go.

Speaker 5 When individuals started to find out that I was innocent, they said, yo. What are you doing in the yard playing basketball or softball?

Speaker 3 You need to be in the law library.

Speaker 5 Nobody's gonna get you out of prison.

Speaker 3 You need to learn the law.

Speaker 5 You need to tell the lawyers what needs to happen in your case. No one cares about you.

Speaker 5 You're not a concern. The only way you're gonna get out is if you get yourself out.

Speaker 3 So JJ told me he started to take matters into his own hands. He'd been assigned new court-appointed attorneys to help with his appeal, but he said he had trouble getting their attention.

Speaker 5 No attorney ever came to see me. Anytime I wrote them about my case file, they said they hadn't received it yet.

Speaker 5 I was getting nowhere.

Speaker 5 And meanwhile, I'm sitting upstate. So I had to tell the appellate division that I wanted to proceed pro se, which means that I was going to handle my own case just to get my case file.

Speaker 5 The truth of the matter is that I realized that the only person who was going to advocate for me the way that I needed was me.

Speaker 5 I got my case file September 2000 and it was a big box probably coming up to a little bit over my knee, big and wide and on the label it said it was 66 pounds.

Speaker 5 It was really hard to get it inside the cell because the door only opens up for so much. But I finally got it in and it just fit like with a little nudge, it just fit underneath the bed.

Speaker 5 That's how high the box was.

Speaker 5 So I pushed that underneath the bed and for days I sat on my bed and I just kept pulling out file after file after file. And I mean, there were papers on the floor.

Speaker 5 There were papers on my bed.

Speaker 5 There was even a cardboard that I put on top of my toilet so I don't have to smell it.

Speaker 5 And there was paper on there. Like it was paper everywhere in my cell.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I was trying to keep everything neat and organized so I wouldn't misplace anything because it was just so much paper.

Speaker 5 I remember like falling asleep with pages of paper on me and finding it, like

Speaker 5 cast it on the floor in the middle of the night. And then, if I wake up in the middle of the night, next thing you know, the light is back on and I'm reading the paper again until I fall asleep.

Speaker 5 It was like I was on this expedition seeking the truth, trying to find my way out, and saying, This box is the magic. It has to be in here.
Something in here is going to help me.

Speaker 3 It wasn't long before JJ made a big discovery in that box.

Speaker 5 It really blew my mind. I mean, I don't even know if it was bold on the page, but that's like how it stuck out to me.

Speaker 3 It turns out that in the days right after the murder of Al Ward, the police had been focused on a different suspect, someone named Mustafa.

Speaker 5 Never was Mustafa mentioned during my trial. Never was I informed that there was a previous suspect, an initial suspect.

Speaker 3 They knew who they were looking for.

Speaker 2 How did I wind up here?

Speaker 3 I'm Dan Slepian, and this is Letters from Sing Sing.

Speaker 3 Episode 3, Eyewitnesses.

Speaker 3 Early on in my investigation, JJ sent me copies of everything that was in that box.

Speaker 3 And like him, I was surprised by what I read. A lot of information that JJ's jury never heard.
Especially that detectives had been searching for another suspect before JJ's name was ever mentioned.

Speaker 3 This is what I learned from the police reports in JJ's case file.

Speaker 3 On January 27, 1998, the day of Al Ward's murder, a sketch of the gunman was made based on eyewitness accounts. It showed a light-skinned black man with braids, and it was posted all over Harlem.

Speaker 3 There was a huge push to find the shooter. Officers detained and questioned more than 150 people.
Police showed them the sketch of the gunman to see if anyone recognized him.

Speaker 3 Tips started coming in, and one name kept coming up.

Speaker 3 One person said the guy in the sketch was someone named Mustafa. He didn't give a last name.
Then another said he heard that it was Mustafa who shot a guy at the number spot.

Speaker 3 He said Mustafa sold drugs near there, that he was a black man with dreadlocks. There was also a handwritten note in the police files that mentioned the name Mustafa.

Speaker 3 Detectives seemed to take this lead seriously. I reviewed pages and pages of computer searches they'd done.
looking for anyone who'd been arrested using the name Mustafa.

Speaker 3 There was even a memo sent to police headquarters declaring that Mustafa was their, quote, primary target.

Speaker 3 But the search for Mustafa came to an abrupt end three days after the crime, when the key eyewitness Augustus Brown picked out a picture of someone else, John Adrian Velasquez.

Speaker 3 After JJ was arrested, his lawyers asked the court to assign a private investigator to their team.

Speaker 3 The idea was to follow up on any leads the police may have missed or that might point to JJ's innocence. This happens all the time in criminal cases where a defendant can't afford an investigator.

Speaker 3 A judge granted the request and appointed a private investigator named David Barrett to help JJ.

Speaker 3 But when I first visited JJ and started learning about his case, he told me that David Barrett never did an investigation. JJ said Barrett never even spoke with him.
I found this hard to believe.

Speaker 3 I mean, here's a guy charged with the murder of a retired police officer. He's claiming he's innocent, that he knows nothing about the crime.

Speaker 3 Could it be true that his own investigator never looked into anything? So I tracked down Barrett. He's handled hundreds of cases like JJ's over the years.

Speaker 3 Hello, how are you?

Speaker 3 We met outside NBC's offices at Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown, Manhattan, and he shared his thoughts about JJ's case.

Speaker 8 The key in this case is just its identification. The moment they had that one identification, identification, one guy after all this stuff, they stopped.

Speaker 8 You can see from their point of view, they go, look,

Speaker 8 our job is to give you probable cause. You got probable cause.
You got identification. We're finished.
We've got the man.

Speaker 3 So isn't this where Barrett should come in? Shouldn't he do a full investigation to see what the police may have missed? Barrett says that's usually how it works.

Speaker 3 But in this case, he says JJ's lawyers didn't give him much to do.

Speaker 8 I really was not asked to do anything particularly extensive, and

Speaker 8 I didn't have the names of these fellows who had made the identification and all the rest.

Speaker 8 So, for instance, I never saw the sketch of this fellow,

Speaker 8 never heard of Mustafa.

Speaker 3 It seemed crazy to me that the investigator hired to look into JJ's case never even heard about Mustafa or even received the names of the key eyewitnesses. Barrett blamed JJ's lawyers.

Speaker 3 But he also says this happens all the time when it comes to court-appointed investigations. It's baked into the system.

Speaker 8 The state government doesn't pay very much. In those days, there used to be a $300 limit, which is absurd.
That it's one trip to someplace

Speaker 8 for two hours, you can do it. But if it's any kind of work, you can't.

Speaker 3 And taking one trip, it turns out, is all Barrett says he did on this case. He went to visit the crime scene.

Speaker 8 I went to the location. I was trying to find the people who are somehow connected to the gambling gambling spot.

Speaker 8 The truth is, I didn't really have names or anything. I just had the idea that if somebody was there, they would have some recollection of what happened.

Speaker 3 But he says he didn't find anyone and wasn't asked to do anything else.

Speaker 3 Based on what I'd read, there was a lot to investigate. But here was JJ's investigator telling me he didn't really do anything.
And JJ's lawyers never gave him much to work with.

Speaker 3 I had so many questions.

Speaker 3 So I decided to call up JJ's lead trial lawyer, Frank Gould.

Speaker 3 Yes. Hi, is this Franklin? Mr.
Gould? Yes, Franklin. Hi, this is Dan Slepian, a producer with Dateline NBC here in New York.

Speaker 4 I'm calling you about a case that you

Speaker 4 tried 10 years ago. I'm doing a story about one of your former clients by the name of John Adrian Velasquez.

Speaker 4 Remember John Adrian? No.

Speaker 4 I don't think it was me. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 4 It happened up in Harlem in New York City. The defendant's name was John Adrian Velasquez.
Don't remember it. Sorry.
So, it doesn't ring a bell at all? If I can help him, I'd be glad to try.

Speaker 3 There was a reason that Frank Gould probably didn't remember JJ or his case. I later learned from his former law partner that he'd been diagnosed with dementia.

Speaker 3 He's since passed away. I should note that I've spoken with many people in New York's legal circles and all pretty much say that Frank Gould was a great defense attorney.

Speaker 3 Okay, one thing I now knew for sure, JJ had never gotten a proper investigation. I needed to do what David Barrett never did, actually investigate JJ's case.

Speaker 3 In the summer of 2009, 10 years after Al Ward's murder, I began looking for the person who first linked JJ to the crime, the key eyewitness, Augustus Brown.

Speaker 3 Remember, JJ told me that at his trial, Brown said he was being forced to testify.

Speaker 3 I found out Brown was at the Elmira Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in upstate New York. He'd been locked up on a forgery charge.

Speaker 3 The prison is about a five-hour drive from New York City.

Speaker 3 I wasn't sure Brown would talk to me, so I decided to show up without giving him advance notice. I'd made arrangements with the prison to bring in my recording equipment, just in case.

Speaker 3 When I arrive at the prison, I'm brought to a conference room.

Speaker 3 Then Brown appears.

Speaker 3 It's clear he's hesitant to speak, much less on camera. But I want to be sure to document whatever it is he tells me.
So I make a split-second decision and take a small camera out of my pocket.

Speaker 3 I put it on a shelf right behind the table and hit the red button.

Speaker 3 And then before I ask any questions, I take a minute to tell him why I'm here.

Speaker 9 We need to get your story down, make sure we're right. We don't ever want to be wrong and I never want to attribute anything to anybody that's not correct.

Speaker 9 It's my job to make sure that everything we say is true and correct.

Speaker 9 What I'm trying to do is trying to find the truth. That's all I'm trying to do.

Speaker 9 Here's a guy who's making a fairly compelling case that he might actually be innocent, that he may not have done anything. If that's not true, if he's the guy, I want to know it.

Speaker 9 If he's not the guy, he has two little kids that are waiting for him to get out. And by the way, even if he's innocent, he still may never get out.

Speaker 9 So did you just move me to tell you my side? Yeah, I just want to know if, yeah.

Speaker 9 I don't even like, I don't even know where to start.

Speaker 3 Brown tells me what he remembers from the day of the murder. How the two robbers got into a fight with the owner from the number spot, Al Ward.

Speaker 9 They was about, one of the dudes was about to try to do something. That's when the old man jumped up,

Speaker 9 and they started tussling. Then the other dude come from the back.
But while they tussling, they standing over me. Did not get shot.

Speaker 9 And they run out.

Speaker 9 That was the first time I've seen somebody killed.

Speaker 3 Brown says he took off. He didn't wait for the police to arrive.

Speaker 3 But they found him a few days later, dealing on the street.

Speaker 3 He had 10 bags of heroin stashed in his underwear.

Speaker 3 Detectives brought him into the precinct.

Speaker 3 Brown says they put the heroin on a table in front of him as they began to question him.

Speaker 3 And he says they threatened to charge him in connection with the murder if he didn't cooperate.

Speaker 9 They threatened to charge me with conspiracy to this saying that

Speaker 9 I set this up for them to come in and rob it. Then me having that on my record, they young black man.
I ain't got no job. I'm not in school or nothing.

Speaker 9 They was going to lock me up. And they were yelling at you?

Speaker 9 Yeah, they just manhandled me in that.

Speaker 9 For how many hours? Can you guess how many hours? Do you remember?

Speaker 9 I know I ain't get out of there till like in the morning time, like one, two in the morning.

Speaker 3 Brown was at the precinct for hours. I reviewed the police report.

Speaker 3 During the time he was there, it turns out he looked at more than 1,800 mugshots before he picked out jj's

Speaker 9 tired i mean scared scared to death like i mean like damn i ain't even have nothing to do with this and that's how the whole thing came about

Speaker 9 me pointing the finger at him but i don't know if it was him or not you know what i mean

Speaker 9 when you picked him out did you feel at that moment i know this is not the guy

Speaker 9 now that that's something I've been struggling with. Like, I don't know if I really picked out the right person.
I don't know if it was really him.

Speaker 9 I mean, like,

Speaker 9 I really can't say, like, to myself,

Speaker 9 I just said I hope I picked the right person. I mean, but the doubts was there, too.

Speaker 9 You had to make a decision. If you were

Speaker 9 sitting in a courtroom testifying, would you say you just don't know, or would you say you got the wrong guy, or he is the right guy?

Speaker 9 I'd say, I don't know if he's the right guy or not.

Speaker 9 If he's the wrong guy, why him?

Speaker 3 Brown says he picked out JJ's photo because he was scared, but also because he thought JJ looked familiar. He says he might have seen him before when he was dealing on the streets.

Speaker 9 You never seen nobody, and you said to yourself, why do I know this person, Paul?

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 9 But you remember thinking that they're in that room. Yeah, like I've seen them before.

Speaker 9 But not from the number spot. Nah.

Speaker 3 Augustus Brown, the eyewitness who brought JJ into this investigation in the first place, just admitted he didn't see JJ in the number spot. That would mean JJ wasn't the shooter.

Speaker 3 That Brown had picked out the wrong man.

Speaker 9 Do you remember what time of night you ended up picking out him?

Speaker 9 It was dark. I'm like, it was late.
And you were like, and in your mind, you were like, I'm just out of here. Yeah.

Speaker 9 tired

Speaker 9 scared you know i mean that's the main thing i was scared like i can't go to jail for something i didn't do

Speaker 3 brown says that once he picked jj's picture he was allowed to go home he wasn't charged with anything he even got to leave with his 10 bags of heroin they really let you keep the heroin yeah

Speaker 3 As I was sitting there across from Brown, I thought about what JJ had told me, that strange conversation that he said he'd had with Brown in the holding cell behind the courtroom.

Speaker 3 Brown said the story was true.

Speaker 3 He did say to JJ, they're making me do it.

Speaker 9 What does that mean? They're making me do it.

Speaker 9 They forced me.

Speaker 9 They just leave me there.

Speaker 9 I'll go to jail.

Speaker 9 They're forcing me, meaning they're forcing me to testify, or they're forcing me to pick somebody out.

Speaker 9 That's the whole process.

Speaker 3 In fact, the prosecutors prosecutors had Brown jailed in the days before the trial to make sure that he would take the stand. And once he gave his testimony, he was released.

Speaker 3 As I walked out of the prison that day, my mind was reeling.

Speaker 3 JJ's case was based entirely on eyewitness accounts. There was no DNA, no physical or forensic evidence.

Speaker 3 And now the key eyewitness, the guy who initially initially linked JJ to the crime, was basically saying he picked him out at random.

Speaker 3 That the detectives working in the case pressured him to make an ID, and that prosecutors made him testify in court.

Speaker 3 I reached out to the NYPD and to the individual detectives who investigated the case, as well as the prosecutors who took JJ to trial. None would speak with me on the record.

Speaker 3 But there were still more leads to follow, more people to talk to.

Speaker 3 And what I just heard felt so big, I couldn't keep this information to myself.

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Speaker 3 The Manhattan District Attorney is considered one of the most powerful prosecutors in the country. The office has hundreds of attorneys and has handled as many as 100,000 criminal cases each year.

Speaker 3 For 35 years, Robert Morgenthau held that seat. Near Near the end of his tenure in 2009, he spoke about his legacy.

Speaker 11 When I became DA,

Speaker 11 Manhattan was number one in murders. We had 648 murders.
This past year, we had 62.

Speaker 3 We went from Morgenthau had a reputation for being tough on crime.

Speaker 3 He also oversaw many high-profile cases. including one of the most famous wrongful convictions.
In 1989, five teenagers were found guilty of the beating and rape of a jogger in Central Park.

Speaker 3 Those teens became known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five.

Speaker 11 You know, we convicted these five young men.

Speaker 11 There were a lot of eyewitnesses and a lot of confessions, and we believed them, and they went great.

Speaker 3 It was under Morgenthau's leadership that JJ was convicted.

Speaker 3 After Morgenthau retired, a new district attorney was elected.

Speaker 12 My name is Cy Cy Vance, and I'm running to become the next Manhattan District Attorney, and I intend to build on and continue.

Speaker 3 During his campaign, Cyrus Vance Jr. proposed something that caught my attention.
He said he was going to create a department within the DA's office called a Conviction Integrity Unit.

Speaker 3 Here he is in 2009 during his campaign on local TV.

Speaker 12 A conviction integrity unit makes sure that if there are issues in the integrity of the case pre-indictment, pre-trial, or post-trial, the office is prepared to have a panel of senior lawyers look at it to make sure that in every case, we're doing the right thing, making sure that

Speaker 12 wrongfully convicted people are not staying in jail.

Speaker 3 To me, this seemed like a big deal, an official way to review JJ's claim of innocence. And the timing couldn't have been better.

Speaker 3 I had just interviewed Augustus Brown, who basically recanted, saying J.J. wasn't in the numbers parlor.
So I started looking around the new DA's website just to learn more about this new unit.

Speaker 3 And that's when I saw a familiar name listed on his transition team, Bob Gottley.

Speaker 9 Hi, Robert Gottley's office.

Speaker 3 Bob is a veteran criminal defense attorney. I remembered him from another story I'd worked on, and he seemed like an approachable guy.

Speaker 3 Since Bob was working with the new DA, I figured he might have some insight about the new unit. So I decided to call him, because at this point, JJ no longer had a lawyer.

Speaker 3 Bob asked to see some of JJ's paperwork, so I sent it to him and his partner, Celia Gordon. You might remember her from episode one.

Speaker 3 They immediately saw issues.

Speaker 6 There was enough that was brought to us from day one

Speaker 3 when we learned about it to say there's something that might be there that might have resulted in a wrongful conviction.

Speaker 3 To Celia, the fact that JJ was convicted solely on eyewitness testimony was a red flag.

Speaker 13 That is so striking to me. And in reading the testimony and hearing that there was no physical evidence, there was nothing recovered at the scene that would tie John Adrian to this crime.

Speaker 13 There was nothing until that moment that Augustus Brown identifies him in a mug shot, that he enters the case.

Speaker 13 With all that we know about eyewitness testimony and the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, that's all I would need.

Speaker 3 After speaking with JJ, they decided to represent him pro bono.

Speaker 3 He was no longer on his own.

Speaker 3 It's March of 2010.

Speaker 3 Bob and Celia have set up a meeting to discuss JJ's case, and they're letting me listen in on their strategy session.

Speaker 6 The trial could have been rotten, but that is totally irrelevant here.

Speaker 6 In order for a DA to reach the point to say, I'm going to recommend or move to vacate a conviction, they've got to be convinced of actual innocence based on evidence that was not available at the time.

Speaker 13 Unless there is some new information, some new revelation from these witnesses, finding Mustafa or getting Derry Daniels to say, I never met this guy.

Speaker 13 Those are the only types of things that are going to set this man free.

Speaker 3 Remember, Derry Daniels was the alleged accomplice who told the judge he committed the crime with JJ. And Mustafa was the primary police target before JJ's name ever came up.

Speaker 6 Certainly, if now we can track down Mustafa or people saying, looking at a picture of a Mustafa, yeah, this is the guy, and the guy had braids at the time, it's going to raise very serious questions about the integrity of the conviction.

Speaker 3 They also wanted to track down the eyewitnesses to see what they'd say.

Speaker 6 What evidence do we have, Celia, already questioning identification? Okay, we have,

Speaker 13 what new, what do we have that two?

Speaker 6 They knew, they knew it.

Speaker 13 We have Augustus Brown. He's scheduled to get out of prison.
I think we talked about that

Speaker 13 in the the spring, I think, at some point. So he should be our number one person to go back.

Speaker 6 And listen, this is what we're going to have to do. For him and for everyone else you go to,

Speaker 6 we have to get affidavits from them. I'm concerned about if the DA or if a detective reaches out to them first, they're just going to, out of fear, naturally, confirm their previous identification.
So

Speaker 6 I want to get to these guys fast.

Speaker 3 One week after that initial strategy session, Bob and Celia set up a meeting with JJ's mom, Maria, to discuss her son's case.

Speaker 16 Today is going to be the first day that I meet them.

Speaker 16 It's been a long time that I've been waiting for this, and I'm filled with a lot of emotion.

Speaker 3 We're standing outside the lawyer's offices. Maria is dressed up in a black suit and yellow blouse.

Speaker 16 This is the very first time that somebody has actually taken the case and really believes in my son's innocence.

Speaker 3 So this is very important to me.

Speaker 3 We head into the building.

Speaker 4 Hi, Maria.

Speaker 7 Yes, hi, nice to meet you.

Speaker 4 Let's go to meet your person.

Speaker 6 So you spoke to him on Sunday. Yes.
And what did he have to say?

Speaker 3 Well, he just called to see how I was doing and he asked me, you know, when the meeting was, because I had told him already I was coming to see you today.

Speaker 3 Bob and Celia start by telling Maria their plan.

Speaker 13 We had a meeting last week and two things that we are focusing on in our reinvestigation.

Speaker 13 One is Mustafa. We want to see if we can now find out who Mustafa is and hopefully that he's still alive.
Number two, speak with Derry Daniels

Speaker 13 and see if we can get him to finally admit to us that he does not know who John Adrian is or had no connection to him.

Speaker 13 At the same time, we want to re-interview all of the people that were the identification witnesses.

Speaker 6 So what can we answer for you? I'm sure you have some questions for us.

Speaker 16 I'm just waiting for the phone call

Speaker 16 that comes in to tell me that

Speaker 16 you found Mustafa or that you found

Speaker 16 some new evidence that's gonna free my son.

Speaker 16 That's all I'm waiting for.

Speaker 16 I can't say that I have any questions because the only question is:

Speaker 16 who did this?

Speaker 5 Where are they?

Speaker 16 Somebody out there knows who did it. Somebody.

Speaker 5 Dear Dan, on our last visit I promised I would write. Needless to say, I have been going through a lot.
Time is precious.

Speaker 5 And as it is, the state of New York has deprived me, John Adrian Velasquez, of my constitutional rights to justice and liberty.

Speaker 5 They have deprived me of my right to raise my children properly and effectively.

Speaker 5 They have cast so many restraints on the welfare of our family, and when you get to the bottom of it all, Dan, you are going to see that it was all done knowingly.

Speaker 5 I appreciate everything you have done for me, and I trust that your efforts will continue.

Speaker 5 Respectfully, John Adrian.

Speaker 1 What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes, and everything in between.

Speaker 1 With over 100 years' experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence.

Speaker 1 Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

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Speaker 3 During JJ's trial, the prosecutor claimed that five people identified JJ as the man who killed Al Ward.

Speaker 3 You'll hear that five people, Philip Jones, Robert Jones, Lorenzo Woodford, Augustus Brown, and Dorothy Cannedy.

Speaker 3 I'd already spoken with the key eyewitness, Augustus Brown, who basically said he picked out JJ at random. I found out Dorothy Cannedy had recently passed away.

Speaker 3 She was the 84-year-old woman who identified a juror as the shooter at JJ's trial. But there were still three other eyewitnesses who testified against JJ.

Speaker 3 Lorenzo Woodford, the guy who Augustus Brown had been selling heroin to on the day of the murder, and two brothers who'd been at the numbers spot, Robert and Philip Jones.

Speaker 3 But now, I wasn't the only one interested in speaking with these witnesses.

Speaker 3 JJ's lawyers wanted to as well. They hired a private investigator, Joe Dwyer.
So when Dwyer went out to interview Robert Jones, where he lived in the Bronx, I decided decided to join him.

Speaker 3 As we approached the door, Dwyer turned on a small recorder and put it in his pocket. So the sound isn't great.

Speaker 3 Robert Jones insisted JJ was the shooter. In fact, I played him a video of JJ and he said that's the guy.
But then Jones said something that made me question his credibility.

Speaker 3 He said that when he was at the trial, he saw someone else in the courtroom who looked even more like the gunman, JJ's half-brother.

Speaker 18 I've been questioning his brother.

Speaker 18 But that really disturbed me.

Speaker 3 JJ's half-brother is five years younger than him. They have the same father.

Speaker 18 I've been living with this since the time I saw his brother in the court.

Speaker 3 Just for the record, no one other than Jones has ever suggested that JJ's half-brother had anything to do with this crime, and there is zero evidence linking him to it.

Speaker 3 I thanked Jones for talking with me and left.

Speaker 3 Jones had technically stuck to his ID, but the fact that he thought someone else looked more like the shooter than JJ

Speaker 3 spoke volumes.

Speaker 3 I still had two more eyewitnesses to speak with: Robert's brother Philip Jones and Lorenzo Woodford. I found out Woodford was living in Hartford, Connecticut.

Speaker 3 One of our TV producers, Stephanie Barber, went to see him. She wore a hidden camera.

Speaker 4 Hello. Hi.

Speaker 4 How you doing? Good. How are you?

Speaker 19 I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time. I came by.

Speaker 4 I'm always at a bad time.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 3 They found a place to sit outside his apartment building. She asked him what he remembered about the day Al Ward died.

Speaker 4 I'm not a fanatic, crazy, wild person. I think I'm reasonable.
You know what I mean? And what happened, happened. It scared the shit out of me.
I had nightmares for about three months.

Speaker 3 Woodford says back then he was homeless and had a heroin addiction.

Speaker 4 I saw using drugs when I was about 10, 11, something like that.

Speaker 3 He says he dropped out of school in the sixth grade and spent the next decade in and out of the system. Eventually he became friends with Al Ward, the retired officer who ran the illegal number spot.

Speaker 4 I was sleeping in some cars, me and a few other people, in a lot next to his place.

Speaker 4 One day he called me over and told me,

Speaker 4 I got something for you to do.

Speaker 4 And you won't have to sleep in them cars. You can sleep in the back of of the club.
You have to clean your clothes, take a bath,

Speaker 4 keep yourself clean and stuff.

Speaker 3 He says, in exchange, Al Ward asked him to watch the number spot to make sure no one robbed the place.

Speaker 19 So he was kind of like your protector.

Speaker 4 Oh, he was not just me. He had a lot of people around.

Speaker 4 I did a lot of wrong things, a lot of right things, you know. But anything wrong, if he found out, he'd stop me from doing doing it

Speaker 3 on the day of al ward's murder woodford was buying heroin from augustus brown in the back room of the number spot

Speaker 4 he says they'd been there for just a few minutes when they heard commotion in the other room and i heard something say give it up give it up you know i was opening the door and then go see what's happening i opened the back door and stepped out this guy sticked the gun in my face oh man

Speaker 4 i had a roll of money in my hand he said i'll take that He said, yo, man, anybody else back there? No, ain't nobody else standing there. Get up.
They tying people up, and Al was standing up.

Speaker 4 I know Al got a gun. I seen the other guy come running toward me, ran up to Al's with the gun to the side of the boom.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 I laid down and I heard all these shots. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 4 I felt all this wet shit. Blood, Al's blood.
Oh, man.

Speaker 4 I would never forget that boy's face. There's features in his face that you won't forget.
Mainly his eyebrows. You see how people's eyebrows have a space in between.
His don't.

Speaker 4 They just go right straight across.

Speaker 3 The eyebrows? I'd seen a handful of photos of JJ before and after the crime, and he didn't have a unibrow in any of them. But Woodford insists he picked the right man.

Speaker 4 If somebody sticks a gun in your face and take money from you, you don't think you'd remember what that person looked like. I was looking in his face.
I wasn't looking at that gun.

Speaker 4 I made sure I did not look at the gun. I looked at him.
All right. I never saw no.

Speaker 4 sketches. I never saw no pictures.
I never made no descriptions of him. I went to a lineup and picked him out of the lineup.

Speaker 3 Except, here's the problem with what Woodford's saying. According to police reports and his own trial testimony, Lorenzo Woodford did give the police a description of the suspect.

Speaker 3 He said the shooter was black and had cornrows. And when he was brought in to look at a lineup, he didn't pick out JJ right away.

Speaker 3 JJ was number two in the lineup, but Woodford first picked number three,

Speaker 3 then said, quote, maybe number two.

Speaker 3 Finally saying, quote, I'm not positive. Of course, by the time JJ's trial came around almost two years later, Woodford said he was sure JJ was the shooter.

Speaker 4 I don't have no problem recognizing people. That guy that stuck that pistol in my face and took the money out of my hand was the kid that I said did it.
That's who did it. All right.

Speaker 4 I didn't turn him in. Somebody else turned him in.
All right. They had to have some kind of evidence.
They didn't just take my word for it. And if they don't believe he did it, let him go.

Speaker 3 I had one more eyewitness to speak with, Philip Jones. I learned that at the time of JJ's trial, Jones was in prison for drug possession.

Speaker 3 But the Manhattan DA's office said they would write a letter to the parole board if he offered his, quote, truthful testimony. And at trial, Philip Jones testified that JJ was the shooter.

Speaker 9 How you doing?

Speaker 9 Philip, upstairs, you know? You know Philip Jones?

Speaker 3 No, no, no. I'm in Far Rockaway, Queens.
I've heard Jones is living on a block around here. So I'm walking the streets, knocking on doors, asking where he might be.

Speaker 3 And I'm wearing a hidden camera.

Speaker 9 How you doing? Hi.

Speaker 9 Oh, I'm looking for Phil Jones. Huh? Philip Jones?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 3 I ask more people if they know where he lives.

Speaker 9 I'm looking for Philip Jones. No.
Have you seen him? Have you seen him around?

Speaker 4 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 4 Where does he go?

Speaker 3 Finally, I see Jones walking down the street. He's heading back to his place.

Speaker 9 He's over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 Down over

Speaker 4 What's up?

Speaker 3 He doesn't want to talk on the street, so he invites me inside his apartment.

Speaker 9 This is nice, man.

Speaker 3 I already had a good reason for wanting to see Philip Jones.

Speaker 3 He was one of the eyewitnesses to Al Ward's murder.

Speaker 3 But I was there for an even bigger reason.

Speaker 3 Philip Jones had recently spoken to JJ's private investigator.

Speaker 3 He'd signed an affidavit saying JJ wasn't the shooter.

Speaker 3 I wanted to know if he stood by that.

Speaker 9 They just sent this to me.

Speaker 9 On 127.98, I was present at 2335 8th Avenue, New York, New York. I witnessed my friend Albert Ward get shot and killed.
I saw you.

Speaker 9 On 2298, I viewed a lineup in which I picked out an individual as being the shooter. I picked out this man because I thought the man looked like the shooter, but I was not sure.

Speaker 9 I told the police this was the guy and I was sure, but this was not the truth.

Speaker 9 I felt pressured because the police were were threatening to arrest me and my brother Robert for stealing money that Albert dropped on the floor after being shot.

Speaker 9 I was arrested sometime after Albert Ward was killed, and two detectives came to visit me upstate in Groveland Prison. The detectives told me they got the right guy and would help me get parole.

Speaker 9 When I saw the defendant in court, I looked in his eyes. I knew I had picked out the wrong guy.
And the guy on trial I had never seen before signed Philip Jones.

Speaker 4 There you go.

Speaker 4 There you go.

Speaker 9 But, so that's all true?

Speaker 4 That's awesome.

Speaker 9 The guy still sits in prison.

Speaker 3 The only one.

Speaker 9 Nothing.

Speaker 3 I get up to leave and start heading down the stairs.

Speaker 9 So what do you think about that?

Speaker 9 I think that, you know, that it's always good to be honest, man, and you did the strong thing. You did what, you know, it's not an easy thing to do.

Speaker 9 All right, Philip. I'll be in touch with you.

Speaker 3 I'd now spoken to four eyewitnesses, and it was clear to me that the evidence that sent JJ away was a lot weaker than it first appeared. They'd all sworn under oath that JJ was Al Ward's killer.

Speaker 3 Of those four, Augustus Brown had recanted. Philip Jones had recanted.
His brother Robert Jones said someone else actually looked more like the shooter.

Speaker 3 And Lorenzo Woodford's story didn't match the facts.

Speaker 3 Then, of course, there was the prosecution's fifth eyewitness, Dorothy Kennedy. She pointed to juror number six when asked to identify the shooter.

Speaker 3 But the jury did find JJ guilty. I wanted to know why and how.
What went on during their deliberations.

Speaker 3 So I decided to call a juror. Juror number six, the one picked out by an eyewitness as the gunman.

Speaker 3 What he told me blew me away.

Speaker 3 Next time.

Speaker 3 Whoa, did she just pick me out? Now there's something wrong with that.

Speaker 7 It's just a horrible, a horrible feeling that I carry around because I ruined somebody's life.

Speaker 8 How am I going to believe his mother?

Speaker 6 How am I going to leave the mother of his children? They have every incentive to lie.

Speaker 5 Do you know the seriousness of a 17-year-old committing a crime? What's going to happen to you? You're not going back to another program if you make the wrong choice again.

Speaker 3 Letters from Sing Sing was written and produced by Preethi Varathon, Rob Allen, and me. Our associate producer is Rachel Young.
Our story editor is Jennifer Gorin.

Speaker 3 Original score by Christopher Scullion, Robert Riale, and Four Elements Music. Sound design by Cedric Wilson.
Fact-checking by Joseph Frischmith. Bryson Barnes is our technical director.

Speaker 3 Preethivarathon is our supervising producer. Soraya Gage, Reed Jerlin, and Alexa Danner are our executive producers.
Liz Cole runs NBC News Studios.

Speaker 3 Letters from Sing Sing is an NBC News Studios production.

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