Matias Reyes: I showed them the top of the entrance,
the direction she came by.
I showed them where she made the turn.
I showed them where I picked up the tree branch
and down the road where
I struck her over the head with the tree branch
and where I dragged her in.
She just kept moaning, you know,
saying stop, and grabbing her head.
You know, because she was in pain and all that, you know.
She was bleeding.
I can't explain to you what happened after I left there,
that park that night.
But I can guarantee you, that there was no way these kids
saw this woman come in or have a idea of
where she was coming from.
I'm the one that did this.
- Ready? - Yeah.
Approximately 1:30 this morning, ah,
two males walking through Central Park
north of the 102nd street jogging path found a female.
She was still alive, and in fact still is alive.
The female was clad only in a bra.
She was lying exposed in the area,
appeared to have been exposed for a couple of hours.
Her body temperature was down very low.
Around her mouth there's an article of clothing
that was wrapped around her face,
and the same article was used to bind her wrists to her face.
She had been struck around the head repeatedly,
mud on her body.
She appears to have been dragged through the woods,
north into the, ah, shrub area.
She was taken to Metropolitan Hospital where she is classified
as, ah, in serious condition.
I look back at the jogger case and wish I had been
more skeptical as a journalist.
You know, a lot of people didn't do their jobs...
reporters, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers.
This was a proxy war being fought.
And these young men were the proxies
for all kinds of other agendas.
And the truth and the reality and justice were not part of it.
The bulls are galloping...
Do you have a passport, Mr. Gotti?
Given the alarming spread of aids, New York...
If you don't like it, you're fired.
Tom Brokaw: A savage racial attack...
In the middle-class neighborhood of Howard Beach...
A mob of whites attacked 3 black men...
Peter Jennings: The mayor of New York called it a racial lynching.
Yo, off with the camera, man.
New York, under-policed city with crime out of control.
The criminal justice system isn't working.
They call him the subway vigilante.
Dan Rather: Goetz bent over one of his wounded victims and said,
"You don't look too bad. Here's another"...
If I had more bullets, I would have shot them all
again and again.
It's about time someone stood up for himself.
25-year-old Michael Stewart...
16-year-old Yusef Hawkins...
Where 67-year-old Eleanor Bumpers lived
until police came to evict her and ended up killing her.
New York is now the capital of racial violence.
I am. People: I am!
Somebody. Somebody!
You want to use the gun, we'll use the gun.
None of us is safe. Even if you lock yourself
behind doors...
There's now a new level of random violence in this city.
It's intolerable and this city will rise up in its wrath
against those who perpetrate monstrosities.
Antron McCray: Harlem. 1989.
My neighborhood, it's a small neighborhood.
When I was younger, all the kids would say
it was the suburbs of Harlem.
It was like 3 different projects around my neighborhood.
Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson,
Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, I didn't know them,
but I seen them around my neighborhood.
I lived in the Bronx at one time,
and the Bronx is more quiet life.
You know, um, even though it was the projects.
It was very secluded, everybody knew each other.
When I moved to Harlem, Harlem was very fast-paced.
Everything moved fast.
The cars moved fast; The people; The, the lingo.
It was a big culture shock.
McCray: I was the only child.
And me and my mother, we was close,
but my father was my best friend.
I thought he was like a superhero.
He coached all of my little league teams.
He was a great teacher.
I played shortstop, I played pitcher.
In little league, you get to play everything...
outfield, catcher.
But my favorite position was shortstop.
Santana, Jr.: My dad is from Puerto Rico.
My mother's a mix of Puerto Rican and Black.
So, my dad is, like, light-skinned Puerto Ricans.
And my mother's side was more, like, dark skin.
You know, so we have, like, the best of both worlds.
I used to ride skateboards.
I used to play things like hide and go seek and, you know,
used to run around with a lot of the people
from the neighborhood.
As a kid, I knew Yusef
and I must say he was a good kid.
Ah, he had, ah... Him and his family ah, had just moved
into the Schomburg Complex.
Korey and Yusef, we grew up in the same buildin'.
So, you know, of course I've seen 'em around and our parents
knew each other from just day-to-day.
Salaam: It was my mother, my sister, and my brother.
And my mother was a single parent,
teaching at Parsons University.
She encouraged all of us to do good work, good quality work.
Whatever we did.
Wise: When I was a kid, had a little hearin',
little hearin' problem.
But I just found myself just ignorin' it to the point
where it affected my life.
I grew up with a big family.
A lot of women in my family.
My mother plus 4 sisters.
Woman: He's the baby and he was treated as such.
And, you know, mama's only boy out of 5 children and the baby.
So he was just our hearts', like, joy, everybody's.
Santana, Jr.: At that time I was
just getting into music.
Watching videos. "MTV Raps" was kinda big,
so, we, we watched that.
We would record the videos and we would watch 'em over and over
and over all day, you know.
You know, my dad would come in the house, say,
"You still watching that video from when I left?"
You know, that's how far my range was.
I think that I was at that point of coming into who I was,
you know, but I never really... I never really got there.
New York in the late 1980s was a completely
schizophrenic, divided city.
There was enormous wealth gushing into the city
out of the rise of the financial industries, which had surged
beginning around 1980.
So, the city that had been in a big collapse
for several decades had turned around.
But there was a whole side to the city in which drug gangsters
and crack and a kind of hard, permanently locked underclass
was in place.
And there was enormous suffering.
It was as if there was a social moat
that divided these two New Yorks.
The city, when I came in, uh, was on the edge of, uh,
bankruptcy, and people thought we would not, uh, recover.
We were a city coming out of
a series of crises and an enormous economic crisis.
A school system that was in collapse;
political institutions that seemed to be failing the people
and not meeting their needs;
old, fashionable, beautiful,
noble neighborhoods falling apart.
Koch: And, of course, overriding was crime.
Several things happened to me that I just considered
normal part of living in New York City.
A couple of muggings and near muggings
and I didn't even report any of these things.
Just kind of figured it's the way it is.
People had it worked out in their heads
that their block was safe, the streets they walked
to get to the subway to go to work, they were OK.
Their subway line, they got on the same spot
on the train every day.
That was OK.
They had figured out a safe path through this, ah...
You know, garden of terrors.
Koch: And then in about '84, crack came to New York City
and that increased crime.
No question, uh, about it.
Wilder: When the crack wars happen,
all of a sudden teenagers have lots of cash and guns.
And all hell breaks loose in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
all hell breaks loose in Harlem,
all hell breaks loose in Brownsville, East New York.
We were supposed to be afraid.
It would have been irrational not to be afraid.
But the people who suffered most with the rise of criminality,
gang wars, drug wars, were actually the people we blamed.
Most of the homicides were young, poor,
working class black and brown kids.
And the dominant social message was
no one cared if you lived or died.
As far as I'm concerned, in the late eighties,
in New York City, the black community was under assault.
"The most endangered species in America,"
that was a popular phrase, was the young black man.
Richardson: It was a nice night.
We was just, um, just hanging out outside, playing basketball
where I lived at in Schomburg.
Santana, Jr.: It was a holiday coming up.
We didn't have school.
A couple of friends wanted to go hang out.
I told him, you know, ah,
"Too much trouble in the corner.
Um, go to the park."
I sent him to that park that night.
So, I feel guilt, too.
Wise: I was comin' from a restaurant
on the corner of 110th street.
We walked over to 110th street.
Almost in front of the entrance to Schomburg Plaza.
Comin' from 110th and Madison, there was a group of people.
I see this mob turning the corner.
Wise: Good kids and bad kids.
Kids just out to have some fun.
McCray: Some of them I didn't know by face;
some of them went to my school;
some of them lived in my neighborhood.
Yusef came my way.
I see Korey. I said,
"Hey, come and hang out.
We're about to hang out in the park."
A close friend of mine, he stayed back.
We was all playing basketball and he was like, "Don't go."
Like, stay here."
Next thing I know, we was going into the park.
Wise: Walk in, a few of the guys
horse playin' with each other.
Jumpin' on each other's back, beatin' each other up.
Just horse playin'.
We start going towards the main road.
And people started throwing rocks at the cars.
A couple, they was on a tandem bike.
And some kids is harassing 'em or sayin' something to them.
Looked like they was trying to pull 'em off
and the bicyclists kept they, held their balance
and they just kept goin'.
A homeless person starts walking across the street
and the guys surround him.
McCray: He had some food.
Some of the guys out of the group
took his food, beat him up.
Salaam: They were beating this guy up really badly,
and at some point in time someone poured out
a beer bottle, and then smashed him in the head with it.
You know, it was kinda unbelievable
to see that and, and to see, like, this guy getting,
you know, jumped on by all these teenagers.
McCray: I remember police coming, everybody split up.
Santana, Jr.: They shined a light and the group kind of
dispersed. Everybody ran.
That's when it was time for me to go home.
I left the park when everybody scattered.
Santana, Jr.: We was gonna leave but somebody said,
"Well, let's go find the rest of the guys
"and we'll break out.
"We'll go home." And that's what we did.
Salaam: We crossed down onto the 96th street traverse
and climbed up the rocks to the other side.
We was by a reservoir.
I remember a man running by and some kids that are
throwing rocks at him.
And he kept running.
Another person came running by.
And when he got in the middle, they kind of came out
and they jumped on him.
We was watching from a distance. I didn't take part in that.
And I'm like, wow, this guy just picked him up
and threw him into the gate.
Then he just starts punching him and beating him.
And then somebody yelled, "Police."
Richardson: Commotion.
Some kids, like, running that way,
and some kids going the other way.
Trying to find our way outside,
out of the park.
McCray: I think it was between, like, 9:00 and 10:00.
I was leaving the park around that time,
because I had a curfew.
Salaam: I remember walking with this small group to the 1,
2, and the 3 train on Broadway.
The only crime I committed that night
was I hopped the turnstile.
Santana, Jr.: On Central Park West,
a car pulled up in front of me
and two officers jumped out.
And one grabbed me. And, um... And,
and when I turned back, the crowd scattered
and everybody ran.
Police was chasing me and I had
nowhere else to go, so, there was a wall and you jump
over the wall, you go back into the park.
They handcuffed us and put in the car.
And then his partner ran and he jumped over the wall
into the park and he took off.
Richardson: Somebody told me to, "Freeze or I will shoot."
My fear even went up more so I just kept runnin'.
One of the cops, he tackled me.
All my clothes was just all dirty and muddy.
And he had a helmet, and he swung it across my face.
And he handcuffed me and I said, um...
I thinks he said, um, like, "What's goin' on?"
And he said,
he was like, you know, "Didn't I tell you not to run?"
Like, you, it's like "You little, little animal"
or something.
So, um, I basically said, "Oh, I didn't do nothin', you know."
And we sat in the police cars for a while.
They rounded up a few people
and we proceeded to the precinct.
Santana, Jr.: They brung us in.
They took shots, ah... photos of us
and then they put us in a room.
Richardson: 14. Never got arrested.
Never had handcuffs on me.
Scared to death.
I could recall one cop lookin' at me.
He says, "What's that on your face?"
And ha, I, I said, um, "One of your one, of your,
your fellow workers hit me."
And he said, "One of my, my fellow workers?"
Where at? Come point him out to me."
You know, like I was lying.
They asked me what was going on next, and the guys are sayin',
"wW'll give you a ticket for family court and you'll,
you'll be right outta here in no, in no time soon."
We were sitting there for a long time.
Richardson: It took a while but they
begin to call parents.
Black: My mother received a call from the precinct
and they told her to come pick up Kevin up from, um,
it was the Central Park precinct and that he had been picked up
for, I believe it was unlawful assembly.
3 policemen knock on my door and say,
"Oh, you ain't know your son was in the police station?"
I said, "No."
And they tell me, "Come on, let's go."
I had to get dressed.
And then my mother was there,
and she got scared.
And she said, "I going with you."
So, she went with me.
I started seeing a lot of parents.
We feelin' a little better, you know,
thinkin' that we, that we gonna be OK.
Woman: The jogger was discovered about
1:30 in the morning by passersby.
She was in the underbrush in the northern reaches of the park
and she was taken to Metropolitan Hospital.
Dwyer: Her skull was fractured.
She lost a good deal of her body fluids.
She was virtually dead.
The kids were about to be released when a detective
who realized the gravity of the injuries of the victim
called the precinct and said, "Hold on to those guys."
And it was from that moment forward
that everything plowed towards them.
Black: The next time I heard from my mother,
she woke me up.
And, ah, she says,
"I'm still here at the precinct."
And I says, "Well, why are you still there?"
And she said, um, "Well, they sayin'
they waitin' for paperwork."
I was wondering what's wrong.
And I told 'em if I could see my son because I saw him next door
in the room with all the kids.
And they said, "No, you gotta wait till morning."
So I tell my mother, "Stay with him and let me to go to work."
They probably gonna release him in the morning anyway.
I don't see nothin' wrong and I went to work.
Dwyer: Initially, the case was going to be handled
by the Central Park precinct.
But she was thought to be near death, and homicide cases are
handled typically by these homicide squads.
And Manhattan North was a prestigious bunch
of detectives
with a great deal of pride in their work
and swagger in their step.
Two prosecutors, Linda Fairstein and Elizabeth Lederer.
They were part of the investigation.
And they were operating not only as prosecutors
but investigators.
Byfield: I was getting ready for work
and I heard the news.
And instantly your mind goes into the calculus.
An unidentified white woman
found raped in Northern Central Park.
Oh.
I think virtually every
ethnic and racial group in New York has these moments where
you, your, your heart just sort of stops and your stomach turns
and you think to yourself, oh, please don't let it be us.
...Police have 5 teenagers in custody right now...
Richardson: First we was all together.
Then they started to put us in different rooms separately.
Different cops coming back and forth.
And one cop sayin', "Well, we just heard that a woman was"
raped and beaten in the park."
Now he says, "What happened to the lady?"
And I'm saying, "What lady?"
And he says, "What do you mean what lady?"
The lady who got raped in the park."
I say, "Yeah, I was in the park."
"And I was, yeah, I was, you know, all around.
But that I don't know about."
"What do you mean you don't know?
You just... " And I said, " No.
Never came across no lady."
So now we going back through the statement
from the top, again.
"What did you do?" "Who were you with?"
"Who did you come with?" And, um, same answers again.
They gettin' a little angry 'cause I guess
they not gettin' a word outta anybody.
Dwyer: The detectives are trying to piece together
a narrative of what happened and they're trying to make it fit
what they know happened: A woman ended up
at the bottom of a ravine in the park almost dead
and a bunch of other people got hassled or hurt
in some way by these kids.
So, they're trying to make the story climb
some sort of ladder of facts.
All hell is breaking loose in Central Park that night.
And there are gangs of kids running around making mischief.
It's not so hard to understand why these kids were brought in,
why they were interrogated so aggressively,
why police believed they had amongst them
the culprit or culprits.
Now they just have to get the proof of it.
Santana, Jr.: Another detective came into the room,
he called my grandmother.
And he said, "Listen, can I talk to you outside for a minute?"
And when he took her outside, that's when it started.
He looks at me. He's like,
"Oh, this is the scumbag right here that did it."
Richardson: I remember one guy specifically tell me,
"You want to spend 25 to life on Rikers Island?"
You want to go to jail for rape?
"'Cause they don't like guys that rape women,"
and things like that.
You know, and I'm saying, like, I'm, I'm, I'm tellin' the guy,
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
Santana, Jr.: Now the other officer comes in.
He had about red hair, a short guy.
And he was like, "Oh, so this is the... right here."
And Arroyo says, "Yeah, this is the guy here."
He doesn't want to tell us what happened."
And I'm sittin' there like, "Ah, what's going on?"
And now Arroyo starts to yell at me and then this guy
pulls up a chair next to me.
He starts to yell right in my ear.
So I have Arroyo here yellin' at me, blowing smoke in my face
with the cigarette, and then I have this guy on my side
and he's yellin' at me.
And they're like, "You know you... did it."
You... stuck your... in her, right? Didn't you?"
And I'm like, "What are you talkin' about?"
I didn't stick nothin' in nobody."
And I start to cry a little bit. And then Hartigan jumps in.
And I was grateful, you know, at that point I was grateful
'cause Hartigan stopped him from trying to hurt me.
Then again, the other guy come back in
screamin' and yellin, ' violating my personal space,
so close to spittin' on me.
And then my mother, she came to the door, and she said,
"I need to see my son.
I need to see my son."
I looked out when I seen one of the detectives, um, you know,
take her by the shoulder, put her back to her chair.
And while he's talking to her, they close the door
and they questioning me.
They knew that my mother was, was a weak person, was disabled.
And they, they used that, you know.
They used that.
The officers, they actually met me outside.
They were like, "Oh, your mother's, you know",
"she's not well and since you're, you know, of age,
"you can stay and replace your mother and we'll
send her on home in a squad car, and we'll make sure she's OK."
And they said, "She was cooperating with this process."
So we sure that you're gonna cooperate as well."
So that, in they constantly kept saying,
"So that your brother can go home."
So that your brother could go home.
"So that..." And that's all I wanted.
I just wanted to get him back home.
McCray: There was a loud knock at the door.
It was 3 or 4 detectives.
I thought they was there because of the assaults
on the people in Central Park.
My father, he let them come in.
These men, they looked like giants, you know,
compared to my father.
He asked me to put some sneakers on.
He told my father he was going to take me down to the precinct.
My father called my mother,
and my mother met us at the precinct.
They was asking me questions a female jogger in Central Park.
And I was like, "There was only one woman",
"and she was with a man on a bike.
But they rolled off."
And he was like, "You sure?" I was like, "Yeah."
"What about the lady that got raped?"
I'm like, "What lady that got raped?"
They just kept asking me about this lady that got raped.
And I kept telling them, "There was only one lady."
They asked my mother to leave the room.
I'm looking at my father and he's like,
"Are you telling the truth?"
I was like, "Yeah, Dad, I'm telling the truth."
I swear I'm telling the truth."
I always told my father the truth.
"I know nothing about no jogger.
"I know some people got beaten up,
but I had nothing to do with that."
Then they asked me to tell my story again.
This time yelling at me.
All up in my face, pointing at me, poking me in my chest.
It just kept going on and on and on.
We stopped a few times because I was crying.
And I had no protection. My father didn't do anything.
I was scared.
Santana, Jr.: Hours have passed.
Richardson: Time kept going by.
McCray: They kept asking questions.
Santana, Jr.: No food, no drink.
McCray: I didn't eat. I didn't get no sleep.
Santana, Jr.: And I didn't know when it was gonna end.
Kassin: Confrontation followed by denial, followed by:
"You're a liar, I want to hear the truth" can go on for hours.
And the, the goal there is to break the suspect down
into a state of despair, into a state of helplessness, so that
the suspect gets worn down and is looking for a way out.
McCray: They pulled my father aside.
Then my father came back in the room,
it was like he just changed.
He just changed. He was like, "Listen."
He was like, "Tell these people what they want to hear"
so you can go home."
If he just would've stood his ground,
I would've told the truth.
I would've stuck to the truth.
Santana, Jr.: Hartigan sat down and he said,
"Look, Ray. I know you didn't do anything wrong.
"But the other guys right now, they're in other precincts
and they're saying that you did it."
And they tellin' me, "Well, you're not
sayin' nothin' but these guys put your name in it."
And I'm like, "I didn't do anything."
And he's like, "Well, this is why I'm here, to help."
"Because I know you didn't do anything.
You're a good kid. You know, this isn't you."
He pulls out this picture of Kevin Richardson.
And he goes, "You know this kid?"
And I'm like, "No, I don't know him."
And he goes, "You see the scratch under his eye?"
"That came from the woman. We know he did it.
He's going down."
At this point I'm like, you know, like, I don't
know these, these guys that's, that's there so I'm just gonna
make up somethin' and, and, include these guys' names.
Ok. If, if, you know, if you're
going to do it to me, then I'm going to do it to you.
They was coaching me and I was writing it down.
Santana, Jr.: He just fed it to me.
"Well, what did he do? What did Antron McCray do?"
He gave me the names. I put 'em in.
I couldn't tell you who they were, who they looked like.
If he woulda gave me a hundred names, I woulda put a hundred people at the crime scene.
McCray: And I was like, "How can they lie?"
So I was like, "I'm going to get him back."
At that point, I told myself I just, I just want to go home.
I thought I had the upper hand because
here I was, I had a detective who was saying,
"I'll make sure you go home."
McCray: I was thinking that I was never going to go home.
I gave these people what they want to hear.
So I lied.
I lied.
I say, "Well, you know, this is where"
it happened at the reservoir."
You know, I'm placing the scene of the crime at the reservoir.
And, and he just, he doesn't really say
but he gives me this look like, "What are you talking about?"
McCray: He asked me what she was wearing.
I didn't know because I wasn't there.
So I remember one of the men joggers that got assaulted,
he had blue shorts and a white shirt.
That's what I said she had on.
And then he said, "It's gotta be more believable."
"You know, Ray, people don't fully believe it
if you just saw it."
He said, "Where were you?"
And I said, "I saw it from a distance."
I was watching."
And he said, "No, you gotta be in it."
Like, you have to be there."
McCray: As the time just, you know, went on,
and my father wasn't doing nothing.
So, I was just like, "I, whatever, yeah.
"I had something to do with it," just to get out of there.
[Reading] Then we saw this lady jogger.
She had on gray shorts with black biking pants
and a white tank top.
[Reading] I observed the male, black Kevin,
with scratch on face was struggling with a female.
McCray, reading: The tall, thin black guy
hit her in the ribs with a pipe.
[Reading] I moved back and everybody started
feeling on her.
[Reading] Antron came and started ripping her clothes off.
McCray, reading: The Puerto Rican kid with the black hoodie
jumped on her.
[Reading] I tried to grab her. I got scratched on my face.
Antron pulled her pants off and she was screaming.
Richardson, reading: Antron had sex with her.
McCray, reading: Then Kevin got on.
Richardson, reading: That's when she was yelling,
"Stop" and "help."
I was the one that didn't rape her.
[Reading] Kevin pulled down his pants and had sex with her.
When she was on the floor I grabbed her tits.
A 4, a 14-year-old boy doesn't talk like this.
You know?
At that time, being naive,
I figured I'm not implicating myself.
I was crying at that time.
He said, "Don't worry. You did good."
Everything's gonna be OK."
McCray: When I first went there, they said I was going to
be a witness, and then just, everything just flipped.
You know, they had me raping a woman, beating her.
And they read the statement to my mother.
And she looked at me, and I was like, "Ma, I didn't do it."
She was like, "OK, I know you didn't do it."
Black: I walked in the room and I could see
that he was terrified.
I could see him, like, shivering.
I said, "Kevin, I can't believe you saw this woman get raped."
And he looked at me.
He say, "Angie, I didn't see a rape."
And I said, "Kevin, why did you say that then?"
He said, "'Cause they told me to say it so I could go home."
But they was like a orchestra,
like they orchestrated this whole thing.
And I felt so dumb for not realizing it
till it was too late.
When I came back, they disappeared my son.
He wasn't there no more.
I said, "Where's my son?"
He said, "They took him to another police station."
My father did make a return.
Um... But when he came it was too late.
And waited like 4 or 5 hours.
And then he came in, handcuffed
and a lot of policemen with, with him.
My dad's sittin' there, so I go
through the same story but now I add the woman in it.
Now, my dad, this is the first time he hears this,
so he looks at me and he goes, "What?"
That happened?"
And now I get quiet because now
here's my dad, I can't lie to him.
And I... I'm like, you know, I want to say,
"Dad, don't say nothin', it's tooken care of."
Dwyer: In those days, there were probably 6 murders a day.
In the newsrooms, people didn't always pay attention
to whatever grisly event of the day had happened.
This one was different.
Last night, a woman jogger was found
unconscious and partially clothed in Central Park
about 200 feet north of the 102nd street cross drive.
What we, we believe happened is the following: The victim was
jogging across the 102nd street cross drive when she was
attacked by a dozen young males.
She was dragged down in the bushes near what is called
"The Loch," where she was beaten and sexually assaulted.
5 youths were arrested at 96th street
and the west bridle path.
We believe these youths and others were responsible
for two or 3 other incidents that occurred
in the park last night, assaults on, on joggers and pedestrians.
And we are currently looking for others
we believe to be involved.
Salaam: When I came home, I remember saying to myself,
"Man, there's a whole bunch of unmarked police cars out here.
I wonder what happened?"
I bumps into Korey at some point and Korey says, um, he heard
that they were... are looking for us.
Wise: So, him and I went upstairs.
He had the detectives at his door.
And they said, "Oh, this is one of the guys"
we were looking for."
Checked my name off.
And they asked Korey who he was.
He looked at the list.
Said, "No, your name ain't on here."
So they said, "Ah, you can come down",
come downtown with your buddy."
You'll be right back."
Salaam: We went to the precinct
and I came home 7 years later.
He came home 13 years later.
Wise: They said, ah,
"Something happened out in the park.
You was out in the park that night, right?"
I say, "I was in the park but I don't know"
what you're talkin' about."
"Kevin is saying this happened, you know.
Antron is saying this happened."
And they were stopping me during my retelling
of the events and saying, "Is this where you got
the woman? Is that where?"
The tone was very, very scary.
I felt like these guys are really angry.
And you know what?
They might take us to the back of the precinct and kill us.
A lot of time had gone by.
I didn't even know what time it was.
Wise: Detective Hartigan says, "Korey?"
"You look like you real tired, man.
"Very tired, exhausted, and you want to go home.
"But you're not gonna go home until you give up,
till you say a story."
They had made up a story saying something like, ah,
"Well, we have your prints on her pants."
I'm thinking, "How did they take my prints"
and put it on her pants?"
Wise: Detective Nugent, a young officer
with a whole lot of energy, came in.
He put his face to my face. Put his hand in my face.
Grabbed my face, shook my face. "I want a story from you."
I just gave a written statement just to satisfy them.
Just to get them out of my face with it and trying to be
on my way out their buildin'.
And afterwards, he had me sign on it.
So, I signed on it. Yeah.
These boys were in custody and under varying
degrees of interrogation for a range of 14 to 30 hours.
And when you are stressed, when you are tired,
when you are a juvenile and not fully mature and developed,
you're thinking, "Right now I just want this to stop."
Woman: My name is Elizabeth Lederer.
I'm an assistant district attorney in New York county.
I'd like to ask you some questions about a series of
things that happened in Central Park on the night of
April 19 of 1989.
Before I do that, I'd like to, ah, advise you of your
rights with respect to statements you may make now, OK?
You have the right to remain silent
and to refuse to answer any questions.
Do you understand?
Yes, I do.
Anything that you say
can be used against you in court.
Do you understand?
Yes, I do.
You have the right to consult a lawyer now
before any questioning and have a lawyer present
during any questioning.
Do you understand?
Could you please answer out loud?
Yes.
If you have no lawyer
or cannot afford a lawyer, a lawyer will be
provided for you now free of charge before any questioning.
Do you understand?
Thank you. Yes.
Now that I have advised you of your rights,
are you willing to tell me the truth about what happened
in Central Park on the night of April 19 of 1989?
Yes. Ok.
Present in this room is Detective Nugent,
whom you have already met, I believe...
Wise: Detective Nugent told me to, "Go in here."
"You're gonna give this story which you, which you has,
"which you have said to me and the rest of my coworkers,
"you will go in here and give the story.
"I'm gonna be in the room.
And I'm gonna make sure, make sure you do it."
Lederer: This is Detective McCabe
and Detective Hildebrant.
Ah, I think you've already met them.
Also present are, I believe, your parents.
Um, could you each please state your full name?
My name is Linda McCray.
Bobby McCray.
And, ma'am, what is your relation?
I'm his mother.
And... his father.
Ok. I want to warn you of your rights with, ah,
respect to anything you say in this case...
Why would a parent not say at that moment,
we want to consult with an attorney?
The reason is because of the setting and because of the way
they're being treated by the police and because of being
overwhelmed by the situation.
It doesn't even register in their minds.
Lederer: I just want to state it is now
20 minutes to 5:00 in the morning
on the morning of April 21 of 1989.
There is another gentleman here in the room.
Who is that man?
My father.
And, sir, could you please just
state your name and address.
Paul L. Richardson...
Richardson: My father, he was a quiet, stern man,
so..
I felt ashamed that I was even there doing that.
And I shouldn't feel that way because I was innocent.
Lederer: ...Also present in the room right now
are Detective Arroyo and Detective Sheehan...
Santana, Jr.: I was under the impression that
I was going to be a witness, help out, or just give 'em
the story and that was it.
Lederer: Sir, could you please give your name?
My name is Raymond Santana.
Santana, Jr.: I didn't think about consequences.
I didn't think about anything.
The only thing that I thought about was
he was gonna make sure I go home.
That was it.
Lederer: I'm gonna ask you a few questions...
Richardson: Here I am doing a videotape
and I'm already deep in this so I'm thinking now I gotta sell it
to make sure that people know that I wasn't involved.
Lederer: Were you trying to touch her?
Not really.
Didn't you tell the police earlier today
that you had tried to grab her
and that's when you got scratched?
No, not like,
like feeling her, feeling her up.
Ok. Not like that? Trying to stop it.
But you tried, you...
To grab, like, grab the arms or something.
You tried to grab her arms?
I was trying to stop it.
Did you see Antron have intercourse with her?
Yes.
Was he laying on top of her,
or was he kneeling, or was he?
Laying on top of her.
Ok. And how long was he on top of her?
For a short while, then Raymond,
then Raymond went.
We was headed to the West Side.
That's when I seen Kevin.
That's where you saw Kevin?
Was anybody with Kevin?
Yeah, a lady.
Who was with Kevin?
Some lady.
A lady? Mm-hmm.
How was she dressed?
I couldn't tell. It was too dark.
What was he doing with her?
Struggling with her.
What were the others doing while Kevin
was struggling with her, with the wrists?
Antron was going for her clothes
and Lopez was holding her arms.
What was Kevin doing while, um,
Steve Lopez was holding her hands
and hitting her with the brick?
He was having sex with her.
Where were you standing?
I was on the side of Kevin.
Were you watching?
No, I was grabbing the lady's...
Who else had sex with her besides Kevin Richardson?
I didn't see anybody else who had sex, just him.
Did somebody have sex with her?
Yeah.
Did a lot of people have sex with her?
Yeah. First it was the black guy,
then it was the Puerto Rican guy with the black hood?
Then you got on top of her?
Lederer: What's in that picture?
Wise: It's her.
Is that the woman that you saw?
Yes.
Is that sort of the way she looked
when you saw her?
Yes, yes, ma'am.
Did you see anybody hit her with the,
with anything but their hands?
I seen... And I'm telling you, Korey...
I don't want you to think that
you have to say that,
but I want to know what you saw
that explains how she got so badly hurt.
I did see Kevin pick up a, a hand rock,
a small hand rock, and hit her across the face with it.
How big was the rock?
It was a hand, about that big, like, it was nice,
it was big, it was a good-shaped rock.
Hit her across like that.
Are you just saying that because I...
No. Uh, uh, no. I am asking you.
Why didn't you say it before?
- Huh? - Why didn't you say it before?
Because I remember I was,
me taking a quick glance in the dark.
I remember him picking up a rock
from out the, out the dirt.
Woman: Why did you tell them something that wasn't true,
that you hadn't seen?
I guess... I would strongly guess
just to save my own life.
To get out, get out, get outta there
as quickly as I, I can as possible
because I been there too long as it was.
And, you know, bein' a kid
I never experienced that in my life.
How old were you?
16.
16 and I felt like I was about 12.
Lederer: Did you tell us the truth voluntarily?
Yes, ma'am.
Because you wanted to? Yes, ma'am.
Did anyone force you?
No, ma'am.
Did anyone threaten you?
No.
Thank you very much. It is now
20 minutes to 4:00 and the interview is concluded.
Detective: Hey. Sit down...
Got to get you to sign something, eh?
Huh?
Santana, Jr.: They put us in the cell
with the rest of the guys.
Now there's all these guys that I don't even know, you know.
Who are you, you know? And, um...
And everybody's asking each other.
You know, "Well, what did you say?"
What did you say?"
And everybody's basically saying,
"Well, I told 'em I was with my boy.
And we left. I didn't see nothing."
Nobody's saying what they actually said.
Everybody had that sense of don't let it out the bag because
if I let it out then I'm not gonna go home.
Woman: In New York City this morning, a jogger is
fighting for her life after a brutal attack in Central Park.
Woman: Viciously battered and unconscious,
wearing only a jogging bra, her hands tied over her mouth.
Woman: The suspects are 14- and 15-year-olds
who blazed a nighttime trail of terror.
Assaulting an elderly man,
attacking a male runner, hitting another person with a lead pipe.
At one time, the group was running in a pack of
more than 25 youths.
Woman: The victim is now in critical condition
at Metropolitan Hospital.
Two skull fractures,
a significant loss of blood, and advanced hypothermia.
Woman: If she lives, it's likely she'll
suffer from brain damage.
8 suspects were arraigned this weekend,
aged 14 to 17.
Jennings: Some of the young men told police
they were just out wilding.
Woman: Wilding is a word you won't find in Webster's.
Wilding. New York city police say
that's new teenage slang for rampaging in wolfpacks,
attacking people just for the fun of it.
The district attorney's office says
the teenagers have confessed.
The spokesman said some of those confessions are on videotape.
Koch: A woman jogging and Central Park.
Central park was holy.
If it had happened any place else other than Central Park,
it would have been terrible,
but it would not have been as terrible.
It was for everybody, not just me,
the crime of the century.
During this whole process we were inside the precinct.
I had no clue what was going on on the outside.
Can you stop to talk to us for a couple seconds?
Tell us what's going to happen now?
They said, "Oh, yeah, the news got a little bit ahold of this story so..."
there might be some reporters outside."
"You know, just don't pay them any attention. Just keep walking."
Colangelo: Today we are announcing the arrests of
4 males, all between 14 and 15 years of age, in connection with
the April 19 attempted murder, rape, and assault
of a female in Central Park.
"They got 'em!" That was the, uh, feelings.
"Thank God, uh, for Ben Ward and the NYPD.
They got 'em!"
Kassin: Set against the backdrop of New York City
and a crime that just about has everybody flipping out,
you can only imagine the pressure that NYPD
was under to have this crime solved and solved quickly.
Dwyer: Jack Maple, one of the architects of
the 1990s New York city police revolution,
once told me that he remembered seeing detectives
involved in the Central Park jogger case in Elaine's
within a day or so of the crime,
celebrating the arrests.
There was a sense that this had been a home run
from a law enforcement standpoint.
When they chained us up to go to another precinct,
pictures snapping.
Me and Yusef did the walk together
and we just kept our head down.
When we saw the lights we, we still didn't know.
We still didn't understand.
Richardson: I'm walking and I'm scared
but I had my head up high.
And all I think to myself, "OK, the truth is going to come out."
Dwyer: After they got out of the interrogation room,
they backed off.
Each one of them denied having done it.
Consistently, again and again and again.
They said, "No, we didn't do it."
For the first time since the April 19
rampage through Central Park, Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau
spoke out publicly on the attacks to officially announce
indictments involving 6 of the 8 suspects
charged with the most serious crimes.
Morgenthau: Each is charged in this attack
with attempted murder, rape in the first degree,
sodomy in the first degree,
sexual abuse in the first degree,
two counts of assault in the first degree,
and riot in the first degree.
Hancock: There's no way that I as a woman
could not feel horrible for her and feel scared for myself
and every other woman walking the street.
And I was on the edge of my seat hoping that she would get better
but there was no indication that she would recover consciousness.
Byfield: For me, the one piece of information
that just got me was her friends coming in
to identify her and her being just
beaten beyond recognition.
And the only way that her friends could identify her
was by a ring that she wore.
The 28-year-old victim lies in a coma.
A teacher called her "golden girl,"
an investment banker with a blue-chip background
whose savage beating and gang rape has provoked outrage
in a city famous for indifference.
Suspects in the crime were arraigned this weekend,
aged 14 to 17.
Lederer: Rape in the first degree;
sodomy in the first degree;
sexual abuse in the first degree...
We was at arraignment and, um,
I remember them reading charges off...
robbery in the first, attempted murder in the first,
rape in the first.
And the lawyer was like, "Don't say anything.
Just keep your head down."
Lederer: ...That he had her by the legs,
and that he raped her after defendant Santana did.
But it wasn't until
you got into that jail and, and you felt the impact.
McCray: Spofford Juvenile Detention.
You had kids that committed serious crimes.
Murder, rape.
Santana, Jr.: This counselor came down,
he sat there with us.
And he said, "You know, you know how serious y'all case is?"
And we was like, "What are you talking about?"
And he said, "You all, y'all over the paper."
"Y'all in every news station.
Everybody's talkin' about y'all."
He said, "It's so serious the whole jail want to get you."
Salaam: Because he was 16,
they sent Korey to Rikers Island.
Rikers Island would make Spofford...
Look like a country club,
'specially when you're in there
for a rape charge.
To be a child, to be 16 years old
and to be in an adult facility, I can't imagine that.
Rikers Island at the age of 16.
Bein' forced to grow up very fast.
Byfield: In the first few days after the incident,
the narrative that came out was that
these young men were guilty.
And it was almost unquestioned.
Koch: When parents or grandmothers, ahh,
of some of these, ah, alleged perpetrators...
we always have to say alleged because that's the requirement.
When those grandmothers say, "But he's a good boy."
He never did anything."
Don't you believe it!
Black: There was so much hate.
We couldn't watch TV.
There's something wrong with the parenting
and the families and the home life of our city.
It's an outrage. It's, it's...
The violence in this city,
the quality of life in this city,
is getting worse and worse.
This is the, the, mm, the ultimate shriek of alarm.
This is the ultimate siren that says none of us is safe.
The story has enraged many New Yorkers,
startled others, and started renewed talk of
an under-policed city with crime out of control.
Mayor Koch said, "This will be a test of the system."
People want to see how the, ah, criminal justice system
works, or if it works.
Woman: The brutal attack on the young investment banker
is fueling a new battle for the death penalty,
even though as the proposed law now stands, it would only apply
to those 18 or older.
Woman: I'm for the death penalty.
If someone were to hurt my family or a loved one
as they did this woman,
I would probably want them dead.
You better believe that I hate the people
that took this girl and raped her brutally.
You better believe it.
Woman: Trump put his money where his mouth is by taking out
this full-page ad in 4 New York City newspapers.
"Bring back the death penalty."
Trump's ads underscore a fierce debate going on right now in New York.
According to a recent Gallop pole a full 76% of all New York City residents
favor executing some convicted criminals.
Byfield: They were children.
They were children.
Bringing up the death penalty in the context of the case
in which you were discussing children was outrageous to me.
I think that if she had been a wa... young woman
who, ah, who had been found in an alley in Bedford-Stuyvesant;
if she had been found, ah, in Harlem;
ah, if she had been found in any of the, any of the, ah, ah,
darker enclaves in this city or in this state,
Donald trump wouldn't have spoken, he, he wouldn't have
even whispered a word.
Interracial rapes are covered differently.
And there was another major rape in the city at the time.
And this is the woman who was raped in Brooklyn
and thrown off a rooftop.
That got little to no coverage
because the assailants and the victim
were in the same racial group.
If there's a white woman and the accusation is that she's
been done-in by blacks, that by itself takes you back
to Emmett Till, who did nothing but whistle at a woman
and ended up in a shallow Mississippi grave.
If this had happened in 1901, they would have been lynched,
perhaps castrated, and their bodies burned and that
would have been the end of it.
But this was New York City, 1989.
It was not Jim Crow South.
And yet the same words are being used with the same
damaging results.
Butts: They seized on the fears of the people.
Wilding.
The bestial characterization of the black man, these young
hoodlums, these thugs.
Wilder: Once we were on the path to identifying these young men
as the culprits, it's hard to get off that path.
And race, power, and politics make it extremely difficult.
It requires extraordinary courage.
A lot of people in the black community went along
with the confessions.
Many of us were frightened by our own children.
Many of us had been pushed around, raped, burglarized,
pocketbooks snatched, harassed on the subway
often by young black men.
People just said, "Oh, how terrible.
How terrible."
Everyone turned against them, except a few.
Woman: The good news is, she continues to improve neurologically
from her attack.
For the first time, she called her father "Dad."
She did simple arithmetic.
Her brain is working, still abnormally... she thought
the year was 1952... but her brain is working.
She's getting better, and so far she looks good.
Woman: The medical case of the 28-year-old jogger
continues to improve.
She is undergoing physical and psychological therapy
at a Connecticut hospital.
The young woman attacked has apparently made a remarkable
recovery, although she reportedly cannot recall any
details about the attack.
McCray: When I was bailed out, I thought the case was over.
I thought the truth came out.
I didn't know nothing about bail until I got home.
My mother explained to me, "No, it's bail. We paid for you to get out."
We still got to go on with this."
I wasn't able to go to school,
so I got a tutor.
I didn't go outside a lot.
I stayed in the house, played video games, and just studied.
Hancock: The police controlled the story from the beginning.
They created the story and the theory, and all the pieces
fell into place.
The authorities release a chronology to the press
of what this wilding was all about.
Together at about 8:50 P.M., they entered...
Dwyer: The newspapers love chronologies.
We call 'em tick-tocks.
We like to say, "Here's how this night of terror unfolded"
in the park."
At 8:55, they attacked an older male.
The timeline says the kids did these attacks at this place with the homeless guy,
at this place with the taxi driver, over there with
the bicycle rider, and then with people running
around the reservoir.
At 9:25...
They did various acts of malice or mischief with these folks.
Now, those people reported these things either
simultaneously or right after to the police.
So there is a clear-cut timeline.
And what they do is they append to the end of this
sequence of crimes the attack on the jogger.
Then something happens.
Her movements that night start to become defined.
And all of a sudden we find out when she left her house,...
What route she normally took around the park.
And with not necessarily absolute certainty,
but with a good degree of certainty you can figure out
that Trisha Meili should have been in the park
around the place where she was attacked at around 20 after 9:00.
We know for certain that at that time, those kids were
beating up, hassling other people on the reservoir,
South of that spot in the park.
They weren't at that part of the park at the time she would
have been there.
And if you watch the videotape confessions, it turns out they
actually don't know where the crime took place;
they don't know when it took place;
and they don't know how it took place.
They just know that it happened.
Kassin: The problem is, once you form a strong belief that somebody is
guilty of a crime,
the contradictory details are just that.
They're details but they don't fundamentally
change our belief in their guilt.
But when the DNA results come back and none of their
DNA is present, that should have stopped the investigation
in its tracks and they should have at least paused and moved
in another direction.
Warren: Harlan Levy was a DNA prosecutor at the time.
And he recalls how Elizabeth Lederer said, "Please, come to my office."
And he could sense urgency in her voice.
And she said, "Look, I feel like I've been kicked"
"in the stomach.
"There's no DNA match whatsoever
to any of these boys."
Kassin: It is improbable, given the nature of this crime
and the scene, that these boys would not have left a single
trace of themselves on the scene or the scene a single trace on them.
The improbability of that is striking.
But the decision was we can still prosecute this case.
And the argument we will make to the jury is just because we
didn't get all of them, doesn't mean we didn't get
some of them.
They now created a scenario by which there is a 6th perpetrator
a 6th perpetrator who mysteriously
doesn't appear in any of the confessions.
But even if they were correct, that 6th perpetrator's
absence in their confessions makes the confessions
factually incorrect.
That should have been the dilemma.
Dwyer: The trail in the grass at the very spot where she was taken down
is 18 inches wide, that wide.
You can't tell me that 5 kids or 10 or whatever the number is
that were supposedly involved in this wilding
dragged this woman off the road and left an 18-inch-wide trail.
That trail was a photograph of the beginning of this attack.
And in that picture there are not 5 kids, there are only
2 people: The victim and her assailant.
Reyes: I asked her to get undressed.
When she was coming towards me, I picked up the knife.
And I shoved the knife and I caught her hair.
And she was saying, "Ah, you stabbed me."
And I don't know even where, I kept on stabbing her,
and I don't know what places I got her.
I see her on the floor, shaking and nervous,
so I run out the door.
Dwyer: Matias Reyes was a young man living essentially by himself
in his late teenage years.
He would steal Walkmans, he would steal watches,
he would steal jewelry.
Then he started sexually assaulting women,
attacking women all around that neighborhood.
On April 17, 1989, just two days before the jogger was attacked,
he attacked a woman in the northern part of Central Park.
But the woman noticed that he had fresh stitches on his chin,
and she told the police about this.
And a young detective went to the hospitals in the area
and found out that there had been a guy named Matias Reyes
who had these stitches on his chin.
That was ignored.
He was the "East Side Rapist" that we'd been covering
in the "Daily News."
And one of the police officers
who was working on the jogger case
and also working on one of the rapes that Reyes has
been accused of, has the DNA markers in both files.
Detective Mike Sheehan... he knew because he was working
with Linda Fairstein and Elizabeth Lederer
and all the other detectives... he knew that there
was no DNA match to these young Central Park Five.
TV reporter: The only real evidence the prosecutors have
is the evidence the defendants gave them: Hours of graphic
videotaped confessions.
Kassin: What is particularly disturbing about this case
and about so many other cases like it is that once that
confession is taken and once that confession is in the air,
it corrupts everything else.
And confessions will trump DNA, confessions will change
witnesses' testimony, confessions are irresistibly
persuasive, and almost the effects can't be reversed.
Rather: Screening for jurors began today
in a case that shocked New York and jolted the nation.
Prosecutors are expected to call 50 witnesses, possibly
including the victim herself.
Woman: Though she has no memory of the attack, prosecutors expect her to testify.
Her mere appearance will pack an emotional punch
for the prosecution's case.
Santana Jr.: In the back of my mind, I knew we wasn't gonna beat this case.
It was in the paper too much.
Too many people were against us.
Everybody washed their hands from us,
and I felt like people accepted whatever happened to us.
It was like, "Whatever happens to those kids, forget 'em."
McCray: My father, as the trial came, he left me and my mother.
Disappeared.
I couldn't understand.
And I just, I hated him after that.
Me and my mother started going to court by ourself.
Demonstrators, you know people just shouting,
you know, "Rapist", "You animal."
"You don't deserve to be alive."
It just felt like the whole world hated us.
Joseph: The amazing thing to me in meeting Antron was that he was
the exact opposite of the way he was portrayed in the news.
He is a timid, calm, non-aggressive individual,
not anything as he was portrayed.
Woman: In her opening argument, the prosecutor made it clear
their own words would be the main evidence against
the first three defendants.
Lederer: Where were you standing?
Santana Jr.: I was on the side of Kevin.
Lederer: Were you watching?
Santana Jr.: No, I was grabbing the lady's tits.
It was very hard not to believe those confessions.
Lederer: What was Anton doing to her clothes?
Santana Jr.: Trying to pull them off.
It seemed genuine.
These confessions seemed genuine.
They didn't seem like they were rehearsed or made up or anything.
I think that Raymond lied.
It'll come out that Raymond lied.
He was lying when he was being asked questions by
the district attorney,
and I think that will come out very... graphically
in my cross examination tomorrow.
Woman: Yusef Salaam didn't make taped statements, but police say he
verbally admitted beating the female jogger with a lead pipe
while others climbed on top of her.
Salaam: Bobby burns... He was a friend of my mom's.
He was originally a divorce lawyer.
I thought he was a nice guy.
But at one point in time I remember looking over at him
and I thought he was sleeping.
Santana Jr.: Mentally, you know, physically it was draining,
not knowing what's going on,
seeing these people get on the stand, nobody actually saying
you did it.
Woman: ...That there is another perspective.
Crowd: No more Scottsboro boys!
No more Scottsboro boys!
Woman: There has been no evidence in any form that could show me,
for one moment, anything related to his being anything other than innocent.
Yusef is innocent.
Crowd shouting: No justice. No peace!
No justice. No peace!
There have been charges of racism, that authorities
aggressively pursued the case because the victim is white
and the suspects Black and Hispanic.
Woman: Meantime, a group of people came to demonstrate
for the female jogger and against a regular cadre
of protestors who have suggested that the jogger's
boyfriend raped her.
Where the jogger's boyfriend?
Where's the jogger's boyfriend?
Woman: All people should be outraged about this,
not any particular race.
We need to remember that this was a human being and people
need to support that.
Yesterday, Mayor David Dinkins also condemed
the regular protestors
who even jeered at the injured jogger the day she testified.
Woman: She walked with an unsteady gait, clutched the railing
as she stepped into the witness stand.
Her scars were evident,
but she spoke clearly in a strong, sweet voice.
Hancock: She was a miracle now at this point.
She couldn't contribute anything to the actual case
because thankfully she couldn't remember.
But the fact of her being on the stand galvanized
the public around her and against these young boys.
McCray: I was like just sitting there, like looking, like, "Man",
I really hope this lady can remember."
You know, I'm, like, "Why she can't remember?"
It's messed up what happened to her, but I didn't do it.
Woman: With the prosecution resting its case in the final hour today,
the defense begins its case tomorrow, starting
with the parents of Antron McCray.
Joseph: My strategy was obviously to try to convince the jury that
the statements were not accurate, were the product
of coercion, should be inadmissible,
and were not credible.
But when they testified in court, the police officers
said, "All we did is ask him what happened."
That seemed to me to be incredible.
They also denied that they ever made any
promises whatsoever.
They denied even knowing Antron was a suspect.
Gold: Even though he had asked him to tell the truth no matter what
and to bring the clothes he was wearing, and all kinds
of stuff, that made it perfectly obvious that he was a suspect,
he said he didn't think of him as a suspect.
That was just nonsense.
Some of the detectives were obviously lying through their teeth.
Dwyer: The lawyers in the case had another defense,
which is they had alibis.
They were not where the jogger was when she was attacked.
Why?
They were beating up other people.
That alibi defense was not offered.
Gold: The only evidence against Yusef was
the testimony of McKenna, the detective.
And Burns absolutely undercut Yusef in the most
terrifying way.
He put into evidence the notes of McKenna which hadn't been
put into evidence before.
And that was the only evidence against Yusef.
Santana Jr.: There was one part during trial
I think Peter Rivera, my lawyer, he woke up.
And they was talking about the statements, of how
the statements were coerced by the police.
I remember him reading something, and I heard him...
I heard him whisper it.
He didn't say it loud but he sat next to me.
He said, "They didn't do it."
And I heard him say that.
And I said, "All right, well, maybe now he gonna fight."
But it was too late.
Gold: No blood on the kids.
Nobody could identify them.
It was just a question of believing
the confessions or not.
And it was very hard to imagine why anybody would make up
something that not only incriminates them but is full
of details that sound like they actually happened.
Santana Jr.: It got to one point where they pulled me, Yusef, and Antron
in the conference room.
And the lawyer says, "You know, we're gonna lose this case."
What we're planning to do is see if we can get you a plea deal."
Salaam: And I remember telling them, you know, "You guys can cop out."
"But if I did something, I would cop out.
"I would want the least amount of time for what I did.
But if I didn't do anything, you can give me the rest of my life in prison."
You know, I didn't know what that meant back then, but I
just knew that there would be no way that I would cop out
for something that I didn't do.
They said, "Well, it has to be all three of you guys or it's nobody."
And so we, you know, we looked at each other.
We was like, "Well, guess it's nobody."
Coming out. Let's roll.
The crimes and the colors in this case have been a focus
of attention here for more than a year.
It will now be up to a jury to decide the guilt or innocence
of the defendants.
John McKenzie, ABC News, New York.
It is day 10 of deliberations and the jogger jury appears to
be going back to what they were thinking
about on day one.
Were those damaging videotaped confessions coerced by cops,
overeager to solve the case?
Joseph: Each day that
the jury remained out,
I started to get a little more optimistic.
People were shocked.
What's taking them so long? They confessed to it!
I was going nuts, quite frankly.
I mean, everyone was blaming the fact that we were there
so long on me.
And I had to fight with my fellow jurors to consider
the discrepancies between the 3 statements,
but it didn't matter to them.
If they confessed, they confessed, and that was that.
Everyone's hurling imprecations at me and
telling me what a rat I am.
And I just went along with it at the end because,
frankly, I was wiped out.
I found some cockamamie excuse to vote guilty,
just to get outta there.
Santana Jr.: When the verdict came out, they brung us out.
The courtroom was packed.
As they started to read, everything kinda got numb.
McCray: I remember standing there and just,
they found me guilty.
That's when I was just... the world just collapsed.
Salaam: My whole insides dropped.
Just... like this is crazy.
Are you... are you kidding me?
Like, I couldn't believe it at all.
McCray: I couldn't hear nothing after that. I just sat down.
I looked back at my mother. She was crying.
You know, that was it.
Woman: After the jury foreman, a law school graduate...
One of my friends had a radio, and then I heard it.
Woman, continuing: Guilty, guilty, guilty on rape, robbery, riot, and assault...
Tears came out of my eye.
And I was mad.
Woman, continuing: 16-year-old McCray clenched his jaw and brushed away tears.
15-year-old Santana looked wide-eyed ahead,
while Salaam stared at the jurors, then back at the courtroom.
Pure anguish.
Joseph: Antron leaned over to me and said, "Thank you very much"
for all of your efforts."
That's not something that you see from clients in general
and certainly not something you would expect to see
from a young man,
and I truly appreciated it.
McCray: I just looked at him, and I was like, "Thank you for helping me."
He did his best.
He did his best, you know, in my eyes.
Santana Jr.: They took me out first.
They asked for my belt, they asked for my laces.
And then Yusef and Antron came out like a little bit after me.
And then we cried.
We cried inside the bull pen.
We didn't... it was like you didn't wanna show them that,
you know, because you didn't want them to see defeat.
So you know we did it when we went in the back.
Woman: The defendants' families left the courtroom
quickly, in tears.
They left without their teenage sons.
All right!
Thank you!
Law and order in the nation's largest city seemed to get
a boost tonight as the first three youths to be tried
in the Central Park jogger case were found guilty
of gang rape and brutal assault and robbery.
Woman: You're pleased with the verdicts?
I am.
How much of a help has your detectives... have your detectives
been to you during this case?
Lederer: They've been the best. They're terrific.
Woman: Were you concerned about the lack of genetic evidence?
A lot of people made a big deal about that, that none
of the semen from the defendants matched that
that was found in the jogger.
I think, because there's another trial,
it's better not to discuss the evidence.
Woman: How do you feel about the prospect of another trial?
I think I could use a vacation before we start.
- Are you going to give it to her? - I'm going to give it to her.
Richardson: They offered me a plea.
And I said, "I will never plead to anything 'cause I was innocent."
And that we gonna fight this the whole way through."
It was just really a circus.
At this time, I was 16 now.
So it was already two years of going through that.
Wise: I'm just goin' from Rikers Island, back and forth,
goin' to this court thing like it's a job.
Her only argument on me is my confession tapes.
Lederer: Did you hold her legs down?
Wise, on tape: I hold her legs down for what? 5 seconds.
Wise: So I'm lookin' at this like..."That's me?
"Is that me? She usin' me against me."
16-year-old Kevin Richardson has been quiet through most
of the trial, but his mother has not.
Cuffie: He was set up, he was set up.
Richardson's attorney
says he won't claim his client's taped confession was coerced.
Instead, he'll argue Richardson was with the gang
but never took part in any of the crimes.
Wise's attorney said he'll try to show the confessions
were coerced.
By putting him under continuous pressure
for 1 hour and 24 minutes,
after he had been interrogated for over 24 hours,
that amounts to pressure.
I was asked from my lawyer, Colin Moore,
do I wanna testify?
And the D.A., she came up there tearin' me apart.
I had wanted to get up and say, "Woman you don't know me!"
You talkin' like you know me. You don't know me."
Black: The reporters were runnin',
and people were runnin', and we were like, "What's goin' on?"
And somebody said, "The verdict is in."
Richardson: The first thing I heard was "Guilty,"
and everything else was just like fading out.
Wise: The judge said, "How do you find?"
"Guilty: Assault, riot, and sexual abuse."
So that was that.
I remember being handcuffed right on the spot,
and that's when I felt completely alone,
'cause, you know, before I had my family at least supportin' me, you know.
But at that point once the gates closed and I was in the cell,
and I just thought my life was pretty much over.
Get the... out of my face!
Outside the courthouse,
supporters of the two teenagers erupted
with violent emotion.
Get the... out!
Inside, 16-year-old Kevin Richardson cried loudly.
His mother screamed, "We love you", and collapsed,
later to be taken to a hospital.
18-year-old Korey Wise shouted, "Racism,"
as he was led from court.
The prosecutor was taken from court under heavy guard
as an angry crowd swirled around her.
You lying ...! You lied!
This was the second trial in the jogger case.
Last summer, three teenagers were convicted of rape
and assault and are now serving their juvenile terms.
This is the test Mayor Koch had laid out.
He was out of office now but people felt the system had passed.
Richardson: I went to a maximum security for juveniles.
Me and Yusef Salaam, we wound up being in the same place.
I remember sayin' that we just have to stay strong together
and try to get through this together 'cause
all we have is each other right at this point.
Santana Jr.: In the beginning, it was very hard because they perceived me
as this was a rapist and, uh... he committed
one of the most heinous crimes in New York State history.
You could be the most peaceful person, but then you come to
the point where you have to defend yourself to avoid
possibly being beaten, or worse, even, you know, killed.
So I had to adjust to that environment and basically
I had to grow up really fast.
McCray: And it's real hectic in there, you know, people dying
over cigarettes.
It's real crazy.
Santana Jr.: Why me?
Cursed God out a coup of times.
You know, my faith was gone.
I lost that, um, ah...
Just my faith was gone and, um...
I didn't, um... Know what to do.
My father came once in a while.
He apologized to me, but I didn't accept it.
My mother came a lot.
I mean, there was sometimes I had to tell her to stay home
because the weather would be so messed up.
She'd still come.
Wise: When I heard that my dad had passed,
it was hurtin', uh...
It was hurting and I would think, surely think, he just...
he drunk hisself to death.
You know, through... what do they call that? Cirrhosis of the liver?
But no one shared it with me or gave me the chance
to come down.
So I just learned it and that was that.
That was that.
But as time passed, I started to make changes.
I was able to get my G.E.D.
I was able to get a degree, you know.
I got an associate's.
I jumped on the opportunity to go to college.
It was a real graduation, the Dean and everybody.
Salaam: I was able to get a college degree before they took
education out of prison.
McCray: They stopped the program, so I didn't get a degree.
After that, I just started doing trades and stuff like that.
Like I worked in the tailor shop, and that was like
the highest-paying job in prison.
I think it was, like, 30 cents an hour.
woman on radio: Good afternoon, 47 degrees...
In New York, republican Rudolph Giuliani
defeated incumbent David Dinkins...
Mayor Dinkins' handling
of the Black on Jewish Crown Heights rioting hurt him.
Giuliani promises tougher approaches to homelessness
and crime...
Giuliani: Squeegee operators and excessive noise
and aggressive panhandling...
Woman: Crime has plunged 33%
from the same month a year ago...
Since 1990,
homicides have fallen dramatically in New York...
Brokaw: New York City is no longer a crime capital.
Richardson: I came up to parole.
And my hearing lasted a couple of minutes.
I walked in.
You know, said who I was.
They looked at the time that I'd been there
and realized that I haven't gotten into no trouble
the whole time.
They just wanted to know one thing.
They said, "Did you do the crime?"
I said, "No."
They told me, "Have a good day."
McCray: Got my stuff, my personal stuff,
had my money in my account,
and they took me to the bus stop.
Called my mother every stop we made,
let her know where I was at.
And I'm just looking around, like, wow, free.
Got home, forgot the building I lived in
'cause all the buildings look alike.
I went in the wrong building.
My mother and my father ran downstairs.
The day he was actually released he said, "They're
sending me home on a bus."
We're like, "Nope. We're comin' to get you."
And of course, my family was crying which made me
start to cry.
And everybody jumped up. You know, we jumped for joy
and we got in the car,
and we sped off and never looked back.
And we drove. It was about 3 hours from the city.
And so we went straight, like, not even stoppin'.
Beautiful.
Santana Jr.: When I was released...
Best feeling in the world, you know.
I said, "Wow."
You know, I got a fresh start.
I can try to pick up, put my life back together.
Yeah, he came home.
And I was happy he's home and all that.
But you know, I brung a lot of stuff with me, you know,
that I didn't even know exists.
I loved to stay inside my room, 'cause my room was like
the size of a cell.
I would go in the shower and wash in my boxers,
wash my boxers in the shower.
I had this aggression.
You know, if I'm in a room with too many people,
I can talk to you but I won't give you eye-to-eye contact
'cause I'm too busy watching the room.
McCray: When I got home, my father, he was living, you know,
with my mother because they were back together.
But I didn't really... I didn't talk to him.
We lived in the same house, but I didn't even talk to him.
I noticed he was getting sick, 'cause he lost a lot of weight.
He was real sick. I didn't even care.
My mother, she would try to get us to talk.
I was just like, "You don't remember what he did to us?"
"You know, he left you."
My mother, you know, got that call, and she was like,
"Your father just passed away."
I was still was like, "All right."
But seeing him laying there, it just hit me.
You know, he used to be my best friend.
Richardson: I was a sex offender, labeled as that.
And I had to register, um, every month.
I applied for the post office at one point.
And I was about to get the job.
But I'm an honest person and so they asked me have I ever
been incarcerated?
I put yes.
And they didn't hire me.
McCray: I just wanted to get out of New York.
I had a cousin that lived in Maryland.
I kind of liked Maryland.
So I went out there job hunting for the whole day,
and on the spot I got a sanitation job.
Santana Jr.: Months went by where I didn't have no money,
and there's nothin' I could do.
I can't get a job.
I was becoming a burden.
You know, here I am in my father's house, I'm eating
the food, you know, 'cause I'm a bigger guy
and I'm not contributin'.
I said, "I can't function."
That was my breaking point.
And so I said, "You know what?"
"I'm gonna just, I'm gonna get in the drug game."
And I started to sell drugs.
Dwyer: All of the jogger defendants have gone home
except one, Korey Wise.
He was the eldest of the group convicted and he had
the longest sentence.
And he had stopped going to the parole board... didn't even
bother going anymore to deny his guilt.
One day in late 2001, Matias Reyes meets him
at the Auburn prison.
Warren: This is the first time they had seen each other
since 1989, when both of them were at Rikers Island.
And at that time, they had a little incident in the TV room.
And it almost, you know escalated to blows.
Wise: He said, "I would like to apologize to you."
We had a fight at Rikers Island about a TV, and so forth.
I said, "Matias, ain't about nothin' man. Ha!"
"We here. It's not gonna free neither one of us.
Don't worry about it."
Reyes doesn't say anything to him,
but he starts talking to people in the prison.
"Hey, I met somebody who's doing time for a crime that he
didn't have anything to do with that I did myself."
They send up an investigator, and he takes this statement.
They send it down to the Manhattan D.A.'s office which
has no idea that this case from 13 years earlier,
which has long been stored and forgotten by everybody except
the people involved, is suddenly gonna come
back to life.
I showed them the top of the entrance, the direction she came by.
I showed them where I picked up the tree branch and down
the road where I dragged her in.
I'm the one that did this.
When I saw Korey Wise in Auburn, I saw in his eyes,
you know, the suffering that he's been going through,
to know that a man has suffered 13 years of his life
in jail for something that he has not done,
to know that all these kids got arrested for something
that they didn't do.
You want to know something?
I have done everything possible that I can come
forward and admit the truth.
I'm to the point where if people don't do something,
or if they don't do what's right, then, hey,
there's nothing else I can do.
To hear this after all the trials and tribulations
that I done been through...
the scuffle, the jumping on, the stabbin',
the whole unneeded package...
It felt so good!
Dwyer: Morgenthau's office begins an exhaustive re-examination
of the case.
And they pulled out the old files and they found the
unknown semen from the rape kit, and they matched Reyes.
Then they began to interview Reyes.
Reyes steps in 13 years later and immediately gives off
details that turn out to be verified and accurate that
the police didn't know.
He described her as having black running tights on
and a white T-shirt.
That's what Ms. Meili was wearing.
He tells them about the Walkman.
Turns out she did run with a Walkman.
Nobody knew it 'cause it wasn't found at the scene.
He describes how he took off her sneakers.
When the police came on the scene and they found her,
her sneakers were... one sneaker was in one location,
another sneaker was in another location.
He talked about taking her keys and trying to get her address
and then tossing the keys.
Well, that explained the dilemma about where her key was
'cause her door was locked.
These were details that even the most assiduous student
of the case would have had a hard time coming up with
as some kind of fake story.
There was no question that Reyes knew what had happened.
And his DNA was present on the scene and the way in which
he committed this crime was perfectly consistent with
the way he committed other crimes.
It stands to reason that Reyes was giving
an accurate statement.
McCray: I worked the third shift.
It was from 8:00 to 6:30 in the morning.
I got home, got out of the shower, about to watch
"Sportscenter," and my cousin called.
She was like, "Tron, Tron, turn on CNN."
And I'm like, "Why? What's going on?"
She was like, "The truth came out. The truth came out."
"The truth came out? What are you talking about?"
"Your case! Somebody that did it,
he told the truth, he confessed. He did it."
And I'm like, "Are you serious?
"Are you serious?" And I just started crying.
New DNA evidence conclusively connects Reyes to the victim.
Santana, Sr.: My son called me on a Saturday,
and I said, "I want you to sit down."
I got news for you."
And he said, "What news you got for me?"
"Get a chair, sit down. I'm gonna tell you."
He says, "Oh, you know, they found the guy that did it."
And I said, "What?"
And he says, "Yeah, they found the guy that
committed your case."
And I said... man, I gotta curse.
I said, "Get the fuck outta here."
He said, "No, for real. They found the guy."
"You're gonna be comin' home soon."
And I'm like, "Yeah, OK. Whatever."
He's the only one that has the hope.
But I'm like, "You know what? I'll talk to you later."
It started raining outside.
And I'm looking out the window, and I'm like,
"Damn. Did they really find this dude?"
And I'm thinking about this. Then I start crying.
Why are we here? The Central Park five!
In the snow!
Dwyer: There was a motion by the defense to overturn
the convictions on the grounds of newly discovered evidence.
And Morgenthau not only said that the new evidence
likely would have led to a different verdict,
he said to me and he said to others, "If we knew then
what we know now, we wouldn't have indicted these guys."
Koch: My faith in Robert Morgenthau is such that I don't
quarrel with his decision.
Warren: This is step one.
The response from the district attorney's office has been to
concede, or agree, or consent to our application that
the verdicts be set aside.
The judge has to make a formal ruling in that regard.
We expect for that ruling to be made forthwith.
Dinkins: I wanna share with you a statement from
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office.
The office said,
"A comparison of the statement... statements, reveals troubling discrepancies."
"Accounts given by the five defendants differed from one
another on the specific details of virtually every
major aspect of the crime:
Who initiated the attack;
Who knocked the victim down;
Who undressed her; Who struck her;
Who held her; Who raped her;
What weapons were used
in the course of the assault."
And went into the sequence of events the attack took place.
And some of what they said was simply contrary to
established fact.
Now, this is a damned shame.
Warren: I have an application at this time
on the behalf of all of the defendants: Korey Wise,
Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana,
and Antron McCray, all the indictments against each one
of them in their entirety be dismissed.
Motion is granted.
Everyone have a very Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.
Thank you!
Woman: The judge handling the review of the Central Park jogger case
has just ruled in the last hour that those
convictions against the five young men must be set aside.
It is a stunning reversal in one of the most controversial
crime cases in the city's history.
That was the best Christmas, ever... first... excuse me.
Best Christmas gift ever, and me and my mother,
we just hugged each other in our apartment
for seemed like forever.
That was a beautiful thing.
Still is.
I would always see these photos of my mother walking around
with a "Yusef is Innocent" shirt.
And then when they dropped all the charges,
she had her coat open
and the "Yusef is Innocent" shirt on and this huge smile
on her face like, not only did I told you so, but I'm
so happy today.
Woman: Now 4 of the 5 are out... they served long prison terms,
but Raymond Santana remains behind bars
on an unrelated conviction.
But the length of time that he's serving on a drug charge
was based upon the fact that he was a predicate felon,
his conviction in the Central Park jogger case.
So lawyers close to the case representing the five are telling me that they expect
to challenge that and try to get Raymond Santana home to
his parents before Christmas.
Santana Jr.: It was celebration.
All the guys jumped around. They, "Waaaa!"
They were all cheering.
"You goin' home. It's over. You goin' home."
The correctional officer said, "Well you know, there's a lot
of people out there."
"You wanna go through the back? I'll get a car for you."
"You know, you can go out the back way."
And I said, "Well, I'm a free man."
"I'm goin' out the front! Open that door and let's go!"
Amid a crush of cameras, Raymond Santana left jail
a free man, much to his father's joy.
I always believed he was innocent, from the beginning.
Santana Jr.: It took me back to that perp walk that they do.
And then now this time, it was a free man walk.
And it was definitely great to walk through that, you know,
and to hold my head up high.
And I said, "I told you we were innocent."
Santana, Sr.: This is a miracle.
And let me tell you, when I was in that yard, I was saying
I need to pray for him a lot.
They say if your prayer don't come out it did for me.
Because I pray a lot for that kid, and look.
That was the happiest day of my life, boy.
Wilder: I felt ashamed, actually, for New York and I also felt
extremely angry, because their innocence never got
the attention that their guilt did.
The furor around prosecuting them still drowns out
the good news of their innocence.
These were 5 kids who we tormented, we falsely accused,
we pilloried in the press, we attacked, we invented
phrases for the imagined crimes that we're
accusing them of.
And then we put them in jail.
We falsely convicted them.
And when the evidence turned out that they were
innocent and they were released, we gave a modest nod
to fairness, and we walked away from our crime.
It was a more interesting story when it was all about
a white woman that was raped by 5 black boys.
The coverage in 2002 was worse than what had happened in 1989.
More resistant to fact, more obstinate
about being wrong.
The police department commissioned this panel led by
a very distinguished lawyer named Mike Armstrong,
to review what had happened in the jogger case.
And the police department found that the police
department had done nothing wrong even though it had let
the right man get away and apparently had put the wrong
people in prison.
This was institutional protectionism that was going on.
Hancock: Linda Fairstein made a huge name for herself in part
because of this case.
It was extremely important to her profession
and her reputation.
So she's got a lot to lose by saying, "I got everything wrong"
"and I railroaded these kids into jail."
Whatever you do in life, you make mistakes,
and you either face your mistakes or you don't.
I don't think the press faced its mistakes.
I don't think the police department faced the truth
of what had happened because the truth of what had happened
is almost unbearable.
By prosecuting the wrong people for the Central Park
jogger case, Matias Reyes continued to hurt,
maim, and kill.
And they could have had him but they got stuck
with a mistake.
And they're still invested in that mistake.
Patricia Meili...
My brother, all the boys,
all of our families...
all of us are victims.
Nobody wants to look at the damage, the terror that they
put my family through.
Nobody wants to take responsibility.
I want us to remember what happened that day and be
horrified by ourselves because it really is a mirror
on our society.
And rather than tying it up in a bow and thinking that
there was something that we can take away from it
and we'll be better people, I think what we really need to
realize is that we're not very good people.
And we're often not.
Santana Jr.: I'm always behind.
Those years that it took from me, I lost a lot.
And even now at the age of 36 where I should be
fully in a career, have a house, a car, maybe married,
I don't have any of that.
And so I don't know how to regain that stuff anymore.
So I'm just here.
I lost my youth.
I lost 7 years of my life.
I lost that sense of being youthful and missing the
average things of going to school and going to the prom
and just livin' like average 14, 15 year-old kid.
Wise: You can forgive but you won't forget.
You won't forget what you done lost.
No money could bring that time back.
No money could bring the life that was missin' or the time
that was taken away bring back.
Nothin'.
Salaam: It hasn't become easier to live as an adult.
It's become harder.
It's always more difficult to do something if you have this
huge gap of your life taken away from you.
And it's not like just because they said, "OK, we're
vacating the convictions", that that vacated the whole prison term.
That whole prison term happened.
It was a reality. We really went through that.
McCray: I still struggle every day,
but I made it, you know.
Came home, didn't get in trouble.
Worked ever since I came home.
Pay taxes, take care of my kids.
I'm doing the best I can, so...
I told them I was going to make it. Told 'em.
The truth came out.
Truth came out.