After the First 48 S10 E01
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00:00The following program documents a real homicide case, the investigation, the pursuit of justice,
00:11and the lasting impact on the loved ones left behind.
00:14Hello?
00:15Yo.
00:16Yo.
00:17What's up?
00:18What's up, man?
00:19Me and my brother, we talked on the phone every single day.
00:20Every single day while he was in federal prison for selling drugs.
00:32What you think about my career, man?
00:35I'm proud of you, man.
00:37You know, I tell everybody, man, my brother's a homicide detector, you know.
00:42He's always like, why the hell are you selling this?
00:44I've talked to my brother plenty of times about him doing the wrong thing in life, but
00:50But you look at what sent Reginald Jr. the wrong way.
00:56I believe Mr. Crenshaw did everything
00:58he can for us to change his son's life about what
01:01he was doing, but it's hard.
01:03Regardless of what happens, you still love your child.
01:07Knowing that Reginald was in the street,
01:09it was just my prayer that I would not wake up and hear
01:12about somebody murdering him.
01:14I've lost my son.
01:17I lost my son.
01:20To me, the difference between what happened with my brother
01:23and Reginald is luck.
01:25Drug dealing is always a dangerous game,
01:28and it only leads in two ways, death or prison.
01:34For those most affected by a homicide,
01:37the first 48 is just the beginning.
01:40This is the story of the fight for justice in the weeks,
01:45months, and years after the first 48.
02:15There's bullet holes in the window,
02:17and I don't want to go inside.
02:18Can you please send the police?
02:19Yes, sir.
02:20Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
02:35I look at life through different lenses with the work that I do.
02:39Growing up in the hood, you don't see all the doctors
02:42and lawyers and things like that.
02:45Drug selling is a problem.
02:48You saw mostly your dope boys, and those are the people
02:51that you looked up to.
02:53But I steer the other way.
03:03We got to sit down inside.
03:06They had to come over here, found the door open,
03:08and called us.
03:12You're so hot.
03:16One of the victims is 28-year-old Brandon Cadwell.
03:20He worked at a local hibachi restaurant
03:22and is survived by his parents and three brothers.
03:27Going into homicide investigations,
03:29you're constantly thinking about the victim
03:31and the resolve for that victim, because the victim is
03:35the only person that doesn't have a seat at the table,
03:38the only person that doesn't have a voice.
03:39Brandon was shot five times in the back of his head,
03:43his face, neck, and arm.
03:46There's a bullet hole in the door right there
03:50where he would have been standing.
03:56And then the other guy on the right.
03:59This particular crime scene was overwhelming.
04:01You've got not one victim, but two.
04:0431-year-old Reginald Crenshaw Jr.
04:07leaves behind his mother, father, and three children.
04:11He coached his daughter and nephews' Little League teams.
04:15It hits home for me.
04:17I didn't know Reginald personally,
04:19but I played against him in sports.
04:21In middle school ball, we played against each other,
04:24and also in high school.
04:26Reginald was shot eight times in his head and back.
04:31There was a significant amount of blood
04:33then to look at his face, his neck, and arm.
04:36And then to look at the physical evidence,
04:39both inside and outside of the residence.
04:42There's seven shell casings in the hallway here.
04:48There's two in that room there.
04:5140-S and W.
04:53Thank you, man.
04:55And on the driveway.
05:002230.
05:01REM.
05:04The team finds seven rifle casings.
05:13Yeah.
05:18Yeah.
05:19We found 40 caliber casings inside,
05:22and then 223 caliber five casings that were outside
05:25that somebody had fired into the home through the window.
05:30I was thinking maybe one or both of the victims
05:33returned fire and ended up dying as a result of it.
05:39To see this level of carnage, the destruction of the home,
05:43it was something almost from a movie.
05:47Why did this happen?
05:49This wasn't an area that was ridden with gun violence.
05:52It was something that was very rarely seen.
05:55And so there was this pause.
05:58What's really going on?
06:04I don't know.
06:05As officers look for fingerprints and signs of DNA,
06:12one of Brandon's relatives, who also lives in the house,
06:16comes forward.
06:21When all this was happening, where were you at?
06:24Highway 9.
06:26I was going to bring somebody some food.
06:30My friend called me and said, why is your window busted?
06:34She said, your door is open.
06:37So she walked in and screamed.
06:43My ear is still ringing.
06:46And then you come back to the house?
06:48Yeah.
06:49OK.
06:50So if he hadn't left, that relative definitely
06:53could have been the third victim inside of the house.
06:55I'm hoping that he's going to know what's going on and why.
06:59We were chilling at the house.
07:00He says earlier that night, he was hanging out with Brandon
07:04when Reginald had visitors.
07:07He sold him some weed.
07:09This man might sell 10 pounds in a day.
07:13I swear to God, this dude walks around with $100,000.
07:18It would be in a leather book bag,
07:20like a Gucci leather book bag.
07:23He claims to have over a million dollars.
07:27So one thing that goes on my mind is that, all right,
07:30was this a drug rip?
07:31Or did he know that it was some money in there
07:34that they was going in to get?
07:37Fast money is what people are attracted to.
07:40They don't want to go out and work a 8 to 5.
07:43So we'll grab some marijuana, grab cocaine,
07:46and go out and sell it.
07:47You don't need an education to do that.
07:49You just get up and you just do it.
07:51Getting that information that Mr. Crenshaw sold drugs,
07:55gave us an angle to start going in.
07:59If it's got as much money as you're saying that he's got,
08:01why does he stay here with you?
08:03He does have a house.
08:05Somebody broke into it.
08:07Brandon's relative, he was able to explain
08:09that his house was hot.
08:11So Reginald wanted to kind of change the environment
08:14that he operated in.
08:15When did you first start staying at Charles?
08:19Hanging out, um, three, four weeks.
08:25But he started being careless and letting mother
08:28pull up here in traffic.
08:30Letting traffic, all these people
08:31know where the he's at.
08:33And that's the starting result is what happened.
08:37Brandon, he has no enemies.
08:39The dude might have shot Brandon as a casualty.
08:43He's a working man, a college kid.
08:46He ain't even in the streets like that.
08:50Brandon was perhaps an eyewitness.
08:53And I think that merely because he was there,
08:55it caused his death.
08:58And the fact that Mr. Crenshaw obviously
09:01decided to sell drugs, in and of itself
09:04should not have, warranted a death sentence.
09:08Once we were able to validate that bag was missing,
09:12there were no drugs inside of the house,
09:14we assumed at that point that it was a robbery.
09:18Change your mind?
09:19Yeah.
09:22The team finds a phone in Reginald's pocket.
09:25Where it relates to drug sales, you
09:27know that communication is going to be done through that phone.
09:35Any time I investigate a case that's involving drugs,
09:39my mind goes to, this could have been my brother.
09:43My brother was selling cocaine.
09:45But of course, it caught up to him.
09:48What saved him was him going to federal prison.
09:50If my brother was out during that time,
09:53I know for sure my brother would probably be dead now.
09:57Now I'm off the headquarters.
10:00I'm looking to find any person that was in that phone
10:02saying that they were on their way to that residence.
10:05We knew that that was going to be our suspect.
10:21Reginald Jr. was my second oldest son.
10:25You see, we started him off early with his bow tie,
10:28quite dapper.
10:30All the nieces and aunts and stuff called him little Reginald.
10:34I was the big Reginald.
10:37When Reg was a kid, he loved sports.
10:39Basketball was his game.
10:41This was on the front page of the Mobile Press Register.
10:44He was a big boy.
10:46He was a big boy.
10:47This was on the front page of the Mobile Press Register.
10:51He had a full basketball scholarship.
10:54It's a good feeling to watch your kid
10:57be successful in sports.
10:58They won the state championship.
11:00But probably about 60, 70s young men are dead now, deceased.
11:05This generation, I call them the microwave generation.
11:08They wanted quick.
11:09They weren't in a hurry.
11:11And money is the one thing that seemed
11:14to be the common denominator to that lifestyle.
11:18We all knew what he was doing in the street.
11:20I just tried to provide every avenue I possibly
11:23could for him to have a positive roadmap to doing something
11:28that was productive and positive.
11:31But because of the drugs, I had to tell him,
11:34you know, you couldn't stay here.
11:36Regardless of what happens, you still love your child.
11:40I used to hear my grandmother say a prayer that, Lord,
11:43don't let me bury my child.
11:46I know what she did now.
11:47I've lost my son.
11:50I lost my son.
12:06I'm hoping to see texts, phone calls, even a voicemail,
12:10anyone advising that they were coming to their residence.
12:14Seven hours since Reginald and Brandon were found dead.
12:18I haven't ran across anything yet
12:20that says, you know, that my victim was meeting up
12:22at the house with somebody.
12:24And when you get to a phone, you're like,
12:25I know there's something in here.
12:27And then it's not.
12:29That's the worst feeling, because you know that this phone
12:32held all my answers.
12:34You start to get nervous.
12:35You start to get anxious, because you go into it
12:38wanting to resolve it for the family.
12:4917 hours into the investigation.
12:53Hey, man.
12:54ID just got a print back from inside the house
12:58off one of the door jams.
13:01And it comes back to a guy named Larry Jackson.
13:09Larry Jackson.
13:12What was what we needed.
13:13His fingerprint could have been inside of the house
13:15from him participating in the murder,
13:18or it could have been inside of the house
13:19from him merely visiting.
13:21That fingerprint was absolute key in giving us a suspect
13:26to start looking at.
13:2821-year-old Larry Jackson works at a shipbuilding company.
13:32He has no previous convictions.
13:35If someone don't have priors, I don't say what is canceled.
13:38This can't be my guy.
13:39He doesn't have any priors.
13:40In some cases, when you get in trouble,
13:42it has to start somewhere.
13:43Maybe you just haven't been caught yet
13:45in what you were doing.
13:49Looked up his last metro, and he gave me a phone number.
13:53Let me see.
13:54300.
13:56Rogers now has the detailed records on Reginald's calls.
14:00We wanted to see whether or not there
14:02was any communication between Larry Jackson and Reginald.
14:06We talked to him at, uh, 10-32.
14:08Yeah.
14:0910-32.
14:10Yeah?
14:11Yeah.
14:12Oh, yeah, dude.
14:13There's prints in the house.
14:14Fingerprint in the house?
14:15At that point, we were under the impression
14:17that perhaps Larry contacted Reginald to buy
14:21or either sell drugs, and then this
14:23could have happened either around that time
14:25or sometime afterward.
14:26Coming back to the address.
14:29We need to pick that dude up.
14:32Ready?
14:34We're going to the house, and I'm excited.
14:37I'm like, this guy has to explain why his fingerprints
14:40is in this house.
14:4220 hours in.
14:54Hey, how you doing?
14:58But we were able to make contact with a relative who had
15:00told us some good information.
15:05Wow.
15:05He was shot.
15:07And we know that the residence where our victim was
15:09was riddled with bullets.
15:11Not only now do we have his fingerprints
15:14inside of the residence and then the communication,
15:17but now he sustained an injury from a gunshot.
15:35The relative gives the name of the friend
15:37who took Larry to the ER.
15:40If Larry's friend was with him and in a position
15:43to take him to the hospital, then perhaps he
15:46was with him at the time that this murder occurred.
15:55The relative told us he was shot in the city of Pritchard,
16:03but we end up calling Pritchard and checking
16:06to see if there was any shots fired or anything
16:08during that time, and there wasn't.
16:20OK, so we talked to the front desk lady.
16:23They said that, oh, he had just gotten wheeled out by a friend.
16:28He must have gotten word that we were coming to the hospital.
16:32They're gone.
16:33Didn't check out, just left.
16:35It hurts because we know that we're on their trail,
16:38and they beat us by maybe minutes.
16:40And I think that the relative gave them a heads
16:43up that we were coming.
16:45Security combed the area.
16:47He's nowhere to be found.
16:48Larry Jackson and his friend had a head starting running,
16:52but you can't run forever.
16:55Larry's friend is now a person of interest.
16:59His house is the team's next stop.
17:02What I believe is that they come over there,
17:04pretty much robbed this guy.
17:06Maybe it took too long, went inside.
17:08Gunshots start going off, and he gets shot also.
17:12Which it makes sense now, if you have another person in there
17:15with you, and you got that many shell casings inside
17:18of the house, somebody else is bound to get hit.
17:22And Larry was the one that got hit.
17:25Hopefully, the friend is there.
17:28Hopefully, the friend can give us some additional information.
17:33Mobile police.
17:49At this point, not only are we looking for Larry Jackson,
17:52we're looking for the friend.
17:5520 hours in.
17:58Mobile police.
17:59Our perspective is the two are still together.
18:02So we went to the friend's house.
18:04Nobody home.
18:07It was frustrating, but we're talking about a case
18:09where there's a double murder.
18:11People don't just go back home.
18:13It was an indication that we were on the right path.
18:16Pretty sure this guy is somewhere probably hurting
18:18or trying to seek some type of assistance from somebody.
18:25After checking several hospitals for Larry and his friend,
18:29they come up empty.
18:33It says to me that Larry Jackson was now on the run.
18:4038 hours in, Rogers searches the database
18:43for the second suspect.
18:51We could not link him directly to the scene.
18:54But Rogers could have enough to arrest Larry Jackson.
19:03Woo.
19:04Like Mr. Rogers say, great day in the neighborhood, you know?
19:07So I got this murder warrant.
19:10I got it for a murder and also a shooting
19:13to an occupied dwelling.
19:14It means a lot to get their approval for a murder
19:16warrant for Larry Jackson.
19:19We believe that he was definitely our guy.
19:22So right now, we're going to hand it over to the US Marshals
19:24and hopefully they can pick him up.
19:27But seven days later, Mobile PD finds him first.
19:31Based on a tip, the team arrested Larry
19:34back at his relative's house.
19:38We believe he didn't act alone, so hopefully he'll give us
19:40who the other person was.
19:48We're going to have to find out who the other person was.
19:50We're going to have to find out who the other person was.
19:52We're going to have to find out who the other person was.
19:55OK, uh, we brought you in to talk about this incident,
19:58your injury and everything.
20:01What happened to your leg?
20:03I was shot.
20:05Even though we had identified him as a suspect,
20:08we wanted to talk to him from this place
20:11of understanding his injury.
20:14We wanted to ease into the conversation
20:17about the double murder.
20:18Why'd this happen to you?
20:20Walk me through that.
20:24Well, I was in the wrong place, wrong time, out of drugs.
20:27He was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time,
20:30but it was by his choice.
20:32He was at the crime scene.
20:48He's going to tell you right now what you're being charged with.
20:51Two counts of murder, OK?
20:55We made an arrest with Larry Jackson,
20:57but we know that there is more than just Larry Jackson.
21:10We were trying to get information
21:12to build a case against the second suspect.
21:15Six months go by.
21:16And it was a long six months.
21:18Then.
21:19Here you go.
21:21A witness called and said that they had information.
21:25This was a friend of the second suspect.
21:28Hopefully, the friend can give us
21:29what we needed to get us a warrant for the second suspect's
21:32arrest.
21:52When the witness told us that potentially three people were
21:54involved, I was excited.
21:57Have you ever seen that guy before?
22:01It's a big deal.
22:02Now we know that we have an additional person
22:04that we have to look for.
22:14And did you see that cash physically with your eyes?
22:17At that point, we knew what that witness
22:19had was pretty credible.
22:21It corroborated everything that the relatives
22:23gave us in the car.
22:25I swear to God, this dude walks around with $100,000 on him.
22:30Having our second suspect tell our witness exactly what
22:34happened gave us that murder warrant.
22:48We're making some serious progress,
22:50but we couldn't find the second suspect.
22:55Yeah.
22:58All right.
23:02People seen him walking around town.
23:05I think that I had gotten comfortable
23:07due to the lapse of time, assuming that we were not
23:09looking for him.
23:11You know, his look's running out.
23:14We'll call the marshals and see if they can get him
23:17in custody.
23:19At some point, hide and seek has to end.
23:29After three days of searching, federal agents
23:32find the second suspect parked in front
23:35of a local apartment building.
23:38I'm excited.
23:39Six months after we've interviewed our first suspect.
23:42So at this point, I've done all my homework.
23:44We were hopeful that he would tell us
23:46his side of the story.
23:49We know that you were over there with Larry.
23:53Now, what happened while you were there
23:56is what we expect you to talk to us about.
24:11The second suspect has to explain why his name has come
24:14up in this double homicide.
24:18He calls Larry Jackson by the name of Lito.
24:36So we get the name Josh, and we're thinking, OK, this
24:38can be our third suspect.
24:44About five, 10 minutes.
24:48And then I heard gunshots.
24:51And who was shooting those gunshots?
24:53Josh was.
24:55So what kind of gun Josh was shooting?
25:00This was an explanation for the two 23 caliber casings
25:04that were fired outside.
25:08So at this point, we were pretty convinced
25:11that what he said happened.
25:13OK, where was Larry?
25:20It was Josh who wounded Larry, according
25:22to the second suspect.
25:24How?
25:25Tell me how.
25:27When the guy opened the door.
25:30He stated that Reginald, one of the victims, opened the door.
25:33And they saw Joshua standing outside.
25:43It's possible that Joshua shot into that residence, which
25:47started a chain reaction to what happened inside.
25:51At that moment, it was complete chaos, where
25:55everybody is trying to survive.
26:05He says he saw Larry fleeing the house.
26:08I ran back.
26:12So tell me this.
26:14What was taken?
26:21Listen, did Larry tell you that he shot inside the house?
26:26He did?
26:32Getting the information that he provided was good for us,
26:36was good for the investigation.
26:38Our second suspect wasn't as hard
26:41as you would think he would be.
26:42I think he knew that he was in trouble.
26:44So where did you fire your shot?
26:45I'm going to get straight to the point.
26:47Where did you fire your shots?
26:56So you never went inside the house?
26:59No, never went inside the house.
27:02He did say he was there, but he was trying to distance himself.
27:05He didn't know what was going on.
27:07I think his mind was, if he didn't shoot,
27:10then he wouldn't be in trouble.
27:16But people don't realize that they're as culpable,
27:19whether or not they were the driver or the shooters.
27:22He's getting arrested and charged with two murders.
27:26There's a third suspect that we're looking for.
27:29But at this point, we hand over both cases for Larry Jackson,
27:33our second suspect, over to the DA's office.
27:41Even though the arrest warrant may have been issued,
27:45it's not as cut and dry as you would think.
27:48We did not recover the firearm in this case.
27:51And you don't have an eyewitness that
27:53saw him shooting in the house.
27:56And any time that you have co-defendants in a case
27:59and one's testifying against another one,
28:02their testimony is always going to be
28:04very strictly scrutinized.
28:06But they're looking at life without parole
28:09or the death penalty.
28:10So the stakes are high.
28:1315 months after the double homicide,
28:15the prosecution prepares for trial.
28:19You never know what a jury is going to do,
28:20and especially in capital cases, when jurors a lot of times
28:23want to be convinced beyond all doubt.
28:28Larry Jackson didn't take the stand
28:29and say, no, it was our second suspect that fired those shots.
28:34I didn't have anything to do with it.
28:36What we needed was that missing piece of the puzzle,
28:39two people that are both pointing the finger at Larry,
28:42and not just one.
28:44There's a third person that we have no idea who they are,
28:48where they are, what their involvement is.
28:51That's going to be a big problem.
28:54We need to find our third suspect.
29:00What's going to happen next?
29:11It's a big day.
29:12I mean, 15 years, Tony finally get to come home.
29:19We're going to pick up our brother from federal prison.
29:22And I am excited.
29:24I am excited.
29:28So we'll be in his parking lot, and they'll drop him off.
29:32So he'll be coming from that end.
29:35Little Tony was about a year old when he went in.
29:37So the only way he knew his dad is through jail
29:40calls and visitations.
29:42Yeah, that's him.
29:43Hello.
29:44Yeah.
29:45Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
29:48Yeah, it's my time.
29:50Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
29:53It's about time, bro.
29:56What's up, man?
29:59Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
30:04It's about time, bro.
30:06What's up, man?
30:07What?
30:08Like, you're great.
30:09Yeah.
30:09My best friend's back.
30:11He don't know how to pop a trunk right now,
30:13so I got to teach him how to open a trunk.
30:16I'm eating a chicken sandwich right now, man.
30:18A hand-done chicken sandwich.
30:20I don't think you're going to have it anyway.
30:24But that may be a cold start, though.
30:25He ain't opening it up.
30:26I finally have my little brother and my big brother
30:28to be around.
30:30He's a little brother, but he's been
30:31more of a big brother to me.
30:33And he's held me down my whole 15 years in prison.
30:37Without him, I'm telling where I'd be right now.
30:42Family over everything.
30:44Life lessons that Big Tony can give Little Tony
30:47could be very beneficial.
30:49His dad is able to tell him what not to do
30:51and what landed him in federal prison.
30:54So Tony should have an upper hand
30:55on staying out of trouble.
31:07My son, he lost his life as opposed to life in prison.
31:12Graduated prison, it would have been hard,
31:14but at least I know he was still breathing.
31:19So.
31:32Two years since the deaths of Brandon Cadwell
31:35and Reginald Crenshaw Jr.
31:40We want to identify who this Josh is.
31:43We're not very sure of a last name.
31:45All we have is the name Josh.
31:47At this point, we reached out to the second suspect
31:50and his attorney.
31:52That's when he said, hey, it's Josh Williams.
31:5724-year-old Joshua Williams went to high school
32:00with Larry Jackson and the second suspect.
32:04He has no prior convictions.
32:06I get excited now.
32:08We can check his cell phone records.
32:11And those cell phone records put all three suspects
32:15around the scene at the time of the homicide.
32:17That's enough for an actual murder warrant.
32:23After two years without any leads.
32:28I found out Joshua was living in Arkansas
32:32with other family members and then came back to Mobile
32:34just to visit.
32:35And he was picked up by police.
32:38So the thing is that we've been doing our homework.
32:41We have cell phone records with your location,
32:47your phone number in the same place at the same time
32:51when the incident happened.
32:56Explain it.
33:04Joshua says a couple of nights before the robbery,
33:06Larry was upset about some marijuana he bought.
33:12I guess it's like he was out of trust.
33:14He wouldn't let him get it.
33:17Larry wanted his money back.
33:19So they came up with a plan to try to go and rob
33:21Reginald Crenshaw for the money.
33:31He says they wanted the victims to come outside
33:33so they can rob him there.
33:42And Larry's still with them.
33:46We go to the window and I just see somebody and I shot him.
33:59Shot your rifle?
34:03According to Joshua, after the shots happened,
34:05Joshua and our second suspect left that location.
34:09But then the second suspect.
34:11Goes back to pick up Larry Jackson from the house.
34:15What did he tell you was going on inside that house?
34:24But Larry was in the house when those shots was fired.
34:28Give us a second, all right?
34:30That's enough at that point to really verify what
34:33the second suspect has said.
34:38All right, this was going on, all right?
34:40You're going to be charged with four counts
34:41of capital murder.
34:46Now, the prosecution has a difficult decision to make.
34:50In Alabama, you cannot try co-defendants together
34:54who have made statements against each other.
34:57You always have to pick who you want to go after first
34:59by determining culpability levels.
35:03You have Larry Jackson inside the house
35:07and then Joshua Williams with a firearm.
35:13You have the second suspect, where the vehicle would be.
35:19We know from the autopsies on both of the victims
35:23that every single bullet that was recovered from their body
35:25were from the same gun, .40 caliber.
35:28Larry Jackson was the only one that went inside
35:30the residence that night.
35:32And so he's the only one shooting
35:34the gun that killed them.
35:36Larry is the number one target in this case.
35:46Larry Jackson's attorney reached out to me.
35:49Larry Jackson had changed his tune
35:52and was willing to enter a guilty plea.
36:00Attorney Davis said, do you want to take this plea
36:03or do you want to go to court?
36:05If it had not wanted to be a trial,
36:06it would have been horrifying.
36:08All of the details and the facts about where he was shot at,
36:12I just didn't want to go through that.
36:15I want to remember him like these pictures,
36:18not laying up at the coroner's office.
36:26Larry Jackson pled guilty to intentional murder,
36:30one for the murder of Brandon Cadwell
36:33and one for the murder of Reginald Crenshaw Jr.
36:37I mean, that's big.
36:44So we have the second suspect we still have to deal with.
36:47He's agreed to testify truthfully
36:50against Joshua Williams.
36:52And in that case, we were willing to extend an offer.
36:56We amended the charge to a robbery in the first degree.
37:03And on the second suspect's plea day,
37:06he accepted responsibility.
37:10We are left with Joshua Williams.
37:15I talked extensively with his attorneys
37:17about plea negotiations.
37:20We were definitely prepared to go to trial.
37:23We believe it was Larry and the second suspect
37:26that committed the murders.
37:28Joshua should never have been charged with capital murder
37:31or murder whatsoever.
37:44We felt very confident that if we took this case to trial,
37:48we could show that Joshua was not
37:50involved in the killings of the two victims.
38:01So he go back, and that's when the murder happened.
38:07Our position was Joshua removed himself from the scene
38:11before the murders took place.
38:13The prosecution had no evidence placing Joshua there
38:16at the time of the killings.
38:19No fingerprints from Joshua on the scene
38:21anywhere inside the house.
38:23No shell casings in the house.
38:25But Madison's version was different from ours.
38:30Only Larry Jackson knows exactly what
38:32time the victims were killed.
38:36But we believed that it happened while the second suspect
38:40and Joshua Williams were still there.
38:43And I told the defense counsel that his own client's
38:47statements negated that defense.
38:51This is Joshua Williams' statement to law enforcement.
39:00He admitted to firing his rifle multiple times
39:05through the front window of the residence.
39:08We had several problems with the interrogation of Joshua
39:12by the police.
39:13Joshua told me that he had smoked a significant amount
39:15of marijuana prior to being arrested.
39:18And he ends up being interrogated
39:20and admitting to things that he hadn't been admitting to.
39:23If he was in his right mind to waive his constitutional right
39:26to counsel, then everything he said
39:28during that interrogation could be thrown out.
39:32We felt like we had quite a bit of ammunition
39:35for reasonable doubt.
39:37We threw out certain theories.
39:39Would this work?
39:40How would this play to the jury?
39:41From the ballistics evidence, it was pretty clear
39:44that all the bullets invoked by from a single handgun.
39:48And that's the one that was determined
39:49to be held by Larry.
39:52Exactly.
39:53But didn't Joshua shoot one shot?
39:56He did, but it was from a different gun.
39:57It was from a different gun.
39:59Joshua's bullet went into Larry's leg.
40:02So he may be guilty of assault on his co-defendant,
40:05but he's not guilty of murdering these two individuals.
40:10I believe that when Joshua Williams had shot
40:14into the house, that's probably what started
40:18whatever went down inside.
40:20But if we can't come to an agreement,
40:22then we're forced to go to trial, which is a risk.
40:24After months of negotiations.
40:27We ultimately decided he'd enter a blind plea to the two
40:30counts of felony murder.
40:33And it would be up to the judge to determine the sentence.
40:55You always wonder if you've made the right decision when
40:58you let someone plead guilty to a lesser sentence.
41:03To have the family supporting our decision
41:06helped give myself peace as a prosecutor.
41:11I was satisfied.
41:12It had been going on for six to seven years.
41:16And I just wanted to put a stop to it.
41:18I didn't want to be a part of it.
41:20I didn't want to be a part of it.
41:21I didn't want to be a part of it.
41:23And I just wanted to put an end to it and get justice from it.
41:28I never get a conversation I had with Reggie.
41:31Told him, I said, man, if you don't change your lifestyle,
41:34something bad will happen to you in the street.
41:36He said, well, we all got to die from something.
41:39Had this flow with me.
41:42To hear a young person say that, that just rings in my head.
41:50Their stories are different.
41:52Well, my brother, federal prison saved his life.
41:57Detective Rogers' case, his brother,
41:59he's blessed that he's able to get a second chance
42:03to turn his life around.
42:05And it's pretty nice, man.
42:07But while he went the wrong way, he
42:09made sure that I wasn't doing the wrong things.
42:13And I thank him for that, because I definitely
42:15wouldn't be in the position that I'm in today
42:17if it wasn't for him.
42:19Yeah, that's what the young will be here.
42:22Without seeing my brother's mistakes,
42:23without him actually going to federal prison,
42:27probably would have changed my life.
42:29I probably wouldn't be doing the wrong things.
42:36It's possible my life would have been different.
42:39It definitely would have been.