[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[phone rings]
- Hello.
- To accept, press five now. [phone beeps]
- Yo.
- What's up?
- Me and my brother, we talked on the phone
every single day while he was in federal prison
for selling drugs.
What you think about my career, man?
- I've talked to my brother plenty of times
about him doing the wrong thing in life.
But you look at what sent Reginald Jr. the wrong way.
♪ ♪
I can believe Mr. Crenshaw did everything he can
for us to change his son's life
about what he was doing, but it's hard.
- Regardless of what happens, you still love your child.
Knowing that Reginald was in the street,
it was just my prayer that I would not wake up
and hear about somebody murdering him.
I've lost my son.
I lost my son.
♪ ♪
- To me, the difference between
what happened with my brother and Reginald is,
look, drug dealing is always a dangerous game,
and it only leads in two ways, death or prison.
♪ ♪
narrator: For those most affected by a homicide,
the first 48 is just the beginning.
This is the story of the fight for justice
in the weeks, months, and years
after the first 48.
♪ ♪
[line trills]
[siren wailing]
♪ ♪
- I look at life through different lenses
with the work that I do.
Growing up in the hood,
you don't see all the doctors and lawyers
and things like that.
Drug selling is a problem.
You saw mostly your dope boys,
and those are the people that you looked up to.
But I'd steer the other way.
What's up with you? - What's going on, bro?
- Nothing much.
♪ ♪
narrator: One of the victims
is 28-year-old Brandon Cadwell.
He worked at a local hibachi restaurant
and is survived by his parents and three brothers.
- Going into homicide investigations,
you're constantly thinking about the victim
and the resolve for that victim,
because the victim is the only person
that doesn't have a seat at the table,
the only person that doesn't have a voice.
♪ ♪
narrator: Brandon was shot five times
in the back of his head,
his face, neck, and arm.
- There's a bullet hole in the door right there
where he would have been standing.
♪ ♪
- Phew.
- And then the other guy on the right.
- This particular crime scene was overwhelming.
You've got not one victim but two.
narrator: 31-year-old Reginald Crenshaw Jr.
leaves behind his mother, father, and three children.
He coached his daughter
and nephew's Little League teams.
- It hits home for me.
I didn't know Reginald personally,
but I played against him in sports.
Middle school ball, we played against each other,
and also in high school.
narrator: Reginald was shot eight times
in his head and back.
- There was a significant amount of blood.
Then to look at the physical evidence
both inside and outside of the residence.
- There are seven shell casings in the hallway here.
♪ ♪
There's two in that room there.
- .40 S&W.
narrator: And on the driveway...
♪ ♪
- .223 R-E-M.
♪ ♪
narrator: The team finds seven rifle casings.
♪ ♪
- Yeah.
- We found .40-caliber casings inside
and then .223-caliber fired casings
that were outside that somebody had fired
into the home through the window.
I was thinking maybe one or both
of the victims returned fire
and ended up dying as a result of it.
- To see this level of carnage,
the destruction of the home,
it was something almost from a movie.
Why did this happen?
This wasn't an area that was ridden with gun violence.
It was something that was very rarely seen.
And so it gives us pause.
What's really going on?
- Do you think they took anything?
Or you think it was just a hit?
- I don't know.
narrator: As officers look for fingerprints
and signs of DNA...
- Yeah.
narrator: One of Brandon's relatives
who also lives in the house comes forward.
- Get in the front seat.
♪ ♪
When all this was happening, where were you at?
- OK.
- So if he hadn't left, that relative
definitely could have been the third victim
inside of the house.
I'm hoping that he's gonna know what's going on and why.
narrator: He says earlier that night,
he was hanging out with Brandon
when Reginald had visitors.
- So one thing that goes in my mind is that, all right,
was this a drug rip, or did they know
that it was some money in there
that they was going in to get?
Fast money is what people are attracted to.
They don't want to go out and work a 8:00-to-5:00
so will grab some marijuana, grab cocaine,
and go out and sell it.
You don't need an education to do that.
You just get up, and you just do it.
- Getting that information that Mr. Crenshaw sold drugs
gave us an angle to start going in.
If he's got as much money
as you're saying that he's got,
why is he staying here with you?
- Brandon's relative, he was able to explain
that his house was hot.
So Reginald wanted to kind of change
the environment that he operated in.
- Hmm.
♪ ♪
- Brandon was perhaps an eyewitness.
And I think that merely because he was there,
it caused his death.
♪ ♪
And the fact that Mr. Crenshaw obviously
decided to sell drugs in and of itself
should not have warranted a death sentence.
Once we were able to validate that bag was missing
and there were no drugs inside of the house,
we assumed at that point that it was a robbery.
♪ ♪
- Hey, Jermaine? - Yeah.
♪ ♪
narrator: The team finds a phone in Reginald's pocket.
- Where it relates to drug sales,
you know that communication is gonna be done
through that phone.
♪ ♪
Anytime I investigate a case that's involving drugs,
my mind goes to,
this could have been my brother.
My brother was selling cocaine.
But of course, it caught up to him.
What saved him was him going to federal prison.
If my brother was out during that time,
I know for sure my brother would probably be dead now.
♪ ♪
Now I'm off to headquarters.
I'm looking to find any person that was in that phone
saying that they were on their way to that residence.
We knew that that was gonna be our suspect.
♪ ♪
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- Reginald Jr. was my second-oldest son.
You see we started him off early with his bow tie.
Quite dapper.
All the nieces and aunts and stuff
called him Little Reginald,
and I was the Big Reginald.
When Reg was a kid, he loved sports.
Basketball was his game.
This was on the front page of "The Mobile Press-Register."
He had a full basketball scholarship.
It's a good feeling to watch your kid
be successful at sports.
They won the state championship,
but probably about six or seven of these young men
are dead now, deceased.
This generation, I call them the microwave generation.
They want it quick and want it in a hurry.
And, you know, money is the one thing
that--that seemed to be the common denominator
to that lifestyle.
We all knew what he was doing in the street.
I just tried to provide every avenue I possibly could
for him to have a positive road map
to doing something that was productive and positive.
♪ ♪
But because of the drugs, I had to tell him,
you know, you couldn't stay here.
Regardless of what happens, you still love your child.
I used to hear my grandmother say a prayer that,
Lord, don't let me bury my child.
I know what she meant now.
I've lost my son.
I lost my son.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- I'm hoping to see texts, phone calls,
even a voicemail, anyone advising
that they were coming to that residence.
narrator: Seven hours since Reginald
and Brandon were found dead...
- I haven't ran across anything yet
that says, you know, that my victim was meeting up
at the house with somebody.
And when you get to a phone and you're like,
I know it's something in here, and then it's not,
that's the worst feeling because you know
that this phone held all my answers.
- You start to get nervous.
You start to get anxious because you go into it
wanting to resolve it for the family.
♪ ♪
narrator: 17 hours into the investigation...
- Hey, man.
ID just got a print back from inside the house
off one of the doorjambs.
And it comes back to a guy named Larry Jackson.
♪ ♪
- Larry Jackson.
- It was what we needed.
His fingerprint could have been inside of the house
from him participating in the murder,
or it could have been inside of the house
from him merely visiting.
That fingerprint was the absolute key
in giving us a suspect to start looking at.
narrator: 21-year-old Larry Jackson
works at a shipbuilding company.
He has no previous convictions.
- If someone don't have priors,
I don't say, well, this can't be my guy.
He doesn't have any priors.
In some cases, when you get in trouble,
it has to start somewhere.
Maybe you just haven't been caught yet
in what you were doing.
♪ ♪
Looked up his last metro, and it gave me
a phone number.
Let me see. 300...
narrator: Rogers now has the detailed records
on Reginald's calls.
- We wanted to see whether or not
there was any communication
between Larry Jackson and Reginald.
- 'Cause he talk to him at-- - 10:32?
- Yeah, 10:32. My caller.
- Last night? - Yeah.
- Oh, yeah, dude.
And then his print's in the house?
- Fingerprint in the house?
- At that point, we were under the impression
that perhaps Larry contacted Reginald
to buy or either sell drugs.
And then this could have happened
either around that time or sometime after.
- We need to pick that dude up.
♪ ♪
- Ready?
We're going to the house, and I'm excited.
[engine turning over]
I'm like, this guy has to explain
why his fingerprints is in this house.
narrator: 20 hours in...
♪ ♪
- Hey, how you doing?
- We were able to make contact with a relative
who had told us some good information.
- Wow. He was shot.
And we know that the residence where our victim was
was riddled with bullets.
- Not only now do we have his fingerprints
inside of the residence and then the communication,
but now he's sustained an injury from a gunshot.
- Mm-hmm.
narrator: The relative gives the name of the friend
who took Larry to the ER.
- If Larry's friend was with him
and in a position to take him to the hospital,
then perhaps he was with him
at the time that this murder occurred.
Is he still at the hospital?
- All right.
- The relative told us he was shot
in the city of Prichard.
♪ ♪
- But we end up calling Prichard and checking
to see if there was any shots fired
or anything during that time,
and there wasn't.
♪ ♪
- OK, so we talked to the front desk lady.
They said that, oh, he had just
gotten wheeled out by a friend.
♪ ♪
He must have gotten word
that we were coming to the hospital.
- They're gone. Didn't check out, just left.
It hurts because we know that we're on their trail,
and they beat us by maybe minutes.
And I think that the relative gave them the heads-up
that we were coming.
- Security combed the area.
He's nowhere to be found.
- Larry Jackson and his friend had a head start in running,
but you can't run forever.
- Larry's friend is now a person of interest.
♪ ♪
narrator: His house is the team's next stop.
- What I believe is that they come over there,
pretty much rob this guy.
Maybe it took too long, went inside.
Gunshots start going off, and he gets shot also.
Which it makes sense now.
If you have another person in there with you
and you got that many shell casings
inside of the house,
somebody else is bound to get hit,
and Larry was the one that got hit.
- Hopefully, the friend is there.
Hopefully, the friend can give us
some additional information.
♪ ♪
[knocking]
- Mobile Police.
♪ ♪
- At this point, not only are we looking for Larry Jackson.
We're looking for the friend.
narrator: 20 hours in...
[knocking] - Mobile Police.
- Our perspective is, the two are still together,
so we went to the friend's house.
- It was frustrating, but we're talking about
a case where there's a double murder.
People don't just go back home.
Gave us the indication that we were on the right path.
- Pretty sure this guy's somewhere,
probably hurting or trying to seek some type of assistance
from somebody.
♪ ♪
narrator: After checking several hospitals
for Larry and his friend, they come up empty.
♪ ♪
- It says to me that Larry Jackson
was now on the run.
♪ ♪
narrator: 38 hours in, Rogers searches the database
for the second suspect.
- Doesn't have a criminal history.
You know, he's, what, 22 years old.
- We could not link him directly to the scene.
narrator: But Rogers could have enough
to arrest Larry Jackson.
♪ ♪
- Phew!
Like Mr. Rogers say, great day in the neighborhood, you know?
So I got this murder warrant.
Got it for murder
and also shooting into an occupied dwelling.
It means a lot to get their approval
for a murder warrant for Larry Jackson.
We believe that he was definitely our guy.
So right now, we're gonna hand it over
to the U.S. Marshals, and hopefully,
they can pick him up.
♪ ♪
narrator: But seven days later,
Mobile PD finds him first.
Based on a tip, the team arrested Larry
back at his relative's house.
♪ ♪
- We believe he didn't act alone.
So hopefully, he'll give us who the other person was.
♪ ♪
OK, we brought you in to talk about this incident,
your injury and everything.
- What happened to your leg?
- Even though we had identified him as a suspect,
we wanted to talk to him from this place
of understanding his injury.
We wanted to ease into the conversation
about the double murder.
- Why'd this happen to you?
Can you walk me through that?
♪ ♪
- He was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time,
but it was by his choice.
He was at the crime scene.
- Talk to us about that incident when you got shot.
♪ ♪
- Just gonna tell you right now
what you're being charged with--
two counts of murder, OK?
♪ ♪
We made an arrest with Larry Jackson,
but we know that there is more than just Larry Jackson.
♪ ♪
- We were trying to get information
to build a case against the second suspect.
Six months go by.
- And it was a long six months.
narrator: Then...
- Here you go.
- A witness called and said that they had information.
- This was a friend of the second suspect.
Hopefully, the friend can give us
what we needed to get us a warrant
for the second suspect's arrest.
♪ ♪
- When the witness told us that potentially
three people were involved, I was excited.
Have you ever seen that guy before?
- It's a big deal.
Now we know that we have an additional person
that we have to look for.
- And did you see that cash physically with your eyes?
- At that point, we knew what that witness had
was pretty credible.
It corroborated everything
that the relative gave us in the car.
♪ ♪
- Having our second suspect
tell our witness exactly what happened
gave us that murder warrant.
♪ ♪
- We're making some serious progress,
but we couldn't find the second suspect.
[phone rings]
- Yeah.
♪ ♪
All right.
♪ ♪
People seen him walking around town.
- I think that he had gotten comfortable
due to the lapse of time,
assuming that we were not looking for him.
- You know, his luck's running out.
We're gonna call the Marshals
and see if they can get him into custody.
♪ ♪
At some point, hide-and-seek has to end.
♪ ♪
narrator: After three days of searching,
federal agents find the second suspect
parked in front of a local apartment building.
- I'm excited.
Six months after we've interviewed our first suspect.
So at this point, I've done all my homework.
- We were hopeful that he would tell us his side of the story.
We know that you were over there with Larry.
♪ ♪
Now, what happened while you were there
is what we expect you to talk to us about.
♪ ♪
- The second suspect has to explain
why his name has come up in this double homicide.
- He calls Larry Jackson by the name of Ledo.
- Who was all in Ledo's car?
- And who else?
♪ ♪
- So we get the name Josh, and we're thinking,
OK, this can be our third suspect.
♪ ♪
- So what kind of gun Josh was shooting?
- This was an explanation for the .223-caliber casings
that were fired outside.
♪ ♪
So at this point, we were pretty convinced
that what he said happened.
- OK, where was Larry?
narrator: It was Josh who wounded Larry,
according to the second suspect.
- How? Tell me how.
- He stated that Reginald, one of the victims,
opened the door.
- And they saw Joshua standing outside.
- It's possible that Joshua shot into that residence,
which started a chain reaction to what happened inside.
- At that moment, it was complete chaos,
where everybody is trying to survive.
♪ ♪
narrator: He says he saw Larry fleeing the house.
- So tell me this.
What was taken?
♪ ♪
- Listen.
Did Larry tell you that he shot inside the house?
♪ ♪
He did?
♪ ♪
- Getting the information that he provided
was good for us, was good for the investigation.
- Our second suspect wasn't as hard
as you would think he would be.
I think he knew that he was in trouble.
So when did you fire your shot?
I'ma get straight to the point.
When did you fire your shots?
♪ ♪
- So you never went inside the house?
- He did say he was there,
but he was trying to distance himself.
He didn't know what was going on.
In his mind, well, if he didn't shoot,
then he wouldn't be in trouble.
- But people don't realize
that they're as culpable, whether or not
they were the driver or the shooters.
- He's getting arrested and charged with two murders.
There's a third suspect that we're looking for,
but at this point, we hand over both cases
for Larry Jackson, our second suspect,
over to the DA's office.
♪ ♪
- Even though the arrest warrant may have been issued,
it's not as cut-and-dry as you would think.
We did not recover the firearm in this case.
And you don't have an eyewitness
that saw him shooting in the house.
And anytime that you have codefendants in a case
and one's testifying against another one,
their testimony is always gonna be
very strictly scrutinized.
But they're looking at life without parole
or the death penalty.
So the stakes are high.
narrator: 15 months after the double homicide,
the prosecution prepares for trial.
- You never know what a jury's gonna do
and especially in capital cases when jurors, a lot of times,
want to be convinced beyond all doubt.
♪ ♪
- Larry Jackson can take the stand
and say, "No, it was our second suspect
"that fired those shots.
I didn't have anything to do with it."
- What we needed was, you know,
that missing piece of the puzzle,
two people that are both pointing the finger at Larry
and not just one.
There's a third person that we have no idea who they are,
where they are, what their involvement is.
That's gonna be a big problem.
♪ ♪
- We need to find our third suspect.
♪ ♪
- It's a big day.
I mean, 15 years, Tony finally get to come home.
♪ ♪
We're going to pick up my brother from federal prison,
and I am excited.
♪ ♪
So we'll be in this parking lot,
and they'll drop him off.
So he'll be coming from that end.
So Little Tony was about a year old when he went in,
so only way he know his dad
is through jail calls and visitations.
Yeah, that's him. - Uh-huh.
- Yeah. [laughs]
- Stop here.
- Yeah, it's about time!
[laughs]
It's about time, bro.
What's up, man?
♪ ♪
Oh! [laughs]
What's up, bro?
[indistinct chatter]
My best friend's back.
He don't know how to pop a trunk right now,
so I got to teach him how to open the trunk.
- I would be eating a chicken sandwich right now,
man, a half-done chicken sandwich.
[indistinct chatter]
♪ ♪
- But that may be a coleslaw, though.
You need to open it up.
- I finally have my little brother
and my big brother be around.
- He's the little brother, but he's been more
of a big brother to me.
And he's held me down my whole 15 years in prison.
Without him, there's no telling where I'd be right now.
Family over everything.
- Life lessons that Big Tony can give Little Tony
could be very beneficial.
His dad is able to tell him what not to do
and what landed him in federal prison.
So Tony should have an upper hand
on staying out of trouble.
[indistinct chatter, laughter]
♪ ♪
- My son lost his life
as opposed to life in prison.
If Reginald went to prison, it would have been hard,
but at least I'd know he was still breathing.
♪ ♪
narrator: Two years since the deaths of Brandon Cadwell
and Reginald Crenshaw Jr.
♪ ♪
- We want to identify who this Josh is.
- We're not very sure of a last name.
All we have is the name of Josh.
- At this point, we've reached out
to the second suspect and his attorney.
That's when he said, "Hey, it's Josh Williams."
♪ ♪
narrator: 24-year-old Joshua Williams
went to high school with Larry Jackson
and the second suspect.
He has no prior convictions.
- I get excited now.
We can check his cell phone records.
♪ ♪
And those cell phone records
put all three suspects around the scene
at the time of the homicide.
That's enough for an actual murder warrant.
♪ ♪
narrator: After two years without any leads...
♪ ♪
- I found out Joshua was living in Arkansas
with other family members and then came back
to Mobile just to visit.
And he was picked up by police.
So the thing is that we've been doing our homework.
We have cell phone records
with your location, your phone number,
in the same place at the same time
when the incident happened.
♪ ♪
- Explain it!
♪ ♪
narrator: Joshua says a couple of nights before the robbery,
Larry was upset about some marijuana he'd bought.
- OK.
- Larry wanted his money back,
so they came up with a plan to try to go
and rob Reginald Crenshaw for the money.
♪ ♪
- He says they want the victims
to come outside so they can rob them there.
♪ ♪
- Shot your rifle?
- According to Joshua, after the shots happened,
Joshua and our second suspect left that location.
But then the second suspect goes back to pick up
Larry Jackson from the house.
What did he tell you was going on inside the house?
- But Larry was in the house when those shots was fired.
- Give us a second, all right?
- That's enough at that point to really verify what
the second suspect had said.
♪ ♪
- All right, this is what's going on, all right?
You're gonna be charged with four counts of capital murder.
- Come on.
narrator: Now the prosecution
has a difficult decision to make.
- In Alabama, you cannot try codefendants together
who have made statements against each other.
You always have to pick who you want to go after first
by determining culpability levels.
We have Larry Jackson inside the house
and then Joshua Williams with the firearm.
You have the second suspect where the vehicle would be.
We know from the autopsies on both of the victims
that every single bullet that was recovered from their body
were from the same gun, .40-caliber.
Larry Jackson was the only one that went
inside the residence that night.
And so he's the only one
shooting the gun that killed them.
Larry is the number one target in this case.
♪ ♪
Larry Jackson's attorney reached out to me.
Larry Jackson had changed his tune
and was willing to enter a guilty plea.
♪ ♪
"Do you want to take this plea, or do you want to go to court?"
I did not want there to be a trial.
It would have been horrifying, all of the details
and the facts about where he was shot at,
and I just didn't want to go through that.
I wanted to remember him like these pictures,
not laying up at the coroner's office.
♪ ♪
- Larry Jackson pled guilty to intentional murder,
one for the murder of Brandon Cadwell
and one for the murder of Reginald Crenshaw Jr.
I mean, that's big.
♪ ♪
So we have the second suspect,
you know, we still have to deal with.
He's agreed to testify truthfully
against Joshua Williams.
And in that case, we were willing to extend an offer.
We amended the charge to a robbery in the first degree.
♪ ♪
And on the second suspect's plea day,
he accepted responsibility.
♪ ♪
We are left with Joshua Williams.
♪ ♪
I talked extensively with his attorneys
about plea negotiations.
- We were definitely prepared to go to trial.
[indistinct chatter]
We believe it was Larry and the second suspect
that committed the murders.
Joshua should never have been charged
with capital murder or murder whatsoever.
♪ ♪
- We felt very confident that if we took this case to trial,
we could show that Joshua was not involved
in the killings of the two victims.
♪ ♪
- So...
- Our position was, Joshua removed himself from the scene
before the murders took place.
The prosecution had no evidence
placing Joshua there at the time of the killings.
No fingerprints from Joshua on the scene
anywhere inside the house, no shell casings in the house.
But Madison's version was different from ours.
♪ ♪
- Only Larry Jackson knows exactly
what time the victims were killed.
But we believed that it happened
while the second suspect and Joshua Williams
were still there,
and I told the defense counsel
that his own client's statements
negated that defense.
This is Joshua Williams' statement to law enforcement.
- He admitted to firing his rifle
multiple times through the front window of the residence.
- So we had several problems with the interrogation
of Joshua by the police.
Joshua, he told me that he had smoked
a significant amount of marijuana
prior to being arrested.
- Yeah.
- If he wasn't in his right mind to waive
his constitutional right to counsel,
then everything he said during that interrogation
could be thrown out.
- We felt like we had quite a bit of ammunition
for reasonable doubt. - Mm-hmm.
- We threw out certain theories.
Would this work?
How would this play to the jury?
- From the ballistics evidence, it was pretty clear
that all the bullets in both bodies
were from a single handgun.
- And that's the one that was determined to be held by Larry.
- Exactly.
- But didn't Joshua shoot one shot?
- He did, but it was from a different gun.
Joshua's bullet went into Larry's leg.
So he may be guilty of assault on his codefendant,
but he's not guilty of murdering
these two individuals.
♪ ♪
- I believe that when Joshua Williams
had shot into the house,
it's probably what started whatever went down inside.
But if we can't come to an agreement,
then we're forced to go to trial, which is a risk.
♪ ♪
narrator: After months of negotiations...
- We ultimately decided he'd enter a blind plea
to the two counts of felony murder,
and it would be up to the judge
to determine the sentence.
♪ ♪
You always wonder if you've made
the right decision when you let someone
plead guilty to a lesser sentence.
To have the family supporting our decision
helped give myself peace as a prosecutor.
♪ ♪
- I was satisfied.
It had been going on for six to seven years.
And I just wanted to put an end to it
and get justice from it.
I'll never forget a conversation
I had with Reginald.
Told him, I said, "Man, if you don't change
"your lifestyle, something bad gonna happen
to you in the street."
He said, "Well, we all gotta die from something."
That just floored me to hear a young person say that.
♪ ♪
And that just rings in my head.
♪ ♪
- Their stories are different.
With my brother, federal prison saved his life.
- In Detective Rogers' case, his brother,
he's blessed that he's able to get a second chance
to turn his life around.
- But while he went the wrong way,
he made sure that I wasn't doing the wrong things.
And I thank him for that
'cause I definitely wouldn't be in the position
that I'm in today if it wasn't for him.
- Without seeing my brother's mistakes,
without him actually going to federal prison,
probably would have changed my life.
I probably would have been doing the wrong things.
[clears throat]
♪ ♪
It's possible my life would have been different.
It definitely could have been different.
♪ ♪