Part~9 Back Tracking A Bit....

So far I've talked of my son and what he, myself and our family had been going through. But there is much more to this story. There were two other young men who were arrested along with my son. His two friends who he had been with at the bonfire the night the young man was killed at the pizzeria.

So many things had happened in the week after this young man had been murdered. And prior to my son's arrest.

Another pizzeria affiliated with the one in town was also robbed. And the night before they picked up my son. The police went to a home in Detroit and tried to arrest a man there on the suspicion he had killed the young man here. They televised the whole thing on the evening news. The man had actually been found at the house next door to the one they went to, and he was hiding under a bed. They took him in. He was giving a lie detector test and passed.

They next day was they day they came for my son. He had been out walking around the subdivision behind us with his girlfriend. When out of no where, came a couple of dark unmarked SUV's speeding up on them. When they stopped abruptly, men dressed in black came running out and surrounded my son and his girlfriend with their guns drawn. They told my son to get in the vehicle and told his girlfriend to follow them.

My son later told us how they drove at a high rate of speed through the local streets. He said he wasn't even sure who they were. And he remembered being scared and thinking these men were going to kill him. He said his girlfriend had trouble keeping up with them but some how managed.

Let me stop here now and explain something. In early Oct. a friend of my son had been ambushed and shot in a home of a neighbor. He was still in the hospital in a coma. And at that time they still had not found the person or persons who had did it. And here was some men dressed all in black surrounding my son with guns drawn. This for sure added to the fear my son was experiencing and why he thought these men might kill him. I'll always believe that these men, these officers were totally aware of that fact. And that is why they did it the way they did. I'll be the first to say my son was no angel, he had had a few run ins with the local police, he had two MIP's (minor in possession) and a few minor contacts with the police. But nothing like this. The police set the stage that night before they even had my son in the station. Also if you remember me saying in the beginning of this story, they hadn't taken my son to the police station here in town, they took him to another station. So he had no clue where he was going until he got there.

Now at the station, they told his girlfriend to go home, and they began their night of interrogation.They questioned my son and asked him who he had been with the night of the murder in town. When my son told them. Some officers left and went to round them up too.

Now they had three boys. My son, his friend a 16 year old, and his friend's friend, a 19 year old. They took them all separately into different rooms. The 16 year old by Michigan law had to have his parents present during his questioning. My son had just turned 18 three weeks earlier. He and the 19 year old were considered adults and were not allowed to have their parents present.

They questioned these boys for hours. The 16 year old was the only one of the three who did not confess. He was also the only one who's parents were allowed to be there too. The police did try and get the 16 year old to sign a blank confession, his parents would not let him of course. His parents also heard the sounds of what they thought were chairs and things being thrown and loud voices.

My son and the 19 year old both ended up signing confessions. Neither of their confessions matched each others and were riddled with in consistencies. My son told me he wrote what he was told. The other young man's statement was written by an officer with the 19 year old's initials next to each statement. With these statements the police felt they had enough to arrest the 16 year old as well.

In the early hours of Oct 26th 2000, and without my knowledge, my 18 year old son and his two friends were arrested for a murder they did not commit. What my son didn't know nor did we, was that by signing that piece of paper he had basically signed his life away. They were not going to let him go like they had said. Even though they never ever found any evidence that placed our son or his two friends at the scene of the crime. Not a finger print, no DNA , no smoking gun, and no witnesses. All they ever had were these two statements which both my son and the 19 year old recanted and said were coerced.


How would the boys know that by signing those statements,it was like a binding contract. They wouldn't. We didn't. But the officers knew.