High Schooler Convicted for a Murder He Didn't Commit | Jeffrey Deskovic — Transcript

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1. 0:01i was arrested at the age of 16 for a
2. 0:03murder and rape that i did not commit
3. 0:05and ultimately i was wrongfully
4. 0:07convicted of that um so i my wrongful
5. 0:09conviction which happened at the age of
6. 0:1117 was caused by
7. 0:13coerced false confession prosecutorial
8. 0:15misconduct fraud by the medical examiner
9. 0:17terrible public defender i lost even
10. 0:19though the dna didn't match me i was
11. 0:21given a 15 the life sentence because i
12. 0:23had been charged as an adult and i then
13. 0:25spent um 16 years in the men's maximum
14. 0:28security prison from age 17 to 32 losing
15. 0:31seven appeals getting turned down for
16. 0:34parole because i maintain my innocence
17. 0:36being going through that and then
18. 0:38ultimately being exonerated through
19. 0:41further dna testing which identified the
20. 0:44actual perpetrator fast forward to today
21. 0:47and i'm an attorney now i've been
22. 0:49cleared and i have a non-profit
23. 0:51organization the jeffrey deserved
24. 0:53foundation for justice which has freed
25. 0:5511 people we've helped pass three laws
26. 0:57aimed at preventing wrongful conviction
27. 0:59i'm an advisory board member for the
28. 1:00group it could happen to you and passed
29. 1:02another six laws currently we have 17
30. 1:04cases and we're working on policy
31. 1:06changes in new york pennsylvania and
32. 1:08california it's fascinating it's it's
33. 1:11unbelievable
34. 1:12what you've what you've been through and
35. 1:14and how common
36. 1:16that this is in the judicial system in
37. 1:19the united states of people getting
38. 1:20wrongfully convicted
39. 1:22um so
40. 1:24so what was the story of the girl who
41. 1:27was i think she moved from columbia to
42. 1:30new york yeah and she was in a high
43. 1:31school with you yeah that's right yeah
44. 1:33angela carrera was her name she moved
45. 1:35from columbia uh she
46. 1:37was living as i understood it she was
47. 1:39living a very sheltered life she was in
48. 1:41the country for about a year and a half
49. 1:44and uh you know ultimately she was you
50. 1:46know her she went missing on november 15
51. 1:481989 and her body was found a couple of
52. 1:51days later on november 17th 1989 and you
53. 1:54know she had been um she had been raped
54. 1:56and murdered and how old was she she was
55. 1:5815 years old 15 years old and you guys
56. 2:00were friends in high school right uh we
57. 2:01were not we i knew her name she knew
58. 2:04mine uh she was in a couple of
59. 2:06uh classes as a freshman one as a
60. 2:09sophomore that was it i think in two
61. 2:11years i think i briefly spoke to her
62. 2:13twice so we were not even really on a
63. 2:15high buy basis
64. 2:17now did you guys interact at all like
65. 2:20was it just like randomly passing by you
66. 2:22met her a couple times but you didn't
67. 2:23really talk to her much did you it was a
68. 2:25lot yeah it was it was a ladder like you
69. 2:26said she just had by coincidence or by
70. 2:28school schedule she happened to be in
71. 2:30two of my classes as a freshman one as a
72. 2:32sophomore like i said i briefly spoke
73. 2:34with her twice one time was uh i passed
74. 2:36a note to her on behalf of a male
75. 2:39classmate who was interested in her and
76. 2:41uh he was kind of nervous to approach so
77. 2:42he asked me to pass it to her and that
78. 2:44was that was really it
79. 2:46so
80. 2:47the day she went missing in 1989 i
81. 2:50believe it was right yes it was yeah
82. 2:52november 15 1989. so the day she went
83. 2:54missing um
84. 2:57where were you at what was going on what
85. 2:59was that day like
86. 3:01it was just like any other day in terms
87. 3:03of the school day after school i
88. 3:06i had a had a friend named jason and
89. 3:09uh he lived nearby where i lived at and
90. 3:12i
91. 3:13we had developed a rather innovative way
92. 3:15of playing one-on-one in wiffle ball and
93. 3:18so i
94. 3:19played wiffle ball with him that day and
95. 3:22and uh had dinner at his house and
96. 3:25around uh
97. 3:26i would say around eight or nine o'clock
98. 3:28i left this house on my bike and i
99. 3:31drove down the hill about like less than
100. 3:3310 minutes away and got to my house
101. 3:35that's what i was doing that day
102. 3:38and i think that day when she she left
103. 3:40her house and she went to like a popular
104. 3:42hangout area in the woods
105. 3:44in mid-afternoon i believe it was yes so
106. 3:46let me give some backstory so angela was
107. 3:48in a photography class and the teacher
108. 3:51had assigned the whole class including
109. 3:53her to take pictures of some foliage
110. 3:55so after school she walked went back to
111. 3:58her house uh with her older sister
112. 4:01uh the the teacher had assigned like a
113. 4:04buddy system uh for the protection of
114. 4:06the students like a male student was
115. 4:08matched up with with a female student
116. 4:10and so she went back to her house her
117. 4:12sister went to the bathroom when she
118. 4:13came back out and angela wasn't there
119. 4:16she left on her on her own
120. 4:18so she went to the park to take pictures
121. 4:21of the foliage
122. 4:22and the male student uh played hooky on
123. 4:25the assignment so he never showed up so
124. 4:28she was taking pictures on this um
125. 4:31there's a path between hillcrest and
126. 4:33peekskill new york and hillcrest
127. 4:34condominiums and
128. 4:36and uh well this hillcrest condo yeah
129. 4:38there's the the hillcrest school and
130. 4:39then there's condominiums and there's
131. 4:41like a woods and a macadam pad that
132. 4:43links the two and so she went down onto
133. 4:45the path which is not that far away from
134. 4:48this wooded area called um
135. 4:50which is called the pit which you know
136. 4:52kids teenage kids used to drink at and
137. 4:54used to used to make out that wasn't
138. 4:56very far from off of the path she said
139. 4:59so she's on this path with heavy woods
140. 5:01taking pictures and she comes across
141. 5:03stephen cunningham who say who's a drug
142. 5:06addict and who's high and he sees her he
143. 5:09attacks her murders and rapes her this
144. 5:12guy was smoking crack i think it was
145. 5:13that is correct and how old was he at
146. 5:15the time of the crime he was 29 years
147. 5:17old and so you know angela was 15 and at
148. 5:20the time i was 16. i never saw him a day
149. 5:22in my life it was just kind of like a
150. 5:24random encounter it was just unfortunate
151. 5:26that she came across him at that time
152. 5:28and you know that's what gave the
153. 5:30occasion for him to attack her and you
154. 5:32know do what he did
155. 5:34so he attacked her obviously he murdered
156. 5:37her um
157. 5:41at what point did
158. 5:43she get reported missing
159. 5:45and how did and how long after that did
160. 5:48they discover the body
161. 5:50yeah i think that she got reported
162. 5:51missing uh
163. 5:52later
164. 5:54like early evening later that late
165. 5:56afternoon early evening she got reported
166. 5:58missing and her you know it was even uh
167. 6:00ran into the lo there was a local uh
168. 6:02paper called then called the evening
169. 6:03star it was a daily newspaper a connect
170. 6:05paper and they ran a story teen missing
171. 6:08had her picture and everything and you
172. 6:11know and then a couple of days later
173. 6:13they ran a follow-up story uh you know
174. 6:15her body had been found you know naked
175. 6:17from the waist down
176. 6:19right yeah they found her body and uh
177. 6:21obviously she had been beaten i think
178. 6:23she had a lot of head trauma that's
179. 6:24right they found uh
180. 6:27a bludgeon
181. 6:29wound on her head that was like an inch
182. 6:31deep
183. 6:31and they said a gatorade bottle or
184. 6:33something well they yeah they well the
185. 6:35gatorade bottle comes in later so her
186. 6:38yeah i'll get into that i know what
187. 6:39you're getting that though okay yeah uh
188. 6:41yeah so she had like a deep head wound
189. 6:43in the back and so you know that was so
190. 6:45the the medical examiner i mean it kind
191. 6:48of flip-flops a little bit i mean in one
192. 6:49hand he says well the the the wound on
193. 6:51the top of the head that's what killed
194. 6:53her but then he also says well either
195. 6:54that or strangulation okay so he can't
196. 6:57really determine which of those two
197. 6:58things actually is what caused the death
198. 7:00but both of them both of them occurred
199. 7:03occurred to her we're going to get to
200. 7:04the gatorade bottle uh after okay and so
201. 7:08the people investigating this is it just
202. 7:10the local police department it's just
203. 7:12the local pigskill police department yes
204. 7:14and there had been very few murders in
205. 7:16peak skill
206. 7:17overall so you know their inexperience i
207. 7:19think was definitely a factor not a
208. 7:20common thing to happen not a common
209. 7:22thing to happen at that time no
210. 7:24so in the course of the police
211. 7:25investigation the police interviewed
212. 7:28many students from the high school and
213. 7:30some of the kids told the police that
214. 7:32they might want to speak with me because
215. 7:34i didn't quite fit in so this is what
216. 7:36the police said it originally put me on
217. 7:38their radar
218. 7:40an additional factor is that
219. 7:44is that this was i was a sensitive
220. 7:45teenager this was my real first brush
221. 7:47with death
222. 7:48and i had an emotional reaction to that
223. 7:51so the police thought that this
224. 7:53emotional reaction that i had
225. 7:55was
226. 7:57suspicious like it was some sort of
227. 7:59outward sign for something that
228. 8:02uh i was sorry i did but we have these
229. 8:05two reasons that i've just laid out why
230. 8:07i'm on the police radar and then there's
231. 8:09a third thing which is that the uh pisco
232. 8:12police they got a psychological profile
233. 8:14from the nypd so they turned to a more
234. 8:16experienced police department you know
235. 8:18and look give us his profile what type
236. 8:20of person should we be looking for
237. 8:23you know what were there characteristics
238. 8:25and so i had the misfortune of matching
239. 8:27this profile i mean this profile said
240. 8:29well it's um
241. 8:30you know likely somebody that likely
242. 8:32someone that knew her someone that was a
243. 8:34loner
244. 8:35ver likely somebody in the high school
245. 8:38well that fits me