WEBVTT - #543 Jason Flom with Jonathan Parker 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.880 On April ninth, nineteen ninety seven, sometime before one am, 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:11.400 two Buffalo police officers were shot, one in the ankle 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.480 while the other was killed. The surviving officer gave a 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.640 description that was echoed by two others, a light skinned 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:23.200 mail about five to nine in dark clothing. That morning, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.320 nearly a half mile from the scene, police found some 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.560 personal effects belonging to Jonathan Parker, a local young man 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:32.920 with a criminal record who was in the middle of 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.159 fighting another case. And even though Jonathan didn't match the description, 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:42.000 he was identified by three alleged eyewitnesses, while the surviving 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.720 officer would not join them. This is wrongful conviction. 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.920 Hey, y'all, it's Maggie. I'm here to tell you about 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:55.920 a new show I've been working on for the past 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:00.400 two years. It's called Graves County and it's an investmentative 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.360 series about the murder of a young mom in Kentucky 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.720 and just how far our legal system will go in 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.320 order to find someone to blame. Here is the trailer 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.760 for Graves County. 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.959 All I know is what I've been told, and that's 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.160 a half truth, is a whole lie. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.800 For almost a decade, the murder of an eighteen year 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.839 old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:33.560 went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.679 handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:42.559 we know, we know a story that law enforcement used 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.720 to convict six people, and that got the citizen investigator 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:47.880 on national TV. 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.720 Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:54.680 justice to Jessica Current. 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.400 My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:03.200 journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:04.919 were that easy to find. 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:07.440 I did not know her, and I did not kill her, 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:09.960 or raid or burn or any of that other stuff 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:10.560 that y'all said. 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:12.960 They literally made me say that I took a match 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.160 and struck and threw it on her. They made me 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:16.480 say that I wore guests on. 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:22.560 Her from Lava for Good. This is Graves County, a 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.240 show about just how far our legal system will go 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.840 in order to find someone to blame MARKA. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.520 Y'all gotta work the hell up. Bad things happens to 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.880 good people and small towns. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.520 Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley, Feed on 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:46.200 the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.600 and to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to 0:02:49.680 --> 0:03:03.160 Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.200 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where we've got a story 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.520 that's been on our radar and living rent free in 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.160 my head since we interviewed Keyante Rix back in the 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.799 summer of twenty twenty, and we've held back on it 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:18.960 as we were waiting for the case to make its 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.720 way through court. But we can't wait any longer, So 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.960 calling in now from a prison in upstate New York, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.959 we've got the man himself, Jonathan Parker. Thank you for calling. 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.000 In, Jonathan, no problem, I appreciate you. 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.600 And joining him. We have the paralegal who worked on 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.480 Kanty Rix's case, Carl Deviver, and well, we're going to 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.960 link Kyante's story in the episode description. You have to 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.120 hear it to believe it. Carl, Thanks for being here. 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.680 Thanks for being somebody willing to do something to help Jonathan. 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.000 And Carl didn't start out as a paralegal. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.240 I had been a police offer shake twenty seven years. 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.840 I didn't like what I saw wrongfully convicted people riding 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.440 away in jail for crime. So I did not commit 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.680 and felt that I should use what energy I have 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:09.160 to try to seek vindication. So I studied law and 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:10.640 switched into that. 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.360 Also, we have Jonathan's attorney, Stephen Metcalf. Stephen, thanks for 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:19.920 being here absolutely. So let's start by hearing about Jonathan's 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.560 childhood in Buffalo. How was it growing up there? 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.800 I grew up on the east side of Buffalo, the Projects, 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.760 about the age of seven or eight years old. About 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.720 the purchase the house which was three blocks away from 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.200 the projects. At the age of about unteen or fourteen, 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.560 I started getting into problems in school. Maybe no disruptive 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.919 in class. I didn't get into too many fights, just 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.680 you know, general things that teenage boys do. So they're 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:52.640 sitting to was known as Buffalo Alternative School, into more 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.839 trouble and I was placed in a group of homes 0:04:56.000 --> 0:05:00.279 was known as Lincoln Hall from fifteen to sixteen. After 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:05.440 being released from Lincoln Hall again went to Buffalo Tournative 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.640 High School. Once you do a lot of times, you 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.200 returned to a normal high school of South Park High 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.800 School didn't want to accept me because I was a 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.000 year behind the man and I kind of dropped out 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.960 of high school, at which point I got involved in 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.159 quote unquote the street life. 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.920 If anyone ever wanted to know what the praise school 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.520 to prison pipeline means, it sounds like Jonathan is the 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.760 living proof of it. During the crack epidemic, no less, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.400 and this area in East Buffalo, specifically on Gerard Place, 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:42.200 was an open air drug market which came along with 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:46.080 extreme poverty and occasional bursts of violence. 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.760 It was a violent period of the city of Buffalo. 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.839 A lot of crime, young men involved in the street life, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:56.240 shooting at each other, Southern crack, coquaine, marijuana, things of 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.560 that nature. The police just because they see you on 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.200 the street, young guys know they would pick you up, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.160 shake you down. And I was long to frequent that neighborhood. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.159 Well, as we all know, the crack epidemic ushered in 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.240 so called tough on crime policies and politicians and legislation 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:17.320 that instituted mandatory minimum sentences, funded task forces in the 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.599 so called high traffic areas, and any means necessary attitude 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:26.080 toward removing anyone they suspected of being involved in drug trafficking. 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.640 Every time I investigator speak to anybody about this, they've 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.400 said the same thing. Jonathan Parker was someone who they 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.600 wanted off the streets by any means. Apparently that meant 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.279 to them at this time, and. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.880 As we've seen, that could mean framing someone for murder. 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.839 And the first attempt on Jonathan came within January nineteen 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.240 ninety seven murder of a man named Leroy Lewis. 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.880 Listen to this defendant of Pella. Jonathan Parker was convicted 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.400 in the US District Court for the Western District of 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:58.320 New York of killing Leroy Lewis while engaged in a 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:03.000 conspiracy to possess with intended distribute crack. On appeal, Parker 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.279 challenges the sufficiency of the government's evidence. The government produced 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.400 no direct or physical evidence establishing Parker as the shooter, 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.720 no eyewitness testimony to the shooting, any statements concerning the 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.720 circumstances of the shooting. No evidence was introduced as the motive, 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:26.040 no murder weapon was found. The government's evidence was entirely circumstantial. 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.920 It was a statement base upon a statement upon a statement, 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.720 but nothing to tie Jonathan to the murder other than 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:40.280 lay opinion testimony. Specifically, whether a small bulge in Parker's 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:45.000 jacket viewed from a distance was a handgun, and hey, 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.080 he looked a little suspicious after the fact. Basically, Jonathan 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.520 got convicted and they didn't have shit. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.120 So that conviction was overturned in two thousand and two. 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.800 But they had already buried Jonathan with two other sentences, 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.760 only one of which was based in fact, which was 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.840 a weapons possession charge. And the same officers who were 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.760 shot in this case, they were the ones who arrested 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:08.760 Jonathan and he pleaded guilty. 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.200 Yes, I have played guilty to the weapons possessor's charges. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:14.880 You no more than a three and a half to 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.120 nine sentence. I believe it might have been that morning 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.720 from an interview with that with a probation officer to 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.920 do a probation report to prepare it for my centisces. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.800 So Jonathan had this probation officer's business card in his 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.240 jacket that night, which he wore to a party which 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.280 was about a five minute walk from the crime scene 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.120 in this case, but according to both Jonathan and witnesses 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.800 from the party, he had left his jacket, his hat, 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.280 and his beeper at the party before leaving. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.200 Actually, I left the resident in a cab with my 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.400 cousin to my home with the attention of returning to 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:50.120 the resident. I never returned to the residents because I 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.079 was supposed to be meeting up with a young woman. 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.920 So my cousin left and I came to our house 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.319 around the corner from this in a cab. When I'm 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.600 pulling up in a cab, they literally are scolar in 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.280 the neighborhood. She got in the cab and we went 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:04.040 back to my own. 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.120 By the time he was picking up this young lady 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.120 around one am, the shooting had already occurred near the 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.880 corner of Northampton and East Parade now. According to Officer 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.840 Michael Martinez, at around twelve forty five am, he and 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:23.280 his partner, Charles Skip McDougall spotted a suspicious individual who 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.200 they believed might have stolen a car. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.640 They say when they hailed this person that he simply 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.640 opened fire on them, hit the one in the foot, 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.800 and then shot McDougall and killed him. 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.920 Martinez he actually gave the initial description in it. It was 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:46.160 a light skinned male of proximmand five nine of maybe 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.719 a shade removed from being darve skinned for sure of 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:54.960 nowhere near five. I'm five six and a half and. 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.160 Officer Martinez knew what Jonathan looked like from prior arrests, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.559 and we can only presume that he would have interested 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.000 in catching his own shooter. Right. And two more witnesses, 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.160 James Gaines and Event Pryor, agreed this shooter was a 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.600 light skinned guy about five foot nine, and they added 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.319 that he wore dark clothing and white sneakers, and they 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.680 said he had run up East Parade toward Fujuran. So 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.679 police scoured the area looking for someone meeting that description, 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.200 as well as witnesses and evidence. And it appears that 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.400 the narrative about Jonathan may have begun to emerge with 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.760 the discovery of his jacket, hat and beeper, the ones 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:31.920 that he left at the party. 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.440 They say they found in a backyard. So May the 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:40.760 District Attorney had a witness said that maybe an hour 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.760 or two prior to this incident, that I was in 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.640 a house full of people and then I left out 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.280 of the house, leaving my jacket in that house and 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.360 never returned. The house was located near the corner of 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.959 Fugean and Fillmore, unless they founded in a backyard on 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:02.280 the next street over from fuge which is oben Well. 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.160 No one has offered information about how these items left 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.440 the house party, but Jonathan's probation officer's business card was 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.360 inside the jacket. At this point, it seems the investigation 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:18.280 steered away from whoever Officer Martinez, James Gaines, and Yvette 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.920 Fryar had described and focused in on Jonathan, who had 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.040 just pled guilty. The weapons charges and the Leroy Lewis 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.360 charges were still looming. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.760 I have several cases like that where they say, he's 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.319 a nasty street kid, let's get him off the streets. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:38.240 We know he didn't kill Skip, but he's a trouble 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:39.920 let's get him off the streets. 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.360 I actually remember, ironically, I was sitting in the house 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.200 with one of my cousins and we were watching the 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.320 news when they first booke about the incident, and my 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.240 cousin made it common to the extent of, you know, 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.560 she felt sorry for whoever they ended up picking up 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.800 for this because of the climate of things in Buffalo 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.319 just prior to this, I want to say, maybe within 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.360 a year, so a year and a half half, it 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:12.360 has so where young black males were still being ended 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:14.319 plice to call. 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.800 But if they were going to get Jonathan, they needed 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.120 a lot more than just finding his belongings nearly a 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.640 half a mile away from the crime scene. So it 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.280 was at this time that lead investigator Andre Ortiz approached 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.679 another man known to frequent the open air drug market. Now, 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.920 this guy was named Aaron Yarborough, and he was known 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.320 to sell random items, and according to subsequent statements, he 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.240 had told them that he was in the pharmacy on 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:44.040 Northampton and Fillmore when he heard the gunshots. But something 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.280 which we're going to get into later led him to 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.800 tell a very different story on April tenth. 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:52.839 This is a statement that he gave to the police 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.559 at the time, and anytime he refers to Parker, he 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.560 calls him Face. Well, I was on the corner of 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.000 Northampton in East Parade when I had seen Face Now. 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.960 I asked him if he wanted to buy a CD player. 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.320 He said yeah, but the price that we talked about 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.960 wasn't going to fulfill. So I went up East Parade. 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.720 We seen Junior sitting in a white Chevy Caprice and 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.280 he agreed to one hundred dollars. So this is a 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.480 CD player and he paid me the money and then 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.080 I went down the street towards Northampton and East Parade 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.720 where I heard some shots when I had seen face 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.000 ran past me holding a gun at his side. 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.880 Soon after that, I've seen my picture on the news 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:37.000 saying that I was assister. So I got in contact 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:41.320 with Tourny Paul Hermy, and he didn't have much detail. 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.640 It forged me to turn myself in. 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.000 If I had nothing to high, but I didn't have 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.960 anything now, so I asked him to come pick me 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.520 up and take me to turn myself in. I was 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.640 arrested April eleventh, nineteen ninety. 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.040 Seven, and I've been in prison ever since. 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:18.600 At approximately twenty fifteen hours on April eighteen, nineteen ninety seven, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.560 Aaron Yarborough stated that himself and Jonathan Parker were outside 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.120 his uncle's house on Josephine Street when the police raided it. 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:32.040 Jonathan Parker pointed to officer McDougall and stated, that's the 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.320 guy who arrested me for the gun. I'm going to 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.080 get that motherfucker. So they used Aaron to basically show 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.120 a history or a motive. 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:41.440 Here. 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:46.440 April twenty second, Aaron Yarborough was put into a Buffalo 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.760 Hilton Hotel, Room two ten. This is a guy who's 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.800 selling CD players walking down the street now is getting 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.560 put up in a hotel for who knows how long 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:58.800 to make a very easy statement. 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:00.480 And that's what we'll find out this It was far 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.200 better treatment than he was originally offered, but a few 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.080 statements from a guy with substance abuse issues is not 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.840 going to cut it. So on April twenty eighth, police 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.400 approached Aaron Lott and his wife Cassandra Salinas, who had 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:17.080 an encounter with officers MacDougall and Martinez on the night 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:18.400 of April eighth. 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:19.480 Ten forty five. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.840 Aaron Lott is sitting in a parking lot with our 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.360 driver's license while Cassandra's in work. He gets a ticket, 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:31.520 the car gets impounded. McDougal and Martinez are the officers 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:37.920 on that ticket and on the impound documentation. Cassandra gets 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.160 out of work at about eleven fifteen. Her and Aaron 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.840 then make their way to the police precinct. Then they 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.480 never actually got the car back that night. 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.160 However, it was stated in a report that officer Martinez 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.320 had recognized Lot and Selinas as they passed each other 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.440 on Northampton Street moments before the shooting because they were 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.800 in the same car in which Lot had been ticket earlier. 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.080 This is allegedly how they knew to approach Lot for 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.880 a statement. But as the narrative goes, Aaron and Cassandra, 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.760 as well as a driver passed the scene in a 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.320 Ford Explorer, not a Hyundai Excel, and to top it off, 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.880 the Ford Explorer had tinted windows. It's only discovered many 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.240 years later that Aaron Lott was exchanging testimony for leniency 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.640 in his own charges. You probably saw that coming. Nevertheless, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.800 he gave a statement nineteen days after the crime that 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.640 as they rolled down Northampton, he and Cassandra saw Jonathan 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.280 crossing the street. He yelled yo to the car as 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.440 they passed, and they turned around to witness the shooting 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:44.760 through the Explorer's back window. 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.160 And the driver of the truck. He was never called. 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.160 We presume that since the cops had no hold on him, 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.320 it wasn't facing anything, they wouldn't testify. It might even 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.360 be a Brady issue. We don't know what he originally 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.600 told the cops. We just know he never testified. 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.119 All the witnesses aged some type of ulterior motive, with 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:10.360 the exception. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:16.640 Of Aaron Lotte's wife. She basically agreed with what said 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:21.400 the storers lined up very well because it was orchestrated, with. 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.520 The community and media calling for blood, and the context 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.040 of Jonathan's weapon's possession, guilty plea and other pending murder case. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.320 The district attorney sought the death penalty, and as we 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.760 often see in capital cases, a ton of circumstantial evidence 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.800 is produced to try to ensure a win, but without 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:43.840 the support of a relatively small amount of consequential direct evidence, 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.520 the circumstantial evidence tends to lose its meaning. For example, 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.920 there was James Gaines and Evette Fryar who echoed Officer 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.119 Martinez's description and confirmed that the assailant ran in the 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:59.400 direction of where Jonathan's belongings were discovered, granting that evidence 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:05.919 of validity. And then along came Aaron Yarborough, without the 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.880 critically important context of how his statement came to. 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.240 Be, He said that just prior to this incident that 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.400 he was attempted to sell me. I believe you said 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.560 it was some CDs and I don't even think I 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:22.720 had seen him that day. 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.040 Yarborough also said that he saw Jonathan running from the 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.719 scene with a gun in the direction of where police 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.199 found his belongings. Again granting a cent of validity to 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.920 that evidence, and then, unbeknownst to the defense, Aaron Lott 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.400 was trading testimony for a time cut when he parroted 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.639 what he'd already said in his statement and the grand 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:48.240 jury then Cassandra bolstered his credibility with what they claimed 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.280 to see while being driven down Northampton that same night. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.720 There was the driver, which I'm still confused as to 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.680 why he was never called to testify, other than maybe 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.480 the fact that he wasn't being cooperative like Aaron Yardborough 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:04.040 and air a. 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:09.320 Lot, or maybe he didn't actually exist also possible. Then 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.879 the police officer Michael Martinez testified to the narrative of 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.320 the shooting, but would not positively I d Jonathan. 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.600 He wasn't sure that it was Parker. Even on the stands, 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.760 he wouldn't lie and say it was definitely Parker. It 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.240 could have been Parker. So he's he's one of the 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.679 not willing to totally perjure himself cops. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.880 And Martinez was cross examined with his initial description. 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.600 I was positive I was going to get acquitted. I 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.080 know I have anything to do with it, and how 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.399 already came into the prison system for my other weapon 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.679 possessed his charges. But I was confident I was going 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:49.600 to be leaving out of that court room to finish 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.680 my censes and eventually be home to my family. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.240 And maybe he would have, but it seems like his attorney, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.560 Jim Harrington, didn't want to take that gamble, so in closing, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.520 he tried a strategy that was not aimed at acquittal. 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.560 In fact, the opposite. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:10.280 Harrington was a death penalty attorney, and he said so 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.440 in his affidavit that his job was not so much 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.639 as to acquit Jonathan, but to keep him alive. So 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:24.040 trying to create sympathy or pity from the jury, He said, 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.600 Jonathan did it, but it was in the spur of 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:31.200 the moment. He didn't plan on doing it, which is all. Yes, 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:33.280 he never did it at all. 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.840 I made him very weird that I was innocent of 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.840 this crime. I'm sitting in the courtroom and it was 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.760 only by sheer will that I did act a fool. 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:47.120 At the time, my defense wasn't a defense geared towards 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.800 guilty innocence. It was geared towards life with death. I've 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:55.760 got life without the possibility of growl, which is just death. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:15.080 By incarcerations. I've had close to thirty years to think 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.680 about it. But when you go back to the initial description, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:25.280 you have a police officer, who we know are trained observers, 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.480 who said that the perpetrator in his crime was a 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:32.080 liceicined bail five nine and these are things that are 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.200 reasonable tryer in fact, when you say, okay, you got 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:37.120 a young man sitting in the court room in front 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.560 of you who is maybe a shade removed from being 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:45.439 darb skinned, but three or four shades removed from being licekined. 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.000 And again, like I said, I'm five to six maybe 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.960 five six and a half. Then we go back to 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.760 Latina's being shot on the passenger side of the car, 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.000 but the suspect shooting from the driver side of the car. 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:01.679 I don't understand how person gets shot in the ankle. 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.959 Then you're saying you found a weapon that's who alleged 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.400 that have been used in this incident at the nine 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:13.359 milimeter seventeen clock, which is the exact same weapons that 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:17.200 police officers are issued to carry when they all duty. 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:22.679 The street version is that McDougal didn't want to be 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:28.120 dirty anymore. Everybody spoken to says that the cops killed 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.679 Skip because he wanted to go clean and they were 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:37.000 afraid he'd reveal their antics, so they killed them. Allegedly, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.880 they took their time getting to the hospital to make 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:45.160 sure Skip was dead allegedly, but before. 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.679 Carl spoke to anyone, Jonathan did his direct appeal, subsequent appeal, 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:51.960 and federal havias, which took about twelve years to finally 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.840 all be denied. Twelve long years, during which time the 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.600 lead investigator on this case, Detective Andrea Ortiz, was himself 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.560 arrest in connection with his involvement with a local drug 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.440 trafficking organization headed by an individual named Frankie Johnson. 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:11.920 Detective or Ties in the Western District of New York 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:16.320 took a play on a two thousand and four case. Now, 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.600 this plea agreement is ten pages. This was the most 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.800 substantive document that I could find with regards to this case, 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.159 because everything else I searched for was under seal, and 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:30.240 the plea agreement essentially lays out what he pled to 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:35.200 fraud and related activity in connection with computers or Tees. 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:38.960 Agreed to plead guilty to accessing a Justice Department criminal 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:43.680 database and then sharing that information with this notorious drug 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:47.760 kingpin Frankie Johnson. Now who knows what it was used for. 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:50.920 I mean, my mind doesn't go to a good place. 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:54.840 If he's going to utilize his access as a Buffalo 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.679 police officer and passed that information along to someone who's 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:02.520 not a police or someone who may be in the streets, 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:03.639 and that was alleged here. 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:05.600 There has to be a history there. 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:08.760 And there's probably a bunch of other things that are 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.439 being exchanged as well. It just so happened to be 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:15.480