Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [115]
Two of the defendants, Santana and Richardson, independently brought investigators to the precise location of the attack on the jogger.12
Moreover, their videotaped confessions were not vague, five-minute statements that anyone could have given. They were multiple, lengthy statements that included damning minutiae. In separate interrogations taken by various investigators, all five of the defendants independently identified where the jogger was when they first saw her. All five said they charged her, dragged her into the woods, beat, molested, and raped her before leaving her lying on the ground, semiconscious and half naked. None of them admitted to raping her themselves, instead pinning the rapes on others. But all of them admitted to assisting in her rape, which is all that was required for a rape conviction for all of them.
McCray confessed to participating in the attack on the jogger only after his mother said to him, “Tell the truth. We brought you up better than this.” He proceeded to give a vivid account of a wolf pack attack in the presence of both his parents. This was before law enforcement, much less the media, knew exactly what had happened that night.
Here is a small part of McCray’s confession given the day after the attack (the full excerpt from New York Newsday is printed in the Appendix):
Prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer (Q): What happened as she came closer?
A: That’s when we all charged her.
Q: Did you charge her?
A: Yes.
Q: What happened when you charged her?
A: We charged her, we got her on the ground, everybody started hitting her and stuff, she was on the ground, everybody stompin’ and everything. Then we got each, I grabbed one arm, some other kid grabbed one arm and we grabbed her legs and stuff. Then we all took turns getting on her, getting on top of her.
Q: Did you hit her?
A: Yes, kicked her.
Q: Where did you kick her?
A: I don’t know, just kicked her, I felt it, just kicked her, it was like a whole bunch of us.
Q: Who else kicked her?
A: Um, um, Kevin [Richardson, another defendant], um, all of us.
Q: That tall thin black guy I was asking you about, did you see him hit her in the ribs?
A: I heard it. I heard it.
Q: What did you hear?
A: It sounded like when you get hit in your chest. Sounded like that.
Q: Was she screaming, is that how you could tell she was being hit?
A: She wasn’t screaming. She was hurt, though. She wasn’t screaming.
Q: How could you tell she was hurt?
A: ’Cause she was lying there.
• • •
Q: Did you see her get hit in the head?
A: I heard it, not only, I seen it.
Q: Who did it?
A: The tall, black kid.
• • •
Q: What was she wearing?
A: I think a white T-shirt, something like that.
Q: Who took off her shirt?
A: The tall black kid.
Q: Who took off her pants?
A: I think it was him.
• • •
Q: Did somebody have sex with her?
A: Yeah.
Q: Did a lot of people have sex with her?
A: Yeah.
Q: Who was the first person to get on top of her?
A: The tall black guy.
Q: Did somebody else get on top of her then?
A: He grabbed one of her arms, this other kid got on top of her.
Q: Who was that?
A: This Puerto Rican guy.
Q: Did you have your fly open?
A: Yeah, but my penis wasn’t in her.
• • •
Q: How long did you do that for?
A: I don’t know, a couple of minutes.
Q: What happened after Kevin was done?
A: Then we left her then, then this guy hit her in the head. Then we left.
Q: Who hit her?
A: I don’t know. I just, the pipe, I think the tall skinny kid.13
As an article in the New York Times said at the time, the case was won not in the courtroom “but in three grubby New York City police station houses, where detectives smoothly convinced the three young men to confess.”14
In addition to the videotaped confessions and written statements, the defendants also made incriminating statements to the police