[dramatic music]
- A mass shooting above new york's famous carnegie deli.
♪ ♪
- Five people shot.
- This was execution-style firing down.
♪ ♪
- It's midtown manhattan.
It's the number one tourist area.
It just doesn't happen here.
- Why were these other individuals in the apartment?
- It comes down to the common denominator, jennifer stahl.
- A singer and actress hoping to find fame.
- She booked "dirty dancing" on her own.
- Who knows what she would have done?
Who knows what she would have created?
- With a dangerous side hustle--
- To be in show business in new york,
You really need to just fight through.
- Jen had clientele in the music industry.
- We came across a security camera on the second floor.
- When you see those people running down the stairs,
I know that those are the two people that did it.
They're armed.
And they're a danger to society.
- So we pitched the story to "america's most wanted."
He knew we were looking for him.
He left in a hurry.
- We were living with this idea
That these people might never be caught.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- If new york city is the big apple,
Then midtown manhattan is its core.
♪ ♪
Located in the north of midtown
Is the iconic new york landmark the carnegie deli.
Every day, tourists line the sidewalk
Waiting for their famed pastrami sandwiches.
♪ ♪
Six floors above the famous deli,
39-year-old jennifer stahl lives
The new york dream as a singer, dancer, and actress.
But when her name becomes front-page news
In the spring of 2001, it isn't because she
Scored the part of a lifetime.
♪ ♪
- On may 10, 2001 approximately 7:30 p.M.,
The 911 dispatcher received a call
From a male who sounded very panicked.
He said his name was anthony veader.
- Anthony was in an extremely excited state.
He said that he was shot.
And he didn't know whether or not
The other people in the apartment
Were alive or dead or if the perpetrators are still there
Or where they went.
- We received a call to respond to the carnegie deli.
It's midtown manhattan.
It's the number one tourist area.
There rarely are shootings in midtown.
[sirens wailing]
As we walk up, we hear a woman's voice
Coming from one of the higher flights upstairs.
Her voice just sounded like she was going
Through something emotionally.
Now we take our guns out of our holsters
And continue cautiously.
♪ ♪
I don't know if there's someone with a gun there
Waiting for us or if the woman upstairs
Is a victim or a suspect.
And at the top of the landing is a female.
She has blood all over her clothes and on her hair.
♪ ♪
She also had her hands behind her back.
♪ ♪
We ask her, "can you please show us your hands?"
She didn't comply.
I don't know if she's hiding a weapon behind her back.
When we asked her to move to the side, she stared at us.
And then she actually fainted.
♪ ♪
At that point, I see her hands were tied behind her back
With duct tape.
[tense music]
We open the door to the apartment.
There is a male laying face down.
And he says, "help me."
♪ ♪
Right at the entrance, there are two other males that also
Have a lot of blood on them.
Both of them had their hands in duct tape,
Tied behind their backs.
They just weren't moving at all.
At that point, we cleared the apartment.
I walk into the living room area.
And I see on my left a small makeshift music studio.
And I look down on the floor.
And I see a female laying on her side.
She is in a lot of blood.
And I could hear her like struggling to breathe.
♪ ♪
It appeared that she was shot in the head.
Five people shot.
♪ ♪
My god, this is a lot of victims.
[radio chatter]
♪ ♪
[sirens wailing]
- My first responsibility is to identify all the victims.
[radio chatter]
We learned that there were five victims in the apartment,
Stephen king
And trey helliwell, both deceased.
♪ ♪
- Jennifer stahl, the renter of the apartment,
Rosemond dane, the victim found on the stairs,
And anthony veader, who called 911.
All three were taken by ambulance to the hospital.
[radio chatter]
- While the surviving victims cling to life,
Detectives focus on examining the crime scene.
- All the victims had been shot in the back of the head.
[camera shutter clicks]
- With what we see from the blood splatter on the floor
And by looking at the injuries of the survivors
And of the deceased, this was an execution-style
Firing down.
[camera shutter clicks]
You look at the duct tape, and you're saying, ok, important.
♪ ♪
- There were fingerprints found on the duct tape that
Was used to bind the victims.
There's no innocent explanation
For duct tape fingerprints.
Fingerprints on duct tape have to be
Placed there by the people who conducted this crime.
- When detectives entered the music studio,
They discovered jennifer's apartment
Was more than just her home.
- There was like a bunch of jars.
And all the jars had buds of marijuana in them.
It just seemed more like gourmet weed to me.
She was selling, but I knew that it wasn't like just
A typical drug dealer.
- Where it was in midtown told you a lot about the clients.
I think the theater industry, the media industry,
This is where they going.
♪ ♪
- We speak to neighbors, store owners.
We speak to anybody who may have been around
At that time to see if anybody noticed
Anything or saw anything.
- There was a witness that worked for carnegie deli who
Saw two men running from the building around the time
The crime occurred.
They described those two male blacks and one
Of whom had dreadlocks.
[sirens wailing]
- With rumors spreading about police activity
At the famous carnegie deli, a frenzy of tourists and media
Crowds the scene.
- You put up crime scene tape in the rest of the country,
And everybody knows that's someplace to stay away.
But in new york city, that means come take a look.
[sirens wailing]
- Back in the day, comics did hang out at the carnegie deli.
The walls were lined with autographed pictures
Of famous actors and actresses and comics.
I knew once the media got ahold of the carnegie deli
It was going to take on a life of its own.
♪ ♪
The next morning, when we picked up the story,
We found out that jennifer died overnight.
♪ ♪
- I remember seeing on the news her on the gurney.
And I can remember seeing the cast on her hand.
She's had a surgery on her pinkie,
I believe, two or three days before.
When I saw that cast, I knew it was jen.
- So now we have three people dead...
And two people wounded.
- The only connection between all the victims
Is jennifer stahl.
It was her apartment.
So we started looking at what was going on in her life
Before she died.
- Jen wanted to be a star.
New york is where everything happens,
That if you make it here, you can make it anywhere.
That's the gold standard.
- In 1985, when an apartment in the heart of the theater
District became available, jennifer
Didn't hesitate to move closer to the bright lights
Of broadway and hopefully to her dream of becoming a star.
- In those days, everybody's going to auditions,
You know, doing the try to be a broadway thing.
To be in show business in new york,
You have to have thick skin.
You really need to just fight through.
- She hustled her way.
She networked.
She booked "dirty dancing" on her own
Without an agent.
♪ ♪
- Jen evolved from really dancing and acting to music,
She had these friends who were accomplished musicians.
You know, and she would get them
To come in the studio in her apartment and lay a track.
Jennifer was passionate about music.
When she met her boyfriend and he was a drummer, of course,
That was just a natural connection for them.
♪ ♪
- But there was a little bit of violence
In her relationship.
- They did argue sometimes.
- So when the police asked me who I thought killed her...
♪ ♪
Witnesses saw a black man
With dreads fleeing the scene.
♪ ♪
I thought...
That described her boyfriend.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
[dramatic music]
[radio chatter]
- The morning after five people were shot
In jennifer stahl's apartment
Above the world-famous carnegie deli,
Investigators get their first lead
From jennifer's best friend.
♪ ♪
- The only thing that made sense to me
Was domestic violence.
♪ ♪
I'd seen jen a few days before.
She had been fighting with her boyfriend.
♪ ♪
And I said to her, "please don't get together
"with him tonight.
You're just not in the right head."
But they did get together.
And her finger got broke.
♪ ♪
She probably went to swing away,
And he grabbed at her hand.
I don't know, but she was very, very upset and in pain.
- We discovered that there was a domestic incident report.
And a lot of times it's passionate.
Things happen in an instant.
People lose their temper.
They take the physical too far.
♪ ♪
- Given his rough relationship with jennifer,
Police quickly track him down.
- We spoke to him, where he had an alibi.
His alibi was confirmed.
- We learned that he wasn't anywhere in the area.
Jennifer's boyfriend ended up being ruled out.
- Ending a lead is as important as getting one.
So once you eliminate him, you know that's a route
You don't have to go down.
♪ ♪
- With jen's boyfriend ruled out,
The next avenue to explore is her unique side business.
- Every performer has a side business.
They have to.
It's expensive to live in new york city.
But this is where everything happens.
She built a business selling marijuana to people like me.
- Jen had really a variety of clientele.
She had people who worked in the music
Industry, rappers, producers.
And it was just a lot of her longtime friends.
♪ ♪
- By early 2001, business was busier than ever.
- I noticed an increase in foot traffic.
And that amount of activity made me nervous.
And I said to her,
"maybe you need a security person here."
She thought she was safe.
She said, "cocaine kicks your door in
"in the middle of the night.
Marijuana doesn't."
♪ ♪
- Jen's friends offer up what they know
About the other people who were at jennifer's apartment
That night, starting with trey helliwell,
Who was there with his girlfriend, rosemond dane.
- Trey met rosemond on new year's eve
In the british virgin islands.
And they hit it off.
They went to new york city in early may.
And he left me a message the day he died.
He said, "back on mainland.
"hoping to get up to boston to see you.
I'll call you when I know more."
But trey and I never had the opportunity to speak.
♪ ♪
- Trey died, but by a miracle, rosemond survived.
Both appear to have been in the wrong place
At the wrong time.
The other survivor, anthony veader,
Who dialed 911, is still unable to talk.
But detectives speak to those close to him.
- Acquaintances and friends of his
Told us anthony veader was both a friend,
Customer, and the hairdresser for jennifer stahl.
♪ ♪
We discovered from speaking to other people
That knew jennifer there was always somebody there to answer
The door besides her.
It wasn't like they were armed,
But she had another person with her in the apartment.
On this day, it happened to be stephen king
Handling security at the door.
♪ ♪
- Stephen king was a longtime friend of jen's.
- He was helping out jen for extra money.
He had a girlfriend.
And they were expecting a baby.
- Jen was always helping friends.
If anybody needed work, she would find work for them.
So steve came to play a security role.
- By all accounts, stephen was just a father-to-be trying
To provide for his family.
Investigators are very interested in the building
Security, however, and make a discovery.
- We came across a security camera on the second floor.
And we were able to pull the video.
- The videotape showed two male blacks
Walking up the stairs.
- One of whom had dreads.
The other had like real close-cropped hair.
At the time, they're very calm.
They don't appear to be rushed, anxious, anything.
And then when they're leaving, they seem to be in a hurry.
And you know, one of them is carrying a backpack
Over his shoulder, which didn't appear when they
Were coming up the stairs.
♪ ♪
- Key is the backpack that they didn't have when they went up.
We believe we were looking at a robbery
Or a deal that went bad.
The fact that jennifer's not taped
Kind of fits that scenario, that she is having
To deal with the two perps
Possibly telling them where the stash is.
- When you see the close proximity from the 911 call
And those people running down the stairs,
I know that those are the two people that did it.
These two perpetrators, they tried to execute five people.
They're armed and a danger to society.
♪ ♪
- Coming up...
- She said he was standing over the victims,
Shooting them in the back of the head.
- George clinton's group, they were afraid
He would retaliate if they got involved
With the investigation.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
- Detectives now believe the mass shooting in the apartment
Above new york's famous carnegie deli
Could be a robbery gone wrong.
They released the security video to the public,
Which triggers hundreds of tips.
And our detectives follow up on every lead that comes in.
♪ ♪
- The witness saw a car parked around the corner
From the crime scene.
People don't park in that area.
They know better than that.
That's suspicious for us, especially so close
To the proximity of the apartment.
So we checked.
And there was a summons issued also on the car.
- The registered car owner was an individual
By the name of andre smith.
It's just one of many tickets issued
In midtown that night,
But we never know what might become important
Later in the investigation.
You keep it in the file so that when you have names
Pop up, you see if it matches.
♪ ♪
A few days after the shooting,
We finally got a call from the hospital.
Anthony and rosemond are recovered enough to talk.
- And I was like, oh great.
We have a good chance that they were going
To be able to give us information that
Would help us solve this case.
Rosemond and anthony told us that they
Were in the apartment with jennifer.
And they were all hanging out.
♪ ♪
- Anthony veader said he was drinking a glass of wine
And socializing with jennifer that day.
♪ ♪
- And then somebody rang the buzzer.
[buzzer buzzes]
Stephen king answered the buzzer.
And the person downstairs said it was sean.
♪ ♪
- Stephen king yelled to jennifer stahl, "it's sean."
And she said, "let him in."
♪ ♪
Jennifer stahl was completely confident to let
Sean and another individual come into her apartment.
♪ ♪
It shows that they knew each other, jennifer and sean.
- But the second person is unknown to them.
♪ ♪
- As soon as the two perpetrators
Entered the apartment, they announced it was a robbery.
They pulled a gun out.
- Rosemond described how she tried to get away.
She ran for the doorway and was pulled
Back by the second person
And thrown against the wall.
♪ ♪
- They told everybody to get on the ground.
One of them started duct-taping people
As they laid face down on the living room floor.
And the other grabbed jennifer,
Took her into the studio.
Rosemond dane heard her say,
"just take what you want, please.
Just don't hurt anybody."
And she repeated that.
"don't hurt anybody."
♪ ♪
The witnesses stated they heard a gunshot.
[gunshot]
- Two witnesses were face down.
They didn't get a good look at the person who was behind them
Doing the shooting.
- They heard another gunshot and another gunshot.
[gunshots]
They were expecting to die, both of them.
♪ ♪
- Anthony told us that he gets shot.
[gunshot]
But the bullet didn't penetrate the skull.
So he plays dead.
♪ ♪
Now rosemond knows that she's going to be next.
- She said if it was the last thing that she did,
She wanted to see the face of the person
Who was going to kill her.
And she turned her head as the shot was fired...
[gunshot]
Which allowed the bullet to just graze her skull
And saved her life.
Almost immediately after, the two perpetrators
Had fled the apartment.
♪ ♪
And that's when anthony called 911.
Rosemond was clearly distraught and overcome
By what had happened.
She saw her boyfriend, trey, was motionless,
Lying on the floor.
And then she ran out of the apartment.
And that's where we found her.
♪ ♪
[sirens wailing, horns honking]
- We went and saw rosemond in the hospital.
Unfortunately, it was the first time
That my sister and I had met her.
She just kept saying, "I'm sorry.
"I'm so sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She knew that we had a huge loss.
And she had a huge loss too.
Obviously, she was still in shock.
We all were.
But she'd been through the worst of it.
♪ ♪
- While rosemond processes her grief,
We focus on our prime suspect, a man we only
Know by the first name, sean.
- They released the name sean in the news.
My friend called me and said, "mich,
I know who could have done this."
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
[dramatic music]
- A few days after the carnegie deli massacre,
The two survivors are awake and talking.
And they've given the investigators
Their best lead, the first name of one of the shooters, sean.
♪ ♪
- They released the name sean in the news.
My friend called me and said, "mich,
"I have this résumé from a friend of jen's,
A guy named sean salley."
She told me that jen suggested that sean salley
Give her his résumé.
He was looking for a job.
And my friend worked in the music industry.
I wasn't sure if it was going to lead to anything,
But I had an appointment to meet
With the homicide detectives.
So I brought the résumé to them.
♪ ♪
- From the physical copy of sean salley's résumé,
We learned that sean salley was a roadie
For the george clinton band, p-funk, funkadelic.
We made an educated guess
That he was the person who purchased
Marijuana for the band.
And that's how he knew jennifer stahl.
We were able to speak to members
Of the group who knew him.
They said that as a roadie he helped
Them set up for concerts when they
Were traveling on the road.
- A year or two years prior to the murders,
Sean assaulted another member of the crew.
And he was asked to leave.
George clinton's group saw sean as a violent individual.
Apparently george clinton was scared (bleep) of him.
That's the vibe we got.
[sirens wailing]
- A violent reputation is a red flag.
So lieutenant parrino checks whether salley
Has a rap sheet.
- And he was arrested in about three
Or four different states.
♪ ♪
And there was robbery and weapons possession,
Which, of course, is something that we'd
Be very interested in.
♪ ♪
- His police records include sean salley's
Fingerprints and mug shots.
- I noticed sean salley had dreadlocks and remembered one
Of the witnesses that saw two black men,
One of whom had dreads, leaving in a hurry.
We have the security video.
And we compare them to this person.
And I'm like, oh, man.
That looks like it could be a match.
♪ ♪
- Matching salley to one of the men in the video,
Plus his violent past, has detectives confident they're
On the right track.
But we still need physical evidence
Putting him inside jennifer's apartment
At the time of the crime.
♪ ♪
- There were fingerprints found on the duct tape
That was used to bind trey helliwell's
And rosemond dane's hands.
- And we asked the lab to compare it
To sean salley's fingerprints.
We were able to match the patent print to sean salley.
♪ ♪
- We learned from sean salley's résumé
That he was staying in newark, new jersey,
At a friend's house.
♪ ♪
- When we get there, unfortunately,
Sean salley wasn't at the residence in newark.
♪ ♪
- In the video, we saw the duffel bag,
Which was consistent with something
To hold the cash and the marijuana they had stolen.
We conducted a search warrant of that house.
Neither marijuana nor any cash proceeds of the robbery,
If you will, was recovered.
But we did find pieces of paper,
Boarding documents from plane tickets,
Other information that connected
Sean salley to that house.
It showed that sean salley had been staying there
At the time of the homicide.
We interviewed everybody connected to that house.
And the detectives zeroed in on the person
Who was the renter of the house
Of an individual named dwayne.
♪ ♪
Dwayne did look a little bit like the second person
On the video.
- I think that we might have the second guy here.
- A background search reveals that dwayne
Had a criminal history and was currently
On parole in new jersey.
Detectives have enough to bring him in for questioning.
- Dwayne came back to the midtown north precinct.
Officers went through the contents of his belongings.
And they found the name dre and a phone number
On one of the papers in the wallet.
I don't know that name.
But detectives photocopied all of the papers
And file it with all the information
And all the details of the case that have been coming in.
- He denied knowing sean salley.
We knew that was impossible since we
Had physical evidence connecting
Sean salley to that location.
So we knew that dwayne was lying.
When someone lies like that about such a basic fact,
An incriminating fact, we were thinking,
This is the other person who committed
The robbery with sean.
- Coming up...
- We determine he's making telephone calls
On his way down south.
We found proceeds from the robbery,
Including some marijuana, but we missed him
By literally minutes.
- We thought he might never be caught.
And that was so debilitating.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
[sirens wailing]
- While searching for salley at his residence,
Detectives noticed his roommate,
Dwayne, seems to match the second man
In the security video.
After he caught in an incriminating lie,
We believe we might have our second shooter.
♪ ♪
- He was questioned about his whereabouts on that day.
♪ ♪
And he said he was refereeing a basketball game
At a local school.
We talked to the people at that school.
And, sure enough, they accounted for his alibi.
We weren't expecting that.
But then we go back over his alibi.
The timestamp on the videotape indicated when
The two entered the apartment.
And we determined when his game ended,
Dwayne might have been able to get into manhattan
To conduct these murders.
- So that was good enough to pique our interest.
♪ ♪
Still doesn't mean it's the shooter, right?
Witness statements, confessions,
Forensic evidence-- that's locking somebody in.
And he's not locked in in my opinion.
- Detectives pressed dwayne for information
About where salley went after leaving his house,
But he insists he does not know.
The interrogation gets us nowhere.
And we can't arrest dwayne without a stronger
Connection to the murders.
But if he's released, dwayne could tip off salley or flee.
- He also admitted that he'd been in manhattan.
Because he was on parole in new jersey,
He had to have permission to cross state lines.
So his parole officer asked the detectives to detain him.
♪ ♪
- We now have dwayne on ice.
And then detectives canvassing the area around sean salley's
Residence questioned a teenage neighbor who says
She knows him and his friends.
♪ ♪
- She volunteered to come back
To the midtown north squad with us.
♪ ♪
And we showed her the video.
She just matter-of-factly pointed at the video.
She said, "that's sean.
And that's dre."
♪ ♪
- It's not the name we were expecting to hear,
But it sounds familiar.
- One of the detectives remembered
Seeing the name dre in dwayne's wallet
At midtown north station.
He went back and ran that phone number and the name
Andre smith.
- When parrino hears that name,
He's sure he's seen it before.
- We look back at the parking violations.
And we see that there was a car that was summoned
Around the time of the crime that
Was registered to andre smith.
That's a major victory.
That puts him in the vicinity of the carnegie deli
The night of the homicide.
♪ ♪
- When detectives run a background check,
They discover andre smith has a history of robbery
And weapons charges.
Parrino goes to the address listed on andre smith's car
Registration located only three miles from sean salley's
New jersey residence.
- We visited him on Friday.
We've been working this case now for eight days.
Andre's girlfriend was there, but we did not make
Any contact with andre smith.
We said, "could you have andre call us?
We'd like to talk to him."
♪ ♪
We're looking to see what happens.
Like if he runs, that would be a good indication, too.
But giving a call and coming in was not something I expected.
♪ ♪
He came in voluntarily.
It was like two days later.
- We went in.
And we started talking to andre smith.
♪ ♪
The guy's denying he was there, denying he was in the area,
Denying knowing sean salley.
♪ ♪
Well, tell me, where were you?
Give me an alibi.
Andre didn't really want to give anything.
♪ ♪
People are usually passionate. And they show emotion.
They're full of angst,
Because they want to clear their name.
♪ ♪
This guy, you'd have to check him for a pulse.
He was flatlined...
♪ ♪
Not worried, not sweating, nothing.
♪ ♪
- We showed him the crime scene photos, the still photos
From the video that were made.
We showed him everything.
The guy's denying it's him, just deny, deny, deny.
That's what he did.
- While you're gathering information from him,
You're trying to connect dots and other information outside.
- We obtained these criminal records, fingerprints,
Things like that.
There was another palm print from one
Of the pieces of duct tape taken from the scene that
Didn't belong to sean salley.
♪ ♪
Those fingerprints, when they came back, they make a match.
That's a great thing.
Then you got the right guy.
♪ ♪
- But in the interrogation room,
Andre is still saying nothing.
Detective irma rivera says, "would you mind if I just
Went in and talked to him?"
I'm like, "irma, please go in there and give it a crack."
♪ ♪
- I went in, and I sat down with him.
♪ ♪
I just said to him, "you remind me of my brother.
"and if you were my brother, I would tell him to be honest,
You know, rather than lie."
- She's leaning across the table
And speaking to him closely.
And all of a sudden, his eyes come up.
And he's listening to her and paying attention.
So he's engaged.
I was like, "eureka.
He has a pulse."
- I told him, "sean salley's going to say that you're
"the one who did the shootings.
So it's best that we hear your story first."
And I think he just trusted me.
♪ ♪
And then he said, "ok."
- And then andre said, "I didn't want this to happen.
He messed up."
I said, "who messed up?"
And he said, "the other guy, sean.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to go down."
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
[dramatic music]
- The man we believe was salley's accomplice,
Andre smith, claims he doesn't even know him.
But nearly 24 hours after voluntarily
Walking into the midtown north precinct,
Andre is finally talking.
♪ ♪
- I spoke to him about his baby.
He was telling me how he didn't have enough money
For diapers or for milk.
♪ ♪
- Irma is fantastic at doing interviews.
She was able to kind of touch his emotions.
- We switched.
And mcneely went back in.
And then he just started talking to him.
♪ ♪
- And he was unemployed, and he didn't have money.
And sean came to him and said, "hey,
"I got a place in midtown, like a hippie chick.
"and there's money and weed there.
"you know, we can kind of do that place
And come into some money."
♪ ♪
- On the evening of may 10th, andre smith and sean salley
Drive into midtown manhattan with a plan
To rob jennifer stahl.
- Andre told me initially he went into the music studio
With jennifer to retrieve the marijuana.
Sean started to duct tape everybody.
He wasn't doing it fast enough,
So andre came out, gave him the gun, and they switched roles.
Andre started duct-taping the rest of the victims.
♪ ♪
- And when he got to rosemond,
Andre said he heard a shot go off.
[gunshot]
Andre said to him, "what did you do?
Why did you shoot her?"
- Sean said, "she knows me."
And then andre saw sean salley was standing over the victims
Shooting them in the back of the head.
[gunshots]
And then they ultimately retreated back to newark
And then went their separate ways.
♪ ♪
- Andre claims he never saw or spoke with sean salley
Again after returning to newark that night.
With andre smith in custody, finding sean salley becomes
Our number one priority.
♪ ♪
- From sean salley's résumé, we were able to discover really
Just about everybody he knew.
And so we asked them, "if he calls you, please contact us."
♪ ♪
It was five weeks later when
Someone who was a friend of his called us and said,
"he called me and wants me to wire money."
- From his friend's number, we traced
It back to a calling card.
- And we determined he's making telephone calls
From pay phones on his way from new york
Down south to new orleans.
♪ ♪
- Detectives discover that salley
Is still making calls on the card from a local motel.
[sirens wailing]
- It looked like salley had abandoned that motel.
We found in that motel proceeds from the robbery,
Including some marijuana and his belongings
And identification.
It was clear that we missed him by literally minutes.
He left in a hurry.
He left everything there.
And we knew that he knew we were looking for him.
♪ ♪
He ceased using the phone card.
And we had no live leads.
So we did what we often did in these cases,
Which was pitch the story to "america's most wanted."
♪ ♪
- On July 14, 2001, the carnegie deli
Murder story airs nationwide.
And the response is immediate.
- A tip came in within an hour, maybe even less,
Saying sean salley was living in a shelter
In miami-dade county, florida.
♪ ♪
- Miami-dade police department send detectives
To this homeless shelter.
And shortly thereafter,
Sean salley walked through the door.
♪ ♪
- And finally, he was arrested.
♪ ♪
- We thought he might never be caught.
And that was so debilitating.
So when we learned sean salley was arrested,
There was collective relief.
♪ ♪
- Ada steven nuzzi flies to miami to interrogate him.
- He admitted participating in the robbery.
He said he didn't mean to, but he accidentally
Shot jennifer stahl but claimed that andre smith
Shot the other individuals.
He described how he met andre smith.
He at first went to dwayne looking for a partner
To do this robbery with.
Dwayne couldn't do it but said, "I have a friend named dre.
I'll hook you up with him."
♪ ♪
Sean salley and andre smith both were charged with murder
In the second degree for the three murders,
Attempted murder in the second degree for the two survivors,
And then weapons and underlying robbery charge as well.
- On June 18, 2002, both defendants
Are convicted on all counts.
But for the victims' family and friends,
The verdicts provide little consolation.
- Leaving stephen king's daughter without a father,
Taking away rosemond's boyfriend, trey--
Who was he to make that decision?
- I remember andre standing up and looking us in the eye
And apologizing.
Sean salley never did.
- Sean salley and andre smith are
Each sentenced to 120 years to life for the murders
And attempted murders.
- She still had years ahead.
Who knows what she would have done?
Who knows what she would have created?
[light guitar music]
- Now when I come across "dirty dancing"
On some channel,
It's just like a little visit from jen.
♪ ♪