Letters from Sing Sing - Ep. 1: JJ

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Speaker 2 It was November 28th, 2002, Thanksgiving Day, and I was at a maximum security prison in New York.

Speaker 2 After you. I'm a long-time producer for Dateline, and I was working on a story about two men who were locked up for a high-profile murder they say they didn't commit.

Speaker 2 The prison lobby was busy that morning. Several officers sat behind a large square security desk, slowly processing a long line of visitors.

Speaker 2 There were signs everywhere, telling me where to stand, where to wait.

Speaker 6 A woman approached me.

Speaker 2 She was holding the hands of these two little boys. She said, My name is Maria Velazquez.
My son, John Adrian, JJ, he's in prison here, but he's innocent. Can you help us?

Speaker 2 She said she'd been waiting, hoping to catch me, that she'd heard from her son about the story I was working on.

Speaker 2 These are my grandchildren, she said.

Speaker 2 I still remember the look on the younger one's face. He seemed confused, like, why am I here? Why is this guy looking at me?

Speaker 2 All I could think in that moment was whether their dad was innocent or guilty. These little guys should not be in a prison on Thanksgiving Day.

Speaker 2 I told her I'd read anything she wanted to send, but I made no promises.

Speaker 2 One week after that visit, I received a box of paperwork, followed by a letter. It was from the father of those two little boys.

Speaker 7 December 5th, 2002. Dear Mr.
Slepian, I spent a lot of time trying to familiarize myself with the law. Monday through Thursday, anyone who knows me knows that I can be found in the law library.

Speaker 7 I know I don't belong here, but I am a firm believer that everything that happens to us in life is for a purpose.

Speaker 7 In no way am I condoning the injustice that has occurred in my life, but this incarceration has given me the opportunity to observe the world from another perspective.

Speaker 7 My mother has informed me that she has provided you with a copy of my trial transcripts, but from the sound of the letter, it seems that your copy is incomplete.

Speaker 7 There are 2,044 pages in total. If I am correct, she has only provided you with 1,689 pages of it.

Speaker 7 In any event, if your copy is in fact incomplete, we will make the necessary arrangements to supply you with the missing pages.

Speaker 7 I understand that you have not made an actual commitment to my case, but the mere fact that you will actually read my transcripts and take my case into consideration requires my utmost appreciation.

Speaker 7 Yours truly, John Adrian Velasquez.

Speaker 2 I got that letter 20 years ago. I couldn't possibly have imagined back then how it would alter the course of my life, all of our lives.

Speaker 2 What I've learned over the past two decades haunts me.

Speaker 2 I still can't let it go because it's still unfolding.

Speaker 2 My name is Dan Slepian,

Speaker 2 and this is Letters from Sing Sing.

Speaker 2 Episode 1.

Speaker 2 JJ

Speaker 2 Over the years, I've gotten a lot of letters from people behind bars, but this one was different. There was something about it that drew me in.

Speaker 2 It was thoughtful, detailed, meticulous, almost like it had been written by a lawyer. It didn't mean JJ was innocent, of course, but it did make me want to know more about him.

Speaker 2 A week later, another letter arrived.

Speaker 7 December 12, 2002. Dear Mr.
Slepian, enclosed is some information you may find interesting. These are matters that were never mentioned on the record, yet were

Speaker 7 very important. February 13, 2003.
Dear Dan, I must continue to strive for justice and pursue my freedom. Attacking truth cannot set me free, then all hope of justice is useless.

Speaker 2 And with each one, I learned more about JJ.

Speaker 7 I forgot to send my youngest son, Jacob, a card for his birthday, which is so unlike me. When I realized what I did, it hurt me deeply in my heart.
I felt like such a terrible father.

Speaker 7 I still have not forgiven myself.

Speaker 2 Most of all, he wrote about his case.

Speaker 7 I I have gone over this material a thousand times,

Speaker 2 sending me information and court documents,

Speaker 2 passing along any bits and pieces that he'd been able to collect while locked away.

Speaker 7 There is a report from a case number, debrief number 669, which is not under my control. Moreover, it is obvious that these leads were not followed, and that the population.

Speaker 7 The information I have enclosed is probably the most important information I possess.

Speaker 2 But to me, stay blessed.

Speaker 7 Very truly yours, John Adrian Velasquez.

Speaker 2 As heartfelt as JJ's letters were, the fact was JJ had been convicted of a serious crime. When he was 23 years old, a jury had found him guilty of murdering a retired police officer.

Speaker 2 I wanted to know why, so I started reading his case file. The case began in Harlem in 1998.
An ex-cop who ran a gambling den gunned down during a robbery.

Speaker 8 It was a Tuesday, January 27th, 1998.

Speaker 2 That's Celia Gordon. She would eventually become one of JJ's lawyers, so she knows this story well.

Speaker 8 It was about noon, and there was a number spot, an illegal gambling spot in Harlem. It was upstairs in this kind of run-down little joint.

Speaker 2 A number spot is basically a secret club where people come in to wager money or place slots. I looked at a video the police took of the place.
It was basically two rooms above a record store.

Speaker 2 It was run by a retired police officer named Al Ward.

Speaker 2 That day, there were about a half a dozen people hanging out, including Al Ward.

Speaker 2 At around 12.30, there's a knock at the door.

Speaker 8 Somebody comes up and asks if they could play a number. They don't typically let people in who they've never met before.
And so there's some question of who are you? Where did you come from?

Speaker 8 Ultimately, the guy gets in, he plays a a number, he fills out a number slip, and he leaves.

Speaker 2 About 45 minutes later, he comes back, and he's followed by another guy holding a roll of duct tape. The first man takes out a gun and together, they announce a robbery.

Speaker 8 They start tying everybody up with duct tape. They want everyone to turn over their money, asking anyone for cash and jewelry.

Speaker 2 All of this is unfolding in the front room. But in the back room, there's a drug deal going on.
A young guy is selling heroin to one of his regular customers.

Speaker 8 They too are told to get out on the floor. They're asked to take out their money, give us any money.

Speaker 2 That's when Al Ward, the retired cop, pulls out a gun and starts struggling with the man with the duct tape. The man yells to his partner, he's got a gun, and Ward fires a shot.

Speaker 2 Then the other robber fires twice. One of the bullets hits Ward in the head, killing him.

Speaker 8 The two perpetrators flee immediately, and the other people that are in this number spot, a few of them go down to get the police.

Speaker 2 And the two men involved in the the drug deal in the back room, they take off.

Speaker 2 Soon, police arrive on the scene, and there are a lot of them. This shooting, it's a big deal.

Speaker 2 Remember, the victim is a retired cop, and it turns out he'd worked in this very precinct, the one that's now investigating his murder.

Speaker 8 There are command units set up. There are 100 some-odd police officers that are assigned to this that are on the scene within an hour.
There's captains, there's lieutenants.

Speaker 8 There's an enormous police presence at this illegal number spot when they learn that it's a retired police officer who's been shot.

Speaker 8 They immediately start bringing people in, arresting people from the street, questioning them in these mobile units. Have you heard anything? Do you know anyone?

Speaker 8 Have you heard anybody that might have been involved?

Speaker 2 While all of this is happening, the police are interviewing the eyewitnesses, asking them to describe the shooter and his accomplice.

Speaker 2 And just a note, the language Celia is about to use to describe the suspect's skin tones comes directly from the police reports.

Speaker 8 The descriptions of the witnesses immediately after the fact are consistent that the gunman was a light-skinned male black with braids, and the other individual was a dark-skinned male black.

Speaker 2 These descriptions of the shooter and his accomplice are important. They've become the backbone of the police investigation.

Speaker 8 One of the witnesses went that day to the sketch artist and they prepared a sketch based on his description of what the individual looked like.

Speaker 8 And on that wanted poster was a light-skinned male black with braids. They also sent around a radio call with the descriptions of these witnesses.

Speaker 8 And the description that was given by the police on that day was a light-skinned male black with braids.

Speaker 2 Over the next two days, detectives bring some of the eyewitnesses into the precinct.

Speaker 2 They sit them down in front of a computer and start showing them a series of mugshots that match the description of the suspects.

Speaker 2 The witnesses look at hundreds of photos, and eventually, one of them says he sees the shooter's accomplice, the dark-skinned man with the duct tape. It's a mugshot of a man named Derry Daniels.

Speaker 2 But none of the eyewitnesses ID the shooter. Now, here's where the two guys involved in the drug deal become important.
the ones that fled right after the shooting.

Speaker 2 One of them, the guy who was selling, is named Augustus Brown.

Speaker 8 Augustus Brown, who was that 20-year-old heroin dealer, after the murder, he disappears for two days. He stayed in his apartment because he was afraid.
He then resumes his normal drug dealing duties.

Speaker 8 The talk was Augustus Brown is the 20-year-old. If anyone's going to remember what the guy looked like, it would be the 20-year-old.
So there was great interest in finding Augustus Brown.

Speaker 2 But the police actually find the other man first, Brown's customer. His name is Lorenzo Woodford.

Speaker 2 Detectives bring him in for questioning and he describes the man who shot Al Ward as a black male with cornrows. Woodford then leads the detectives to his dealer.

Speaker 8 Lorenzo Woodford brings them to where Augustus Brown is selling heroin on the street. So they take Augustus Brown to the police precinct.

Speaker 2 They sit him down and question him. Brown describes the shooter as a light-skinned black male with jet black curly hair, which was different from how the other witnesses described him.

Speaker 2 Then the detectives show Brown pages and pages of mugshots.

Speaker 8 And ultimately, the photograph that he winds up identifying is John Adrian Velasquez.

Speaker 2 Police now had their main suspect, and they set out to find him.

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Speaker 2 I wish I could say I jumped all over JJ's case immediately, but I didn't. It was a busy time for me.
I had a newborn and was working on several other dateline stories in those years.

Speaker 2 But most of all, investigating a case like this is enormously difficult. It's a huge lift.

Speaker 2 Imagine putting together a 5,000-piece puzzle, but you don't know what the picture is. Some pieces are missing.
Others don't fit.

Speaker 2 I had the court transcript, all 2,044 pages of it, and some police reports and court motions that JJ had sent me. But that was only a portion of his file.

Speaker 2 At this point, I wasn't even sure if there was a story here, so I hadn't pitched JJ to my bosses at NBC News. I was doing this on my own time.

Speaker 2 JJ's files sat in a brown cardboard box on the floor of my office. And I remember sitting at my desk, staring at that box, wondering, how am I going to find the time to read all of this?

Speaker 2 But JJ's letters kept coming, and I just couldn't ignore them.

Speaker 7 Dear Dan, I refuse to remain idle, waiting for a miracle to occur. I must continue to strive for justice.

Speaker 2 I'd already visited JJ a handful of times. I didn't know if he was innocent or guilty, but if this story were to go anywhere, I'd need to get him on tape.

Speaker 2 So in the summer of 2007, almost five years after I got JJ's first letter, I got approval to bring my camera into the prison where he was serving 25 years to life.

Speaker 2 It's a hot day in August, and I'm headed to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison that's about an hour north of Manhattan. It sits on the banks of the Hudson River.

Speaker 2 It's an oddly beautiful setting. for one of the oldest prisons in the country.
Sing Sing was built almost 200 years ago, and it's notorious.

Speaker 2 Terms like the big house and being sent up the river were coined here. Before New York outlawed the death penalty, more than 600 men and women were executed at this prison.

Speaker 2 The first thing you notice about Sing Sing is its sheer size. It's massive.
The place looks like a fortress surrounded by thick concrete walls.

Speaker 6 Come on, yeah, I'm here with NBC.

Speaker 6 We have a gate clear. Gate pass.
Okay, you should stop at the gate. That's number one.
Oh, sorry about it.

Speaker 2 The guard checks his list and waves me along and tells me where to park my car.

Speaker 2 At the main entrance, I'm processed through security. It's like a TSA screening on steroids.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Let me have everything out of your pockets. Belt, watch, paper money, and change in the bucket.

Speaker 2 The last thing I'm going to need is your shoes on the counter. I don't bring anything except my ID and equipment into the prison.
As you can imagine, they're strict about security.

Speaker 2 That's everything?

Speaker 2 Alright. Step through the machine.

Speaker 2 I pass through a metal detector. Good.

Speaker 2 They give me a plastic ID card that I wear around my neck and they stamp my left hand with invisible ink. When I leave the prison, they'll check that stamp under a blue light.

Speaker 2 It's to prevent someone from escaping.

Speaker 2 You're all safe. Once I clear security, I'm led through several locked gates

Speaker 2 to a mid-sized room not far from the prison's entrance. It smells like bleach and has harsh fluorescent lights.

Speaker 2 A fan is blowing.

Speaker 2 There's a table in the middle, but not much else.

Speaker 2 Two officers are in the room with me as I wait for JJ to arrive. Where? What side?

Speaker 2 Can I sit over here then? No, no. One of them instructs me where to sit at the table, across from where JJ will sit, not next to him.
He says it's for my own safety.

Speaker 2 In case JJ does something, they want me near the door.

Speaker 6 Do you even think he gets funny or whatever? He's going right out the door to best security.

Speaker 2 See what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm all right.
I'm all right. Thank you.

Speaker 2 In the event. I'm taking the risk, though.

Speaker 6 No, you're not.

Speaker 2 I'm taking the risk.

Speaker 6 My state is open, okay?

Speaker 6 If y'all don't need anything, I'm officer clone. I'm right out there.
Sounds good.

Speaker 2 About five minutes later, JJ walks in. It's good to see you.

Speaker 6 Thank you. Come.

Speaker 2 JJ is about 5'9, a few inches shorter than me. He's bald with a finely shaven goatee.
He's wearing highly starched, state-issued prison greens. Let me put this on you.

Speaker 2 I put a microphone on JJ's uniform.

Speaker 6 They told me that I like to sit on the same side of the table as well,

Speaker 2 just in case you did anything.

Speaker 6 It's the normal about here. How does it make you feel, though? Yeah, I'm kind of used to it.
The way they look at us.

Speaker 2 JJ and I take our seats at the table. I decide to sit next to him anyway.
It's loud and I want to hear him better.

Speaker 6 Take me back to the day that you were arrested. Start from the very, very, very beginning.
Like the first day that you got involved with this. Well, it was 1998, the beginning of the year.

Speaker 6 It was the end of January. I believe it was a Saturday.

Speaker 2 This story that JJ's telling me about the day of his arrest is one I'd asked him about many times over the years. That's actually part of my process when I work on cases like these.

Speaker 2 I like to ask the same questions again and again over time to see if the answers remain the same.

Speaker 10 It was a Saturday morning and

Speaker 10 I received a phone call that stated that the police were looking for me. You know, and that came to me as a shock.

Speaker 10 But what came to me as even more of a shock was the fact that they said that I was a suspect for shooting a police officer.

Speaker 2 It was four days after the murder of Al Ward. JJ says he was at home in the Bronx with his two sons and their mother.
At the time, he was out on bail for a drug offense.

Speaker 2 So when he heard police were looking for him, he says he was scared. I call my moms.
I don't know what to do.

Speaker 10 She goes ballistic. My mind's racing.

Speaker 2 I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 10 My moms come to pick me up. We get in the car.
We go to a church. When trying times come in your life, where do you turn?

Speaker 10 God-fearing people turned to God, so we went to the church.

Speaker 2 And at the church, they said, listen, you know, it's the weekend.

Speaker 10 You're not going to get anything solved now. You need to get a lawyer.

Speaker 2 So they started looking for lawyers. They made phone calls, got referrals from friends.
And during all of it, they kept moving, trying not to stay in one place for too long.

Speaker 10 We're driving around aimlessly for hours.

Speaker 10 Can you picture what it's like knowing that you're wanted? as a suspect for shooting a police officer. You know the type of things that happen to those type of people in New York?

Speaker 2 JJ says they ended up finding a hotel just outside the city. He remembers being so terrified that he entered the hotel through the back door.
And once he got to his room, he didn't leave all weekend.

Speaker 10 There I was

Speaker 10 sitting in a hotel room Saturday night, Sunday,

Speaker 10 you know, worried about where my future is going from here. I got a newborn son, a three-year-old son.

Speaker 10 I'm being accused of shooting a cop.

Speaker 10 At that time, I didn't know that the actual officer was murdered. I'm thinking they're going to take me to his bedside.
He's going to say, you know, all right, that's not him.

Speaker 10 And I'm going to be all right.

Speaker 2 JJ insists that at this point, he didn't even know Al Ward, the retired cop, was dead. He says all he could think was, I need to get to the police precinct.

Speaker 2 Once I'm there, we'll get this whole thing cleared up.

Speaker 10 Sunday night comes. And Franklin Gould calls.

Speaker 6 Franklin Gould was one of the lawyers they've been trying to reach.

Speaker 10 And Franklin Gould is a real savvy attorney. You know, he has this way about himself: real nonchalant, real confident, and he makes you feel a little bit better.

Speaker 11 You know, we'll take things a step at a time.

Speaker 10 Nine o'clock Monday morning, you come to the 28th precinct, I'll be there.

Speaker 10 Makes me feel a little bit better because I just want to get this over with. I know that when I get to the precinct, this is over.

Speaker 2 Monday morning, early in the morning.

Speaker 10 We're outside the hotel. My mother and I, we get in her car and we start driving to New York.
And she stops at this store.

Speaker 10 She got out.

Speaker 10 She got on the phone. I'm like, yo, I just want to get there.
I want to get to the precinct. Every time that I'm out here, my life is in jeopardy.
I want to get this over with.

Speaker 10 And we were still on the outskirts. We weren't even in New York yet.

Speaker 10 From where we were at, I can look over the edge and

Speaker 10 I see the toll wolfs there. And I know that once we crossed those toe wolfs, we were in New York.

Speaker 10 She came back

Speaker 10 and she said, we got to hang out for a little while. I said, what happened? And she said, the lawyers called and they said, it wouldn't be good to turn yourself in right now.

Speaker 10 You got to come in a little bit later around 12 o'clock.

Speaker 2 JJ says the reason for the delay was that the media had been tipped off about his arrival and reporters were now at the 28th Precinct.

Speaker 10 We hung out for a little while and we were listening to gospel music.

Speaker 10 I remember the song of Potter's House.

Speaker 10 You know, the song says that the potter will put you back together again.

Speaker 10 It gave me some strength, you know, some inspiration.

Speaker 10 And eventually as time rolled by, we went through that toll,

Speaker 10 you know, and I'm scared as we're going through the toll, thinking they're waiting for me.

Speaker 10 But without a hitch, we make it to 125th Street.

Speaker 10 So my mom said, you want me to wait for you? I said, no, I'm good. You go.

Speaker 2 You know?

Speaker 10 So I go into the precinct with my attorneys. You know, I was pretty confident confident that when we went into that precinct, I'd be walking right back out of there.

Speaker 2 You know?

Speaker 2 But JJ says that as he walked into the precinct with his lawyer, Frank Gould, something happened.

Speaker 10 We didn't even get far. Maybe about five, six feet into the precinct.

Speaker 10 And Frank said, stay right here. And he started engaging an officer right there.

Speaker 10 And we didn't go any further. And before you knew it, we were right back out the precinct.

Speaker 2 I recall Frank telling me, you're free to go.

Speaker 10 They don't have a warrant for your arrest. They don't have nothing.

Speaker 2 You can leave.

Speaker 10 And I said, that's it. You know, I'm going to have to deal with this no more.
I'm good. He said, well, actually, no, you'll be back.
I said, what do you mean I'll be back?

Speaker 8 He said,

Speaker 10 you know,

Speaker 10 probably before the night ends, they'll get their warrant and you'll be back.

Speaker 10 I said, nah. We're going to deal with it now.

Speaker 10 What do they want from me to leave me alone? They said, they want you to volunteer for a lineup and I won't let you do it. I said, well, whose choice is it?

Speaker 10 I'm willing to volunteer for a lineup. Frank, I'm telling you, I have nothing to do with this.
I have nothing to hide.

Speaker 2 I'm ready.

Speaker 10 Let's go in there.

Speaker 2 He said, are you sure?

Speaker 10 Do you realize what would happen if you get picked in that lineup?

Speaker 2 And I said, let's go because they're not going to pick me.

Speaker 10 Sometimes I wonder, if I didn't turn myself in, if I didn't go back to New York, would they have just gone and grabbed the next dummy?

Speaker 2 You know?

Speaker 10 But the truth of the matter is, I believed in the system at the time.

Speaker 10 Why would I have anything to fear about going into a precinct and going into a lineup for shooting a police officer, dead or alive? And I know I had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 10 I didn't even know it existed. I didn't know that the crime existed.
I wasn't at the scene of the crime or anything.

Speaker 2 So JJ went back into the precinct and was put in a lineup. He was given a card with the number two and told to hold it up.

Speaker 2 Eyewitnesses from the number spot were brought in, and according to police, five of them ultimately pointed JJ out as the man who shot Al Ward in the head.

Speaker 2 JJ was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 10 I wouldn't be able to tell you what was going through my mind.

Speaker 10 I would have had to have an out-of-body experience to explain it to you. All I know is I'm stuck in a cage,

Speaker 10 you know, laying on a cold slab. It's a bench.

Speaker 7 I'm about to be processed

Speaker 10 for a very serious crime.

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Speaker 2 All the times I've heard JJ tell his story, all the times he's gone over those details step by step, It's always the same as that first time he told it to me in that hot, airless room in Sing Sing.

Speaker 2 Back then, I remember thinking JJ sounded sincere, even convincing. But I found it hard to believe that five eyewitnesses could all be mistaken.

Speaker 2 And of course, 12 jurors had heard their sworn testimony and found JJ guilty of murder.

Speaker 2 Still, there were things about JJ's story that just didn't make sense to me if he was the shooter. For instance, he said he'd volunteered for a lineup.
Why would he do that if he was guilty?

Speaker 2 And had he really never been to the crime scene?

Speaker 6 Was there any physical evidence against you at all? None whatsoever. Not one frame of it.
Not at all. No DNA.
There's no DNA.

Speaker 6 They've taken all kinds of clothing and hair fibers and fingerprints and palm prints. They've taken everything they could possibly take from my apartment, from me.

Speaker 6 They brought me down to Central Booking to take special palm prints in between the fingerprints, everything.

Speaker 2 Okay, so there wasn't any trace of JJ at the crime scene. But what what about the gun? Al Ward had been shot.

Speaker 6 Did you have a gun? No. You did own a gun? No.
You never owned a gun? I've had a gun before. I picked one up on the street one time before, but no, I never really carried it like that.

Speaker 6 I used to leave it at home for like protection as far as the house is concerned. Kept it locked in a safe.

Speaker 2 So he did have access to a gun.

Speaker 2 And there was something else that was really bothering me. It wasn't just the eyewitnesses who said JJ was guilty.
So had his alleged accomplice, the man with the duct tape, Derry Daniels.

Speaker 2 I'd read the case file. Daniels ultimately pleaded guilty and admitted to a judge that he committed the crime with JJ.

Speaker 2 But JJ insisted he had no idea who Derry Daniels was, that he'd never even spoken with him.

Speaker 2 I mean, weren't you saying to your lawyers, I don't know this guy?

Speaker 6 Oh, my lawyers knew that. My lawyers knew it and his lawyers knew it.
We said it from the very beginning. We've never talked.
I've never held a conversation with Derry Daniels.

Speaker 6 You've never said a word to him to this day. To this day, I've never said anything to him.
And they say you committed this crime with him. They're saying that we committed this crime together.

Speaker 6 Debbie Daniels at that time was caught, as far as the police reports say, with a crack stem.

Speaker 6 I was 21, 22 years old, raising a family.

Speaker 6 I have no reason to be with a person almost twice my age that's smoking crap. It's not my kind of company.

Speaker 2 And then there was this. Within the first hours after the crime, the eyewitnesses described the guy who shot Al Ward as a light-skinned black man.

Speaker 6 The witnesses were black individuals, and they all stated that it was two male blacks that came into this.

Speaker 6 That's the initial description. There's no doubt about it.
That's a fact.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing. JJ isn't black.
I'd seen his mugshot, the one that the heroin dealer Augustus Brown picked out. And on that mugshot, police list JJ's race as white Hispanic.

Speaker 2 Although JJ doesn't describe himself as white. He says he's Latino.
His family is from Puerto Rico. So why would JJ's picture appear in the series of mugshots shown to Augustus Brown?

Speaker 2 Brown had described the shooter as black. Why would he ID JJ?

Speaker 6 Why would he pick your picture? That's the question I'm looking for an answer for.

Speaker 6 I really don't know.

Speaker 6 You know, when I bring this up to the people on the outside, Yeah, right,

Speaker 6 sure,

Speaker 6 everybody's innocent.

Speaker 6 You know, I understand

Speaker 6 where a lot of people get that from. You know, because in my time in here, a lot of people don't like to take responsibility for their actions.
So I understand where it was coming from.

Speaker 6 And a lot of people that are searching for help, they feel that they can't get help through honesty. So they're going to say what they have to say.

Speaker 6 But all I could do to anybody that doesn't believe me is to challenge me. Go out there and find the facts of my case and prove me guilty.

Speaker 6 Because when you do that, you'll find that that i'm innocent it's been done already you haven't proved guilty

Speaker 6 i haven't been proven guilty i was found guilty

Speaker 6 are you innocent yes i am

Speaker 2 sitting in the room that day next to jj i wasn't sure what to think some of the details in his story were incriminating He had access to a gun, and according to police, five people, five people had had identified him as the shooter and JJ's alleged accomplice pleaded guilty to committing the crime with him

Speaker 2 still something I can't explain told me to keep going JJ surprised me he wasn't what I'd expected his letters hadn't been what I'd expected he even challenged me to prove him guilty But before I prepared to walk out of that room in sing sing, there was something I wanted to make absolutely clear to JJ.

Speaker 12 I need you to be honest with me every step of the way.

Speaker 2 Good things, bad things, everything.

Speaker 2 If you're innocent, I'll keep going.

Speaker 12 It might take 10 years. It might take 15 years.
You know, it's a long journey. It's a slow process.
And I don't want to give you any sort of false hope.

Speaker 6 I understand that.

Speaker 2 JJ didn't seem concerned about what I might turn up. That might be because of this.

Speaker 2 He told me he had proof that he was innocent, that he had an alibi.

Speaker 2 Next time.

Speaker 2 My son is not a murderer. He is not, because I know where he was.
Every witness in this case said the man who did the shooting was a male, black, light-skinned. Every witness said that.

Speaker 7 Something was going on in that stand. Something was clearly wrong.

Speaker 2 Know what was wrong? I wasn't the person who did this.

Speaker 2 I can't forget

Speaker 2 how I felt.

Speaker 2 It was like I had betrayed my son.

Speaker 2 I let out this scream.

Speaker 2 It was

Speaker 2 such a loud scream.

Speaker 2 Letters from Sing Sing was written and produced by Preeti Varathon, Rob Allen, and me. Our associate producer is Rachel Young.
Our story editor is Jennifer Gorin.

Speaker 2 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 2 Preethi Varathon is our supervising producer. Soraya Gage, Reed Jerlin, and Alexa Danner are our executive producers.
Liz Cole runs NBC News Studios. Special thanks to Sean Gallagher.

Speaker 2 Letters from Sing Sing is an NBC News Studios production.

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