Latest / Crime Night / The Bronx Soldier Murdered for Initiation

Transcript

The Bronx Soldier Murdered for Initiation · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I really want you to put yourself there for a second,
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: just step right into the scene. It's Friday night, April third,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight. You're standing in Saint Mary's Park in the.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: South Bronx, and you know, the air has that sharp
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: late winter chill to it, the kind that really bites
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: at your exposed hands. Ye, But the park itself, it
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: is just absolutely pulsing with life.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Right. There's this massive, totally chaotic party spilling out across
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the damp grass. The bass from the music is thumping
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: so hard it's literally echoing off the brick of the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: nearby apartment buildings.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. People are laughing, drinking, shouting over the noise, the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: whole vibe. And then right before ten pm, a single
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: gunshot cuts straight through that heavy base.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: And I mean the music doesn't even stop, but the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: crowd just instantly shatters.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It is pure, unfiltered pandemonium. People are scattering in every direction,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: running on pure adrenaline, trampling over whatever is in their path.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Right, someone said there was a green dirt bike that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: just tore down the sidewalk, the engine whining as it
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: peeled away from the chaos.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly, And by the time the EMTs and the NYPD
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: finally pushed through that panic crowd and breached the scene.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: The area near the basketball courts is completely abandoned, just
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: eerily quiet.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: And they're lying face down on the grass under this harsh,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: buzzing glow of the park lights. Is a young man, yeah.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And he's bleeding profusely. This dark, thick crimson is soaking
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: right through the fabric of his heavy black and yellow
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: striped starter jacket.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We pulled these specific files for you today because this case,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: while it breaks pretty much every assumption you might have
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: about how criminal investigations actually work, it really does.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, the sheer scale of the contradictions in those
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: early files is just staggering.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Our mission in this deep dive is to walk you
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: through the labyrinth of a twenty seven year old unsolved murder.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: It is a deeply unsettling.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Story defined by this impenetrable wall of community silence, a
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: terrifying case of mistaken identity, and this relentless quest for
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: justice that is honestly unfolding at this very moment.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Right because you have a public park packed with potential witnesses,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: yet the responding officers are met with absolute silence.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: And as we reconstruct the forensic and psychological layers of
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: this crime, you'll see how that collective silence didn't just
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: stall the investigation.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Now, it actively manipulated it. Right, It allowed literal monsters
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to hide in plain sight exactly.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And the violence on that grass is what stands out
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: immediately when the EMTs turn them over, they see this
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: isn't just a stray bullet from some reckless shooter.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It is deliberate, vicious overkill. I mean, looking at the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: autopsy photographs, it paints this chilling picture of intense localized rage.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The victim suffered one fatal gunshot wound to the
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: left side of his chest. The medical examiner recovered an
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: aluminum jacketed bullet, likely a nine millimeter or a point
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: three eight caliber, and it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Took a devastating path right piercing his heart, his left lung,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and his stomach.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: But the gun was only one part of the assault.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: He was also stabbed four separate times in the back
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: with a heavy blade driven leaf three inches deep into
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: muscle and bone.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Oh wow. And there was another deep stab wound on
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: his hip too.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And finally there was a horrific, purposeful slash across
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: his face and neck.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Hold on, I'm looking at the victim profile here and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: none of this lines up. They identify him as nineteen
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: year old Solomon Robinson. Right in the neighborhood, people called
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: him Solo or Juni.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Right, But Solomon is the furthest thing from street life.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: He wasn't in a gang. He didn't have a juvenile
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: record at all.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: He was actually an active duty soldier, a completely clean record.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He had just graduated high school and shipped off
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: to the Army the previous August, stationed down at Fort
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Benning in Georgia.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: The only reason he was even in the Bronx that
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: night was because he was home on leave for the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: first time since Thanksgiving.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And he was only home because his father was suffering
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: from severe health issues. His dad was having debilitating seizures,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: and Solomon came back to support his family.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: He was literally scheduled to return to base that following Monday.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: So you look at this horrific close quarters crime scene,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and you try to find.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: A motive, right, and the police are scouring the grass.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: They don't find a weapon, they don't find any shellcasings
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: They just find a black naked skull cap and a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: wristwatch abandoned nearby. But what really stops me is what
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the killers left on his body.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: The black and yellow starter jacket.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Right, because in the late nineties in the South, Bronx,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a heavy branded starter jacket was an incredibly high value item.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, they were massive status symbols, and consequently they
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: were the primary targets for violent street robberies. You could
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: easily flip one for cash.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Wait, so if they didn't take the jacket, this completely
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: throws out the robbery theory, and Solomon had no wallet
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: on him anyway.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly If this was a standard nineteen ninety eight Bronx
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: stick up, that jacket is the first thing stripped off
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: his back.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So why level this kind of extreme theatrical violence against
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: a visiting soldier if it wasn't for money or gang retaliation.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: That glaring inconsistency is what haunted the lead detective on
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: this case. And I have to say, his backstory is
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: so surreal it sounds like fiction.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yes, I had to stare at that page in
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the file for a solid minute. His name is Detective Lane,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: but his actual legal first name on his birth certificate
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: is Loser.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Detective Loser Lane. It speaks volumes about his psychology and
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: his drive.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, how does that even happen?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Well, the family story is that his father allowed his
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: sister to name the children. She named the older brother Winner,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: and she named him Loser. That is wild, And in
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: this incredible twist of fate, Loser channels that burden into
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: becoming this highly respected, relentless NYPD homicide detective.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Winner, the Golden Child, becomes a small time criminal
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: with a rap sheet of dozens of arrests.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: He can't make it up. And Detective Loser Lane is
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: exactly the kind of bulldog you want walking into this neighborhood.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: He hits the pavement around Saint Mary's Park, knocking on doors,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: pulling people aside.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And he hits a total concrete wall.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: The neighborhood completely shuts down. You have to understand the
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: stop snitching culture of that era. It wasn't just anti
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: police sentiment, you.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Know, it was a brutal survival mechanism. People knew that
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the gangs held more immediate power over their daily lives
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: than the NYPD did.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Right, and the few statements Detective Lane does manage to
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: extract are wild contradictory rumors designed specifically to confuse the investigation, like.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: One neighbor swears it was a crew of Hispanic attackers,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: another says it was the guys on the green dirt bike.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And a rumor even circulates about a woman filming
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a birthday party on a camquarder who supposedly caught the
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: entire murder on tape.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But when Lane tracks down the supposed birthday girl, she
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: looks at him blankly and says, it wasn't even my party.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: The cam quarter is just a phantom lead, pure smoke.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: But amidst all this deflection, Lane does find one person
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: who was definitively with Solomon that night, a woman who
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: was romantically involved.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: With the files use a pseudonym for her, so we'll
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: just call her Gaiale, And her initial interview is a
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: masterclass in shifting timelines.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Because first she gives a very specific, detailed account, right.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, She tells detectives that she and Solomon were hanging
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: out in front of his building earlier that evening. She says,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Solomon suddenly hurried upstairs to a friend's apartment borrowed that
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: specific black and yellow starter jacket came back down, told
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: her he loved her, and walked off purposely in the
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: direction of Saint Mary's Park.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: But then Detective Lane starts applying a little pressure circles
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: back to her later and her story completely fractures.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, it shatters. The second time they speak, Gail aggressively backpedals.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: She claims they weren't dating at all, insisting she has
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: a serious boyfriend stationed out in Colorado.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Wow. So she downgrades Solomon that just a casual.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Acquaintance exactly, and most importantly, she completely erases Saint Mary's
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Park from her narrative. She now claims he was just
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: going to the corner store to get a drink and
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: that was the absolute last time she saw on.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: It feels like she is frantically trying to erase her
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: own digital footprint before the internet even existed. It's like
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: she's trying to photoshop herself out of the crime scene picture.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what she's doing.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Because logically, if Solomon had no wallet and no money,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: he wasn't walking to a corner store to buy a drink,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and you wouldn't cut through the depths of Saint Mary's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Park to get to a bodega. Anyway, she knows exactly
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: why he went into that park, and she is terrified.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Her behavior is basically a microcosm of the entire neighborhood's
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: psychology deflection and minimization to ensure a personal survival.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: But while the community is hiding behind locked doors, the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: medical Examiner's office makes a forensic discovery that provides the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: first real crack in the case.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: And it comes back to that horrific slash across Solomon's face. Right.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: The medical examiner took a very close look at that
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: specific facial laceration. It wasn't just a wild swing. It
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: started at the corner of Solomon's mouth and was carved
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: deeply and deliberately across his cheek.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So if you visualize the jagged, exaggerated scars on the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: joker's face, it's that exact type of wound.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. In street terminology and within gang intelligence units, this
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: specific di figurement is known as a buck fifty.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Because it requires roughly one hundred and fifty stitches to
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: close a wound that deep.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, and a buck fifty is not a random byproduct
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: of a fistfight. It is a calculated signature, a calling
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: card got it. In this specific region, it was heavily
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: utilized by the Nine Trade Gangsters, which is a powerful
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: subset of the United Blood Nation the East Coats iteration
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of the Bloods.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Wait if this is a highly recognizable gang signature, but
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: we've established Solomon wasn't in a gang. Did they just
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: pick the wrong guy in the dark.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: The reality is actually much colder than mistaken identity. To
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: move up the ranks or to prove your worth during
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: an initiation into this specific gang subset, recruits were often
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: ordered to target non gang members.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Wait, really, they actively wanted civilians.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: They did because attacking a rival gang member sparks a war.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Hitting arrival brings heat and retaliation.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I see.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: But inflicting a brutal, terrifying wound on a civilian proves
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: your absolute ruthlessness and blind lowy to the gang without
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: risking a turf war.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: That is just sickening. It is a form of calculated,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: localized terrorism designed to keep the neighborhood in fear.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly, Solomon wasn't targeted because of who he was. He
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: was targeted simply because he was a convenient body in
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the park.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: He survives the grueling conditions of army boot camp, comes
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: home to take care of his sick dad and is
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: slaughtered to serve as a human prop for a gang initiation.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It's heartbreaking, and the worst part is the neighborhood's silence
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: works for eight months. The investigation is completely paralyzed. Nothing
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: happens until January nineteen ninety nine.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what changes in nineteen ninety nine.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Well, that Bronx narcotics officer gets a sudden tip from
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: an inmate sitting in a holding cell, Will refer to
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: him as Frank.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And Frank is looking to make a deal obviously, of.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Course, and he claims he was there the night of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the murder. He tells detectives a very specific story. He
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: says he saw two men approach Solomon and two girls.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: One of the men aggressively said come here. Solomon took
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: a step back, and that's when the ambush happened, the shooting,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: the stabbing, the.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Slash, and Frank actually gives up names right, He points
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: to the finger at two cousins, John and William.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, both of them are black men, which immediately shreds
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: all those earlier community rumors about a crew of Hispanic
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: attackers on dirt bikes.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Right, and when detectives run John and William through the system,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: both of them have heavily documented ties to the Nine
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Tree gangsters.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: The puzzle pieces suddenly aligned perfectly with the forensic reality
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: of that buck fifty signature. But Frank's story has one
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: more critical detail. He tells police he wasn't standing on
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: the grass. He claims he was smoking weed up on
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: a fire escape overlooking the park, and he had company.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: He was with a fifteen year old girl from the
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: neighborhood named Brenda.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: So the police finally have a tangible lead. They go
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: straight to Brenda's apartment building, and instead of gently questioning
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: a teenager, they execute a highly aggressive, brilliant interrogation bluff.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Oh it's so smart. They knock on her door, and
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: they do not ask her what she saw, stated as
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: an established fact. They look at this fifteen year old
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: girl and say, we have surveillance video of you on
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: that fire scape. Yeah, we know exactly what you saw, and.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: The bluff works. She completely folds. She admits she was
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: out there sneaking a cigarette looking down into the park.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: She watched John and William leave the handball courts, intercept
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Solomon and butcher him.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: But the moment the adrenaline wears off, the reality of
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: her confession sets in. She realizes she just pointed the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: finger at two known ruthless Bloods members.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: The terror just takes over.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She shuts down completely and flat out refuses to testify,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: which brings the entire investigation crashing into a brick wall.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: See this is maddening. You have two eyewitnesses placing John
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and William at the scene, you have the gang motive.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Why can't the state prosecutors just draft an arrest warrant
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: based on Frank and Brenda's statements.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Because of the massive gap between knowing what happened and
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: proving it beyond a reasonable doubt in a state court.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: The credibility of your witnesses is the entire foundation of
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: a murder trial, right, I mean.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Think about what a defense attorney would do to Frank
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: on the stand exactly.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: He's an incarcerated jailhouse informant with a lengthy record, blatantly
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: trying to trade testimony for a lighter sentence. A jury
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: will view him with extreme suspicion.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And Brenda can't corroborate him because she won't take the stand.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: You have a terrified, legally uncooperative minor without her willing
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: testimony on the stand, facing cross examination, A state prosecutor
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: simply does not have the legal ammunition to secure a conviction.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So John and William remain entirely free, and the case
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't just go cold for a few years, it gets
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: buried for decades.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Decades. Solomon's parents eventually pack up their lives, leave New York,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: and move to South Carolina. They both pass away without
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: ever getting a single answer about who killed their son.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: It isn't until the year twenty twenty two that this
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: file sees the light.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Of day again, and its resurrection comes down to a
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: deeply personal connection. Detective Klein, working the Bronze Homicide Squad,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: pulls solemn file, and.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: As he reads through the dusty reports, a detail stops
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: him in his tracks.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Detective client is an Army veteran himself. She
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: spends seven years in the military, and when he checks
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the dates, he realizes he was actually in boot camp
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: at the exact same time as Solomon.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Wow. They never cross paths, but seeing a fellow soldier
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: gunned down in his own neighborhood just strikes a profound nerve.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Klein decides he's going to solve this.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: But Klin is smart enough to know that the old
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: NYPD playbook isn't going to work. The state courts couldn't
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: handle this in nineteen ninety nine and they can't handle
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: it now, So he brings in heavy federal artillery. He
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: takes the case to the FBI.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: This is the strategic pivot that changes everything. Forming a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: joint task force with the FBI elevates this from a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: local homicide to a federal investigation.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: You are now entering the arena of REO statutes.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: The Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act exactly.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Federal law has a completely different structural mechanism. It carries
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: me mandatory minimum sentences that absolutely terrify street level criminals.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Plus, federal courts have different evidentiary thresholds. Right, they can
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: sometimes utilize hearsay evidence and grand jury testimonies in ways
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that state courts simply won't touch.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Right, So client gets himself deputized as a federal agent,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: and suddenly the leverage they have over these witnesses changes overnight.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Lying to a local beat coop is one thing lying
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: to an FBI agent. That's a fast track to federal prison.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: So the task force tracks down Frank, our jailhouse informant
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: from back in nineteen ninety nine. They pull him into
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: an unmarked car. He looks around, sees the federal badges,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and immediately starts sweating.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: The tough guyakt vanishes and his entire story crumbles. Frank
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: finally admits the truth. He never saw the murder.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Wait, so he wasn't on the fire escape at all.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Nope, he had spent the afternoon of April third selling
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: weed to fifteen year old Brenda. Hours later after the murder,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: a deeply traumatized Brenda came to him and confided in
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: him about the horror she had just witnessed from her
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: fire escape.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And months later, when Frank got locked up on drug
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: charges and needed a bargaining chip, he simply stole her
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: story and claimed he saw it himself. It's like stolen valor,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: but for a murder witness. He hijacked a fifteen year
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: old girl's trauma to buy himself a get out of
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: jail free card.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: It's a despicable manipulation and it nearly derailed the case. Permanently,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: but paradoxically, Frank's confession clarifies the entire board for the FBI.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: They now know there is only one true authentic witness, Brenda.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Right, So they tracked Brenda down. She's living down in Florida,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: now a grown adult, far away from the bronx, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: she confirms everything.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: She looks at a photo array and positively identifies William
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: as one of the attackers. But the psychological scars are
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: still there, even surrounded by federal agents. Even decades later,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: She's still paralyzed by the fear of the Nine Trey gangsters.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: She refuses to take the stand exactly.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Which forces detective client to orchestrate an incredibly risky psychological trap.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: If he cannot get the witness to point the finger
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: in open court, he has to manipulate the suspect into
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: pointing the finger at himself.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: He needs William to slip up on tape, and.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: The pretext clin uses is brilliant. He starts digging into
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: other cold cases from the branch and finds the murder
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: of a young woman named Seana Brown Right.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: She was found dead in a project building right outside
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Saint Mary's Park, just a couple of months after Solomon
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: was killed, she had duct tape wrapped around her neck,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and very deep.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: In the supplementary files, Klein finds a loose note vaguely
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: tying our suspect William to Sewna's case. Now, Klein doesn't
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: actually believe William murdered Shawna. He has a completely different
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: prime suspect for that crime.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: But the note provides the ultimate trojan horse.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, Klein brings William into a small, claustrophobic interrogation room.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: The tension is palpable, but Klein plays it cool. He acts,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: and he's hitting a wall on the Shawna Brown case,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: and it's just looking for William's insight as a guy
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: who knows the streets.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And William gets comfortable, he leans back. He thinks he's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: outsmarting a federal agent, so he decides to be helpful
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: by deflecting the blame.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Right, he starts throwing another local guy under the bus
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: for Shawna's murder, which is incredibly ironic because it's the
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: exact guy Klein already suspects.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: But then William gets a little too comfortable. Unprompted completely
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: out of nowhere, William leans over the table and says, yeah,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and that same guy, he's the one who killed that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: guy in the park next to a bench.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: The temperature in that interrogation room must have dropped to freezing,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: because no one, not the public, not the press, not
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood rumor mill, had ever publicly linked that other
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: suspect to Solomon Robinson's murder. Wow by trying to frame
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: someone else with a highly specific geographic detail, William had
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: just inadvertently placed himself squarely on the grass at Saint
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Mary's Park on the night of April third.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: He gave up a detail that only someone who is
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: standing over Solomon's body wouldn't know. And the moment the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: words leave his mouth, you can almost see the realization
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: wash over William's face.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: The cockiness just vanishes. He panics. When he leaves that room,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: he goes completely rogue. He stops answering client's calls, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: then he escalates to sheer psychological warfare.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Tell them about the text message because this is wild.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So William has this complex paranoid surveillance system set up
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: around his apartment. A few days after the interrogation, while
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Klein is out in the field doing standard door knocks,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: his phone buzzes.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: It's a text message from William.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Klient opens it, and it's a live surveillance photo
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: of Detective Client himself standing outside William's door.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: It is a calculated, chilling threat, a digital way of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: saying I see you exactly. But if William just gave
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: up a detail, only someone who was there would know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and is now texting veiled threats to a federal Task
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Force officer, why aren't they in handcuffs right now?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Because the mechanism of federal law is a slow, methodical machine.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Knowing someone is guilty and proving it to a federal
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: grand jury are two very different thresholds. The current strategy
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: relies entirely on federal conspiracy and racketeering.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Charges, which makes sense.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: The brilliance of this approach is that it nullifies the
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: chaos of the actual crime scene. The SBI doesn't need
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: to prove whether John held the gun and William held
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: the knife or vice versa. If they can prove that
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: both men acted together in furtherance of a criminal enterprise
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the gang, they share equal legal culpability for the murder,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: but they still need that final piece of the evidentiary
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: puzzle to secure the indictment.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And while this high stakes legal chess game plays out,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you really cannot lose sight of the human toll here.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Right, it has been twenty seven years.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Solomon was a kid who just wanted to use his
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: army paychecks to buy his parents a house. Instead, his
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: parents died with broken hearts, but his brother Russell and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: his cousin Melody are still out there, relentlessly pushing the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: task force fighting for justice.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: The FBI is currently offering a twenty five thousand dollars
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: reward for the final piece of information that leads to
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: a conviction twenty seven years of waiting. It is a
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: haunting reminder that the ripples of violence extend far beyond
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: the grass of the park, freezing an entire family in time,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: while the rest of the world just keeps moving.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: We often think of silence in a community as a
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: shit shield. When you live in a neighborhood dominated by
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: roofless organizations, keeping your mouth shut feels like the only
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: rational way to protect yourself and your family. But when
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: that silence allows a nineteen year old soldier to be
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: slaughtered in his own neighborhood without consequence, you have to
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: ask yourself, does that shield actually become the very cage
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that keeps you trapped inside with the monsters.