♪
NARRATOR: 2013. Brooklyn, New York.
♪
Fourteen-year-old Shaniesha Forbes is given her first real taste of freedom,
a cell phone.
- The phone was a form of keeping track and to ensure her safety.
NARRATOR: Which is why everyone is shocked
when Shaniesha vanishes without a trace.
- I was messaging her through Facebook and getting no response.
SANDRA PRICE: My baby is out there.
She's only 14 and she's not home.
NARRATOR: Then, the unthinkable...
♪
...she's found dead under mysterious circumstances.
- She had no bullet wounds, she had no stab wounds.
She had no defensive wounds on her hands or anything like that.
NARRATOR: Who would wanna hurt Shaniesha?
- Anyone technically could have been a suspect.
♪
NARRATOR: But what no one knows is that her phone,
which helped her find a little bit of freedom,
will also help catch her killer.
- That phone ultimately solved her murder.
♪
♪ theme music playing ♪
MAN 1: She solved her own murder
from beyond the grave.
MAN 2: The fitness app on the phone,
it was overwhelming evidence.
♪ I've been haunted by the visions ♪
♪ That I've seen with my own eyes ♪
♪ And the only way to find you ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪
♪
MAN: She did help catch this killer.
♪
NARRATOR: On the first Sunday of January 2013...
[siren wailing]
...investigators are called to a gruesome scene
in Brooklyn, New York.
- A, B common marker. Take one.
♪
DETECTIVE JAMES NORMILE: My name's retired Detective James Normile.
This is a basic time line.
♪
On January 6, 2013, a dead body was discovered
by someone walking on Gerritsen Beach.
♪
[siren wailing]
NARRATOR: The victim is a very young African-American girl
concealed in garbage bags.
♪
Her identity is a mystery.
[helicopter blades whirring]
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Detective Luis Sanchez
from the 63rd Precinct
was assigned to the investigation,
and I was assigned to the case as well.
♪
She was partially clothed.
She had some burn marks on her face,
her hands, her breasts, her vagina.
♪
NARRATOR: Investigators find the remnants
of a beach party,
an extinguished fire and empty beer cans.
Could this be connected to the body?
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: She had no bullet wounds,
she had no stab wounds.
She had no defensive wounds on her hands or anything like that.
So we were wondering, was it some sort of an accident
or something that went bad
that was never reported to the police out of fear
'cause teenagers don't wanna get in trouble.
♪
NARRATOR: Maybe the young girl
had one too many beers...
♪
...she fell into the fire...
♪
...and sought relief in the water.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: In terms of evidence,
We were involved in checking cans for fingerprints and stuff.
They had located a receipt from a liquor store.
Fairly new. Didn't appear to be laying out there long.
NARRATOR: Nearby detectives also find
a pair of Uggs, a type of boot.
- At the time there was a number of missing cases in New York City
that fell under the same height, weight, build.
NARRATOR: But investigators don't know
who this young girl is yet.
[tape rewinding]
♪
Two days earlier, Brooklyn teenager Shaniesha Forbes
hops on a bus to her high school.
She can't wait to show off her brand-new cell phone.
And Shaniesha's mother Sandra Price
knows just how much that phone meant to her.
SANDRA PRICE: When Shaniesha got her iPhone,
she was very excited.
She was screaming and jumping around.
♪ It feels so good, like you said ♪
♪
- KERRI-ANN THOMAS: I'm Kerri-Ann T. Thomas.
Shaniesha is my cousin.
She got that phone for Christmas as a tracking device.
The phone was a form of keeping track and to ensure her safety.
♪
SANDRA: On January 4th, 2013,
on her way to school,
I texted her,
"Are you on the bus now?"
She would say, "Yes, I'm on the bus."
NARRATOR: It's the last text Shaniesha's mother
will ever receive from her daughter.
♪
That evening, Shaniesha doesn't come home from school.
[line rings]
- We all tried to call her and we didn't hear anything.
We didn't get a response.
[keypad clacking]
KERRI-ANN: At the time,
I'm thinking she's at a friend's house.
She is gonna show up.
NARRATOR: But when Shaniesha's mom
contacts her school,
she's given some disturbing news.
Her daughter didn't attend classes that day.
♪
- So that's when we started getting real worried.
♪
Seven o'clock at night I called her uncle
and he said, "Call 9-1-1," which I did.
[line rings]
I told them that my baby's out there...
[siren wailing]
...and I told them her age.
She's only 14 and she's not home.
And that's when they told me they don't go out
and look for anyone until after 24 hours.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: "On January 4th, 2013,
"Shaniesha Forbes' mother Sandra Price calls 9-1-1,
"but is told that she must wait 24 hours before a report
can be filed for a missing person."
♪
KERRI-ANN: A 14-year-old girl
did not show up to school,
did not show up at home,
and law enforcement is telling the family that they have to wait to report it.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: A lot of missing person cases
are also teenagers that are missing.
Most of them get cleared up by themselves within a day or two.
Some involve knocking on a couple of doors and find out
that someone's son or daughter is now staying with a friend
'cause they just chose not to go home.
♪
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Shaniesha
decided to take off without telling her mother?
Her loved ones don't believe it.
That's not the girl they know.
♪
SANDRA: She's very trustworthy.
Very, very trustworthy.
We were very close.
♪
- She loved her mom.
♪ Pick up your feet, child ♪
NARRATOR: That night, Shaniesha's family
desperately search for her.
♪ World knows no peace, child ♪
SANDRA: I was with my oldest daughter
driving around in the area.
♪
I don't wanna think the worse.
So I was just looking for her...
♪
...hoping that I will see her.
♪
NARRATOR: The next morning,
the family continues their hunt.
♪
Until finally, 24 hours after Shaniesha's mom reports her missing,
the police get involved.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Detective Callow was assigned
to the missing person investigation
and began to speak to the family.
He had gotten Shaniesha's phone number, very important,
and he submitted the paperwork, subpoenas and such,
to her cell phone provider
to start getting us her call detail records
so we could see who she spoke with or who she was texting.
♪
Unfortunately, phone records don't come very quick.
♪
NARRATOR: And in a case like this,
without Shaniesha's phone records,
detectives don't have much to go on.
♪
[siren wailing]
♪
SANDRA: Police started looking around...
[indistinct radio chatter]
...going by Shaniesha friends' houses...
♪
...searching on social media
to see who she last contacted.
♪
NARRATOR: When she Shaniesha's sisters
check her Facebook page,
they make an important discovery.
♪
On the morning she disappeared, Shaniesha had posted
that she was meeting an unnamed male friend for a movie.
♪
KERRI-ANN: That meant that she went
to the movie theaters the day that she went missing,
at least based off of the Facebook posts.
♪
NARRATOR: Shaniesha had 1,200 Facebook friends.
♪
Was this mysterious "him" one of them?
♪
The investigation into Shaniesha's disappearance continues
until Monday, January 7th,
three days after she first goes missing.
♪
When detectives show up at Sandra Price's front door...
DETECTIVE NORMILE: There was a number of
missing cases in Brooklyn
and one in Queens,
so it potentially could have been them.
We went and spoke to those families as well.
But just based on some of the clothing,
we believe that it was Shaniesha Forbes.
♪
SANDRA: Officer Sanchez and Officer Normile
came with photos of,
they said a young lady that was found
and if we can identify to see if
that's my baby or not.
♪
And my daughter screamed out
and she started crying.
She break down and I was in shock
when I look at her picture.
♪
♪ Many places ♪
♪ Many things we like to run from ♪
♪ We want to run ♪
SHAY FORBES: We knew it was her.
Even though it was, you know, she was disfigured.
♪
KERRI-ANN: She borrowed her mom's Ugg boots
to wear to school that day,
and it was those Ugg boots that was found...
[siren wailing]
...on the beach.
♪
You know when you're a little girl and you, like, put on your mom's shoes?
She did that as a little girl and, um,
and she did that her last day on this Earth as well.
♪
SHAY: We were definitely in shock
and just wondering, like,
who would do such a terrible thing to a 14-year-old?
Just-- It's horrible.
♪
NARRATOR: A 14-year-old
transfixed by her brand-new cell phone
and her most prized possession
was tracking her every move
the day she was murdered.
♪
♪ Many places ♪
♪ Many things we like to run from ♪
♪ We want to run ♪
NARRATOR: Family members just identified
the burned body found on Brooklyn's Gerritsen Beach
as missing 14-year-old Shaniesha Forbes.
♪
- My sisters and my mother,
we were all extremely traumatized.
♪
KERRI-ANN: She's 14.
[voice breaking] She's a child, she's a baby.
I just-- I couldn't believe it.
I was so sure she was gonna come back home.
♪
- At that time it was like the world was coming close to an end.
I was, like, shut down.
♪
- It's tough to tell anyone that a loved one is dead,
let alone a child.
♪
NARRATOR: Especially this child.
♪
[laughter echoes]
SANDRA: She's a very loving person,
very caring and very funny most of the time.
♪
KERRI-ANN: Shaniesha loved to dance.
She was really good at it.
She would make videos.
Practicing dance moves from the different music videos that was out.
She literally would, like, light up a room.
♪
NARRATOR: As the family grapples
with their unspeakable loss,
investigators search for clues.
But there's a problem.
♪
During the autopsy, the medical examiner has a difficult time
determining the cause of death.
- She had no water in her lungs,
nothing to indicate that she was a victim of a drowning.
♪
And she had burns on her face,
hands, breasts and vagina.
♪
We come to find the burns themselves are all appear to be postmortem.
If someone dies in the fire, there's indications inside your system.
She had none of that. So we knew she wasn't in a fire.
♪
At that point, we started looking at it
as more of a homicide as opposed to maybe a tragedy.
♪
NARRATOR: But it will take a battery of time-consuming tests
for the medical examiner
to officially rule the death a homicide.
♪
[indistinct radio chatter]
In the meantime, investigators have questions.
♪
Why was her body burned after she died?
♪
Was it to conceal her identity?
♪
And where was Shaniesha the day she went missing?
♪
NEWSCASTER: Her body was found in Gerritsen Beach,
four miles from her home.
She was found naked, burned and partially buried in sand.
♪
NARRATOR: While they wait for Shaniesha's phone records...
♪
...Investigators Normile and Sanchez
focus on who she might have been with the day she vanished.
♪
Was it the "him" she mentioned in her Facebook post?
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: She was very active in social media.
So we began to go through that, piecemeal, looking at it.
You gotta put a name to a face and go out
and find them to interview them.
♪
NARRATOR: With Shaniesha's 1,200 Facebook friends,
it's a tedious and lengthy process.
♪ I'll follow your lead ♪
♪ I'll follow you down, down, down ♪
And the family feels that investigators aren't moving fast enough.
[siren wailing]
SHAY: We weren't receiving a lot of information
from the police officers,
so we decided to see if we can find something.
[keyboard keys clacking]
♪
NARRATOR: They begin with Shaniesha's Facebook post
about going to the movies.
KERRI-ANN: The movie theater that Shaniesha goes to
is near her high school.
SANDRA: We went there.
We try to get the guy that's in charge of the cameras...
♪
...to show us an image if she was there or not.
♪
NARRATOR: Unfortunately, they're too late.
After seven days, the tapes are erased.
- [voice breaking] They said, "If you came yesterday,
you would have saw the footage from the date that you're asking for."
And we're like, "Did the cops come?"
♪
And they said that they never came.
♪
It was like a no-brainer to go there.
We were very frustrated because we were a day late
from being able to see who she was with.
♪
- Someone has to go to jail for this.
Someone out there knows what happened.
They knew that she was going to that movie theater with some guy.
♪
KERRI-ANN: We immediately put up flyers.
♪
Thousands of flyers.
♪
We got the community to come out.
We lit candles, there were posters.
♪
I immediately called connections in media.
The goal was to push this story out
so that we can gather as much information as possible.
♪
Every single person that lived in New York
was going to know her name, Shaniesha Forbes.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: In an investigation like this
or in any case, there's a lot of bases that have to be covered.
It was pretty laborious.
♪
NARRATOR: Investigators follow up
on a piece of evidence
found near Shaniesha's body.
The receipt from the liquor store.
♪
It's dated January 5th,
the day before Shaniesha's body is found.
DETECTIVE NORMILE: We went to a liquor store
that the receipt was from.
The manager provided some video of a person
that was in there buying liquor.
Didn't know the gentleman, but the liquor store
provided us with the actual full credit card number.
And we went on to subpoena the records for that credit card.
NARRATOR: The man is described
as Indian or Middle Eastern, in his 30s.
♪
Could this be Shaniesha's killer?
♪
Investigators are also trying to locate possible witnesses
or suspects from among Shaniesha's Facebook friends.
- There was teenagers, teenage boys that we talked to.
[ringing]
In terms of volume, it was a lot of work.
♪
A lot of these kids didn't realize that she was deceased.
♪
NARRATOR: In a sea of interviews,
detectives eventually track down Jonathan Ho,
and he actually knows something that could be important.
♪
JONATHAN HO: My name is Jonathan Ho,
and I was a friend of Shaniesha Forbes.
♪
Detectives came to my place.
They started asking questions because I know Shaniesha Forbes,
and she had just passed.
She had so much genuine personality
that I clicked with her.
♪
I just remember her telling me that she was bullied a couple times.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: During the course of the investigation,
we became aware that Shaniesha Forbes was a victim of bullying,
in person and through social media and the Internet.
- I told them she did tell me that someone wanted to come beat her up
for no apparent reason.
♪
[chimes]
♪ Who decides ♪
♪ Who holds the knife ♪
- Her classmates and people on social media were mocking her
because she looked different.
She wore her hair different, she wore her clothing different.
And for whatever reason, this bothered certain people
and at some point they were threatening her.
NARRATOR: Shaniesha's family is aware
of the torment she endured.
♪
And it was cursing her out and threaten her.
They have knives, they have sticks.
♪
...by arranging with the school to pick her up...
♪
...before dismissal time
so nobody could really jump her, hurt her.
And this was an everyday thing.
NARRATOR: But on the day she went missing,
Shaniesha never did make it to school.
Is it possible that the bullying got so extreme
that it escalated to murder?
- When I found out that Shaniesha died,
in all honesty, I thought she was bullied
and someone actually killed her off.
♪
NARRATOR: Then Jonathan provides police
with another piece of the puzzle.
Something that takes the investigation
in a whole new direction.
♪
- I saw her a couple days before she passed.
♪
Shaniesha and I were having a conversation,
and then
Shaniesha told me that she thought she was pregnant.
♪
Shaniesha's reaction was that she was kinda scared.
♪
She was nervous,
but she wanted to keep the child.
♪
NARRATOR: Does this have anything to do
with Shaniesha's death?
There's one thing that could help answer every question.
Shaniesha's phone records.
♪
In a stunning revelation,
detectives learned that 14-year-old Shaniesha Forbes
believed she was pregnant.
♪
With this new piece of information,
Investigators check back with the medical examiner.
♪
♪ Searching for a bloodline ♪
♪ Bloodline, bloodline ♪
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: The medical examiner
was extremely thorough.
We knew that Shaniesha was not pregnant.
That was determined immediately at the autopsy.
NARRATOR: Still, if Shaniesha thought
she was pregnant,
who was the father?
♪ Bloodline, bloodline ♪
And what about the bullying?
♪
Normile and Sanchez turn their attention back
to Shaniesha's Facebook page
and to her classmates.
- Their explanation was they were teenagers being teenagers.
♪
It's easy to bully someone through the Internet or over a phone.
♪
Everyone just chimes in because there's no ramifications to it.
So we were coming up with nothing substantial
in terms of anyone interviewed raising the hair on the back of your neck,
that, "You know what? Something's wrong here."
♪
NARRATOR: A week after finding Shaniesha's body,
investigators receive her phone records.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: We start going through the vast phone records
to try to establish a time line when her phone stopped
and who she was speaking with.
♪
NARRATOR: They focus on the morning
Shaniesha vanished.
Friday, January 4th.
KERRI-ANN: We found out that
when Shaniesha took the bus,
her phone came on the cell phone towers
and it's giving you a time line that she's headed towards Flatbush.
NARRATOR: Flatbush, Brooklyn
is in the opposite direction of Shaniesha's school.
Where was she going?
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Around ten or eleven o'clock in the morning,
her phone stopped making outgoing phone calls.
Texts were coming in and calls were coming in.
But at that point, there was no more calls going out.
So we knew somewhere around Friday morning she was killed in Flatbush.
[line ringing]
NARRATOR: One of the calls Shaniesha made
in the days before her murder may be significant.
[ringing]
- There's a phone call on her phone records
where you can see she called a number
that was basically a pregnancy testing place.
It was a medical office.
NARRATOR: The medical office has no record
of Shaniesha having an appointment,
but her call seems to confirm
that she at least suspected she might be pregnant.
♪
Normile and Sanchez also key in
on a number Shaniesha called the morning she disappeared.
♪
It's traced to a teenage boy
in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
So, they pay him a visit.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: He said on the morning of January 4th, 2013
he had stayed home from school that day
with the intent of going to meet her on a date.
♪
NARRATOR: Is this the person
Shaniesha posted about on Facebook?
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: He did not hear from her.
And then when she finally contacted him that morning,
he was like, "Oh, I thought we were gonna get together,"
and she was giggling about her answers.
And he felt like someone else was in the background.
"I just had that feeling."
So he says, "Listen, I'm done with this,"
and he hung up on her.
♪
Kinda like maybe a spurned boyfriend.
He deleted her from the phone and deleted her from Facebook.
♪
NARRATOR: The boy claims they didn't have plans
to go to the movies that day,
but investigators still need to figure out
where he was the morning Shaniesha went missing.
- Of course, there's a potential it could have been him.
♪
NARRATOR: While they run a background check,
detectives follow up on another lead.
They finally get the credit card information
for the liquor store receipt found near Shaniesha's body.
That's how they're able to identify the man
in the grainy surveillance video.
DETECTIVE NORMILE: The gentleman who had that receipt
was with some friends prior in the day.
and they were looking to hang out and drink and smoke weed.
♪
NARRATOR: The man and his friends
ended up at Gerritsen Beach.
DETECTIVE NORMILE: He said they were just sitting in the car
and the receipt fell out of the car and they had left.
♪
So there is no indications at that point
that they were involved in this,
although they weren't ruled out.
♪
NARRATOR: What about the teenage boy
from Crown Heights?
DETECTIVE NORMILE: We followed up on stuff in his life,
his building had surveillance cameras
and we were able to rule him out.
But it gave us now the feeling that when he spoke to her,
she was with someone.
There's the big question mark. Who was she with that morning?
♪
♪ Far from home ♪
NARRATOR: It's a question with no answer.
Despite their efforts,
there appears to be little movement in the investigation.
There's no cause of death.
No prime suspect.
- [voice breaking] It was just weeks passing by,
weeks passing by and still nothing.
Like... everyone asking you,
"Do y'all know anything? Do you know anything?"
And it's like, "No."
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: When you deal with the family,
sometimes they become unhappy with you because
there's stuff you don't want them to know,
out of decency.
And there's a possibility it could be a family member,
so you hold a lot of stuff back.
[ringing]
KERRI-ANN: He said, "There is things that's happening
"I cannot tell you,
"but know that we are on top of it.
Like, I just can't tell you."
And like I'm now faced in a position where I have to trust law enforcement,
that time and time again has shown up historically
to have disappointed the African-American community.
♪
NARRATOR: Finally, on May 2nd,
four months after the murder,
the medical examiner comes forward with the news
everyone is waiting for... and dreading.
- It took some time to come to an official homicide ruling
by the King's County Medical Examiner's Office.
♪
Unlike TV, where you'll see something will happen within a day,
toxicology has to be done.
There was a lot of testing done on Shaniesha
to come to the final determination of the cause of death,
which, in his case was homicidal asphyxia.
♪
When someone in an act of violence
manually smothers or strangles someone.
♪
NEWSCASTER: This latest discovery
is shocking to the teen's family.
They wanna know who could be so cruel to suffocate a 14-year-old girl?
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Smothering someone, that's personal.
It takes a lot of strength and a lot of disregard for a human
to be able to hold something over someone's face till they die.
♪
Rage, yes.
A lot of rage with that.
♪
- When we found out that Shaniesha was suffocated,
we're like, "It's someone that knows her."
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: We subpoenaed dozens of numbers
for this investigation.
♪
We would take those numbers and we'd go through police reports,
any prior contacts,
Internet databases, to try to put names to faces.
♪
What led us to the suspect at first was the phone records.
♪
The phone that he was using
was in contact with Shaniesha multiple times
and they all stopped on the morning of January 4th.
♪
NARRATOR: Then, ten days after the medical examiner
releases her report,
Shaniesha's family members receive a cryptic message
from lead investigator Sanchez.
♪
- He said, "If you can leave work, leave now and head to the house,
I'm gonna meet you guys there."
♪
NARRATOR: What they're about to learn...
♪
...is horrific.
♪
More than four months after the body of Shaniesha Forbes
washed up on a Brooklyn beach,
NYPD detectives finally have news for her family,
and the news is shocking.
♪ Healthy hearts hit the grounds ♪
KERRI-ANN: Sanchez met us there and he sat us down.
♪ I never saw you till now ♪
He shared, "We found him."
♪
It was a lot... to process.
Um--
♪
♪ I never saw you till now ♪
♪
NARRATOR: The detectives explain to the family
how they identified the suspect.
♪
KERRI-ANN: They walked us through
the time line of events,
and one of the driving factors was her cell phone.
NARRATOR: The cell phone that Shaniesha treasured.
- We found that between December 26th, 2012,
and January 4th, 2013,
Shaniesha Forbes had exchanged numerous texts and calls
with a number which was a MetroPCS phone.
♪
KERRI-ANN: And she's texting that number
constantly over and over again.
That number was the last number to be in contact with Shaniesha.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: I believe 100 and something text messages,
multiple phone calls.
And they all stopped on the morning of January 4th.
♪
NARRATOR: Investigators suspect
the calls and texts stopped
because Shaniesha was already dead.
♪
- We were able to determine from the records
that that phone was paid for by a credit card.
♪
That led us to out in Long Island further out east
to the sister of a gentleman identified as Christian Ferdinand.
♪
She said that she paid his phone bill and that he was a student
and kind of a work school program up in Maine.
♪
We said, "Listen, could you have him give us a call,
we'd like to speak to him about this girl."
And she said, "No problem."
♪
He never called us back.
♪
So we began to research Christian Ferdinand.
[line rings]
NARRATOR: It's quickly revealed
that Christian Ferdinand
has roots in the Flatbush area.
- Christian Ferdinand went to the same high school that I went to
and I had no idea he had any connection with my sister.
♪
NARRATOR: Normile asks the state troopers in Maine
to obtain attendance records from Christian's work program.
DETECTIVE NORMILE: It was discovered that he had been away
from the facility from December 21st to January 8th
due to Christmas break,
which put him perfectly within the time frame for the murder.
♪
NARRATOR: Detectives can also prove
Shaniesha and Ferdinand were in the same neighborhood
the morning she was killed.
- We had served the phone providers with a court order,
giving us cell site locations.
So basically, as you're moving with your phone,
all those cell towers you see in every neighborhood,
your phone's bouncing from tower to tower.
♪
The further you go, it's gonna switch to the next tower.
♪
KERRI-ANN: That last ping and the cell phone tower
that it pinged off of was...
♪
...in Flatbush.
♪
- So we were able actually to follow Shaniesha Forbes' phone
to the area...
♪
...of where we learned Christian Ferdinand was staying
and we were able to place his phone there, too.
♪
KERRI-ANN: That was his cousin.
That was her house in Flatbush,
where he would stay whenever he would come to Brooklyn.
NARRATOR: Ferdinand's cousin's house
is just two and a half miles
from where Shaniesha's body was found.
♪
With this intel, on May 13th,
detectives travel to Northern Maine
to question Ferdinand.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: When we first saw Christian,
he was, just kinda seemed easygoing.
♪
Kinda lanky,
laid back, calm,
didn't get nervous when he first saw us.
Detective Sanchez asked if he was hungry or thirsty.
♪
He asked for something to drink.
♪
Detective Sanchez bought him a bottle of Coke...
♪
...and we told him that we were there investigating a missing persons case.
♪
And we mentioned Shaniesha Forbes.
He said he didn't know who that was.
♪
NARRATOR: They show Ferdinand a memorial card
from Shaniesha's funeral featuring her photo.
DETECTIVE NORMILE: And he goes, "Oh, I know her.
"Yeah, I met her once or twice,
but I didn't really know her like that."
♪
At that point, we knew based on the phone records
that not to be true.
Now we knew this was gonna become an interrogation.
So we read him his Miranda rights
and he agreed to speak with us further.
♪
NARRATOR: Ferdinand claims that he met up
with Shaniesha once or twice in a Brooklyn park.
♪
But that's all.
♪
- And then we started to go at him with some of the facts that we had.
"Well, did you ever call her?" "No."
"Well, that's not true.
"You called her a bunch of times. You texted her a bunch of times.
♪
"I could put your phones within a block of each other,
and then her phone stops."
♪
And he just kinda put his head down and...
♪
...he looked at Detective Sanchez and myself and he says,
"You know what?
♪
"You guys have been pretty good to me.
You bought me a soda, so I'm gonna tell you what happened."
♪
And then he started to go into what happened
to Shaniesha Forbes and what led to her death.
♪
- Christian Ferdinand described exactly what he did.
♪
It's disgusting.
♪
NARRATOR: For the family of 14-year-old Shaniesha Forbes,
there is some measure of relief
knowing the police have a suspect in her murder.
♪
But the details of how and why
20-year-old Christian Ferdinand took Shaniesha's life...
♪
...they're devastating.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: In his confession, Ferdinand stated,
"Yeah, I knew her and I met her over social media,"
and they had a sexual relationship.
♪
KERRI-ANN: We heard in his confession
that Shaniesha told him she was 16.
You met her on Facebook.
Her Facebook has her accurate birthday.
♪
You knew she was 14. You knew she was a child.
And even if you thought otherwise, it's still nasty.
♪
[voice breaking] It is rape.
It's rape.
♪
[clicks tongue]
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Ferdinand claimed
that on January 4th, 2013,
he met Shaniesha at his cousin's house in Brooklyn,
where the two apparently got into an altercation.
Shaniesha believed she was pregnant and told him,
"You're gonna be the dad
and we're gonna kinda live happily ever after."
And he told her, "No, get rid of that shit."
That's how he referred to it.
"Get rid of that shit."
And she said, "No, I'm not gonna get rid of it."
♪
He became enraged
and he took one of the pillows from the couch...
[screams]
♪
...and he placed it over her head and he began to smother her...
♪
...till she stopped moving.
♪
- That's why he did it.
Because he didn't want a child.
♪
- We did tell him that she wasn't pregnant.
And he goes, "Oh, well, she told me she was."
♪
He made the decision to put her in a suitcase.
♪
He called a cab.
He had the cab take him down to the end of Gerritsen Beach.
♪
He had dragged her into the beach.
♪
He used body spray and a lighter as a makeshift torch to burn her
to get rid of any potential DNA.
♪
He's an animal.
♪
KERRI-ANN: He was hoping, based off his confession...
♪
...placing her in the ocean, that she would drift off.
♪
And she came back.
♪ You may think you're strong ♪
Body burned, naked.
Her mom's Ugg boots.
♪ You won't know the truth ♪
♪ Until the end ♪
♪ Go ♪
♪
NARRATOR: Ferdinand writes out
his confession in longhand.
Then he's arrested for the murder of Shaniesha Forbes.
♪
NEWSCASTER: Law enforcement sources say
Ferdinand confessed to a brutal crime.
- You feel grateful.
You're just glad that someone is going to be held responsible
for this horrible act.
- Put him away for life.
[voice breaking] That's-- That's what I think he deserves.
He did it to my daughter, but he also did it to me.
It's like you take a part of me.
♪
NARRATOR: Before he goes on trial,
Ferdinand is housed in New York's Rikers Island jail.
♪
Authorities soon learn
that Christian Ferdinand lied about one key detail in his confession.
♪
He did not completely act alone.
♪
[horn blowing]
DETECTIVE NORMILE: We became aware of a gentleman
that provided information from Rikers Island,
Christian's cell mate.
He told me that Christian and his friend Luis,
he called Luis, and Luis' family has a restaurant,
and they have a van for the restaurant.
And Luis helped them get rid of the body.
♪
We were able to identify Luis
as Luis Manon.
♪
NARRATOR: Investigators bring in
the 23-year-old for questioning.
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Manon denied assisting the killer...
♪
...but we told him the experts matched his fingerprints
to the garbage bags used to cover Forbes.
♪
Luis then informed us that, yes,
Christian asked if he could help him with the van,
and then Christian Ferdinand elaborated how he had killed someone.
♪
- They put her in a garbage bag first
and then they fold her up in the suitcase...
♪
...and they bring her down the stairs.
♪
Luis, you are dragging her down steps.
♪
Every single step...
♪
...you could have said...
♪
"...No, I will not help you do this."
♪
NARRATOR: Manon then drove the van
to Gerritsen Beach...
♪
...where he and Ferdinand burned the body...
♪
...and tossed it in the tide.
♪
KERRI-ANN: Let's be clear.
They are both monsters.
♪
You have one that committed the murder,
and then you had one that helped dispose of Shaniesha's body.
♪
That's, for us, that's killing her twice.
♪
He's a monster as well.
♪
NARRATOR: Luis Manon makes a plea deal
in exchange for his testimony.
♪
In November of 2014,
nearly two years after Shaniesha's death,
Christian Ferdinand goes on trial.
- Ferdinand's attorney told the judge today
that he didn't do it, but again, prosecutors say he confessed.
♪
NARRATOR: It takes the jury only one hour
to find Ferdinand guilty of second-degree murder
and tampering with evidence.
He's sentenced to 29 years to life in prison
and will be eligible for parole in 2039.
- Christian Ferdinand deserved more time than what he got.
♪
- He should never be able to walk the streets ever again.
♪
NARRATOR: Because he testified against Ferdinand,
Luis Manon receives a sentence of three months.
KERRI-ANN: Three months?
That's insane.
That's summer school.
♪
NARRATOR: It's a hard pill to swallow
for family and friends.
But had it not been for Shaniesha's cell phone,
her murder may have never been solved.
♪
KERRI-ANN: God works in mysterious ways.
♪
Shaniesha wanted that iPhone so badly,
and it was ultimately the thing
that allowed us to find out
how she... was murdered.
♪
NARRATOR: And it was what helped detectives
close a hard case.
♪
DETECTIVE NORMILE: Myself and Detective Sanchez
received an award for the work
we put into Shaniesha Forbes' investigation.
♪
[voice breaking] It gives your kids a chance to see, uh--
♪
It lets them see why you weren't home all the time.
♪
You gotta give me a minute.
♪
You can't save the world.
But I did my best to keep my little part safe.
♪
♪ Sing a song before the weary ♪
SHAY: What I miss most is her personality.
She was really funny,
but she was also really sweet.
♪
KERRI-ANN: Shaniesha mattered, her body mattered,
she mattered to so many in the community.
♪ So they never walk alone ♪
SANDRA: I wanted to remember her as a good person.
A loving sister
and daughter and granddaughter.
I miss her beautiful smile.
♪
♪ Sing a song for the helpless ♪
♪ So that they ♪
♪ May walk in the night ♪
♪
♪ I don't know where my head is lately ♪
♪ Have I lost my mind? ♪
♪
♪ But I know that I have a secret ♪
♪ And it's only mine ♪
♪
♪ And the only way to find me ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪
♪