During a street festival, detectives discover the body of a young man hidden inside a trash can; with few leads to go on and suspects at every turn, police aren't sure who they can trust, and who is the next one.
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00:00In Cincinnati, we have Riverfest, and it's the biggest event of the year.
00:26They have music, they have fireworks, they have games for the kids.
00:29I mean, a little bit of everything for everybody.
00:32But you're really waiting for the big event to happen?
00:36Where are you going to be to watch the fireworks?
00:40Based on being Riverfest, it would have been a skeleton crew in the police department.
00:46The night crew would work six at night until two in the morning.
00:55And what we would say, when you're on nights, you sit around and wait for death.
01:01We started off the day celebrating the end of the summer.
01:05I had a big party, and we ended up investigating a murder.
01:45There was a 911 call that came in to police dispatch.
02:06There was a foul odor coming from a trash bin.
02:10Maybe a dead dog, dead cat, dead possum.
02:15The garbage bin was found in the rear of the apartment building on Elm Street.
02:29The building is kind of like an old brownstone.
02:32It's probably been there since the 1800s.
02:36Officers noticed a bunch of flies around the area.
02:40They looked into the trash bin and saw maggots.
02:45The uniformed officers on scene, just based on the smell, would know that it was probably
02:55a decomposing human as opposed to a decomposing dog.
02:59It's something that gets ingrained in your psyche.
03:03There's no smell like it.
03:06The officer looked in, saw a blanket, took out a knife, cut the blanket,
03:11and moved the blanket away with the knife and saw a human leg.
03:15The officers put up crime scene tape to cordon off the area.
03:27A crime scene is a piece of evidence, so they decided not to pull the body off the scene.
03:32They made arrangements to have it towed up to the coroner's office.
03:40The body was wrapped in two blankets, a sheet, like a floral sheet.
03:45Which had some burn marks on it.
03:49Whoever disposed of the body tried to more than likely set the body on fire.
03:55The problem was that one of the blankets was fire retardant, so it never caught.
04:01At this point, whoever did it went through great lengths to try to cover up
04:04the fact of what he or she did.
04:09Once the body was out, the body was unwrapped from the blanket.
04:13He was a black male, about six foot to six foot three, heavy set, probably over 200 pounds.
04:21He was wearing blue jeans, no shoes, and only one sock.
04:27He had no identification on him, no cell phone, no jewelry to speak of.
04:33The only identifying mark were a tattoo on his left forearm,
04:36it said stacks, and the two S's on the front and the back were dollar signs.
04:43And a chain around his neck with a key.
04:48It's September, right, end of the summer, it's hot.
04:52A body will decompose at a higher rate when it's hot, as opposed to cold.
04:57The coroner had determined based on the maggots, the decomposition of the body,
05:02that he was probably there at least from one to three days.
05:06It's a time of death, probably would have been around August 31st or September 1st.
05:11The coroner had said he was cut, he was beaten, he was strangled.
05:19There's defensive wounds, his hands would have gone up
05:22during the attack to try to protect himself.
05:24He defended himself as best he could.
05:28The victim was big and he was fighting back and he went down hard,
05:31so they had to do a lot of damage to finally kill him.
05:34He fought valiantly before he finally succumbed.
05:41This is probably one of the more vicious attacks based on the fact of everything that was used.
05:49Someone who would do something like this would be a predator.
05:55I was the Hamilton County Courts Reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer,
05:59so that involved covering all of the crime that came through the courts.
06:05There was a lot of violent crime, shootings, homicides.
06:11The 2005 relationship between the Cincinnati Police Department and the city wasn't that good
06:18because in 2001, Cincinnati Police shot an innocent young man.
06:26The death of an unarmed Black man set off days of rioting in Cincinnati.
06:31The kind of thing that we saw recently with George Floyd happened then.
06:38People were very distrustful, everyone was holding back information.
06:43They felt that they were protecting their neighborhood by not giving information to the police.
06:49Even if they managed to find someone who had seen something,
06:52it's going to be a very difficult task.
06:54This was going to be an uphill battle.
06:55There was an urgency in this case to identify the victim.
06:58Fingerprints were taken, blood and tissue samples were taken in order to get DNA.
07:05We would then run John Doe through the computer system, but DNA came back with nothing in file.
07:12So that led us to believe that the person had never been arrested.
07:16The biggest clue on who it was would have been a tattoo.
07:20We looked at the tattoo on the victim's arm.
07:23We looked at the tattoo stacks and stacks usually means a stack of cash.
07:30So based on that, it led us to the motive.
07:33Maybe they got killed for money.
07:38What we do on a crime scene is we'll go back the next day
07:42and kind of do a re-canvas to see if there's anything we might have missed.
07:53We were able to come up with a 9-1-1 caller who told us that on September 2nd, 2005,
07:58she saw several individuals load something big into the trash bin
08:03and rolling the trash bin out to the curb.
08:07She said it was suspicious to her because this was the day after the trash had been picked up.
08:14That's kind of like the ding, ding, ding.
08:16The bells go off and this is somebody we want to talk to.
08:22One of the two people was a woman, someone who had really long hair,
08:28and this woman was with a well-built man.
08:34She did say that she saw the maintenance man roll it back from the curb a couple days later
08:42and the odor in the trash bin got more foul as the days went on.
08:48Based on her interview, we were able to find the name of the maintenance man.
08:54He confirmed that he did roll the container back to the alleyway from the street corner
08:59a couple days after it had been rolled out.
09:01The fact that a body was found in just everybody's, like, run-of-the-mill trash bin —
09:19people had to be very worried.
09:22Some don't want to come forward because they don't want to rock the boat.
09:25They didn't want to become a victim.
09:27I'm all right.
09:28If it's the same person, I'm all right.
09:29I'm all right as long as I mind my own business,
09:32as long as I keep to myself.
09:34But some people realize it can be you.
09:37And you have to come forward. You have to do something.
09:40And your conscience gives to you.
09:43How can I let this go on?
09:45People knew there was a monster out there
09:47that they were looking for.
09:49A person who would do this is a predator.
09:53We knew at this point we had a killer out there
09:56who had killed at least one person.
09:59And we didn't know if there was other victims out there.
10:04Word was spreading among people.
10:07What was happening?
10:10And could they be next?
10:24It was particularly horrific.
10:26Just to find a body that someone had abandoned in a trash can
10:30and not to really know what had happened
10:33and not to know who did it.
10:37The people on Elm Street, they were afraid.
10:43Over the Rhine is a great place to live.
10:45It's absolutely beautiful.
10:47It has so much history and character.
10:52But there's a lot of urban myths
10:54that surround this Elm Street area.
11:00Just down the street is one of Cincinnati's most historic buildings,
11:04Cincinnati Music Hall.
11:07It is a big, grand building with stained glass windows.
11:12But it was built where there are graves.
11:15And ask anyone in Cincinnati,
11:17and they'll tell you that Music Hall is haunted.
11:25There's always been rumors of haunting in this area.
11:29But this was more terrifying than any of these urban legends.
11:32This time, there was a real life killer.
11:38People in the neighborhood, they have noticed
11:40somebody came into the community
11:43and ended up dead.
11:46And if it can happen to him, it can happen to me.
11:49And so they didn't want to become a victim.
11:51Detectives didn't know who the victim was.
11:53So they had to label him John Doe.
11:57The biggest clue was the tattoo.
12:00So what we did is, we would get a hold of Crime Stoppers.
12:06And they would work with their partners in the media
12:09that, hey, homicide is looking for somebody who had a tattoo of Stax.
12:14Crime Stoppers is used when they really don't know
12:17who the victim is.
12:19Somebody might call because they want to remain anonymous.
12:22Or somebody might call just because
12:25they think they know something.
12:28Every now and then,
12:30somebody's going to speak up and say,
12:32no, no, I'm not going to allow this.
12:35I've seen too much.
12:38After a couple days, we got a call
12:40from a person by the name of Eric Wallace.
12:43He said he knew a person who had a tattoo on his left forearm.
12:46He said Stax.
12:48And his name was Chris Amos.
12:52I tried to reach Chris a few times on his cell phone,
12:55but he didn't answer.
12:57I didn't think really much of it,
12:59because that's a party weekend.
13:04But they ran a Crime Stoppers thing.
13:07They had found a body, and they had no leads.
13:12They had just been able to identify
13:14that there were tattoos saying Young Stax.
13:17And I'm sitting here thinking, like,
13:19well, I only know one person.
13:21I just was praying and praying and praying
13:24that it wasn't him.
13:29Chris Amos Jr.'s dad, Chris Amos Sr.,
13:33said that his son, Chris Amos Jr.,
13:37lived in Covington, Kentucky,
13:39which is right over the river from where the body had been found,
13:42and that he lived in an apartment there.
13:45Mr. Amos provided us with a photograph of his son.
13:48And from the photograph, it matched the height and weight
13:51of the unidentified body that we had.
13:55And based on the dental records,
13:57we were able to identify the victim
13:59as 18-year-old Chris Amos Jr.
14:02Chris Amos Jr. was my best friend.
14:06I was four or five years older,
14:08but he's like a little brother to me.
14:11He liked to joke a lot.
14:13He was a jokester.
14:15He loved to, you know, tell funny stories.
14:19Chris loved to rap.
14:21He was as talented as anybody I have ever been around
14:25in the music realm.
14:27He was very good at what he did.
14:32Chris was one of my best friends.
14:35We met in high school.
14:37We used to call him Stacks.
14:39You know Stacks over here?
14:41And I was like, no.
14:43But he'd be rapping, and Stacks was Chris.
14:45So I introduced myself, man.
14:47And then it was a rap from there.
14:50We just kept going on, battle rapping,
14:53and he was definitely competitive.
14:56Chris and his dad were so much alike
14:59that they had butted heads.
15:01He wanted to live his own life
15:03and not constantly be told how to live his life.
15:08Eventually, he wanted to have his own apartment.
15:14Chris was a hard worker.
15:16He finally moved out of his own place,
15:18trying to be grown.
15:20He took the first step in becoming the adult.
15:25How could this have happened?
15:27He didn't know what to do.
15:29How could this have happened?
15:31He didn't have mortal enemies.
15:35Chris's father pulled up on me later on
15:37and told me that Chris had got murdered.
15:40Man, I bawled my eyes open.
15:43Me and his father was crying together,
15:45and I couldn't bring myself to...
15:48I don't know.
15:50It was heart-wrenching, man.
15:55The pain that Mr. Amos felt,
15:59you can't describe it.
16:01It goes so deep.
16:03And sometimes that idea of tough love,
16:06sometimes it gets real tough.
16:12Who would want to do this?
16:14What did he do to somebody?
16:29So, with little to go on,
16:31detectives retrieved the key
16:33they found on Chris Amos's body.
16:36We had that key,
16:38and since we had an address now
16:40for where Chris Jr. lived,
16:42we went there with that key
16:44and put it in a lock,
16:46and it opened up the door.
16:49We didn't find any furniture turned over.
16:52We didn't find any blood.
16:54We didn't find any murder weapons,
16:56so that would be a good indication
16:58that Chris wasn't killed at that location.
17:00His cell phone was not in his apartment,
17:03so we knew that the cell phone was missing.
17:07We then got the search warrant
17:09on his cell phone number
17:11to get phone records
17:13and go back to the date and time
17:15when Chris was killed.
17:17But cell phone records take a while to get back.
17:27We got Young here and Stacks here.
17:31He was 18, so he called himself Stacks.
17:34You know, everybody put the Young on it.
17:36You were either a Young, a Lil,
17:39you know, a Lil Wayne.
17:43Young Stacks just comes from having stacks of money.
17:47It seemed like a pretty big clue.
17:49Detectives believed that this is the motive
17:51that they'd been looking for all along.
17:53You still have that theory that it was a robbery,
17:56a set-up robbery.
17:59But it was kind of ironic that he called himself that
18:02because he did not have a lot of money.
18:08He did anything to get some extra money.
18:11You know, you had to get the money to pay the rent.
18:18Chris didn't own a car.
18:20Chris didn't own a car,
18:22and he didn't hang in those areas where he was found.
18:25Nobody knew where he would be in Cincinnati.
18:28All the information we were getting from people who knew him,
18:31he was a good kid, he had several jobs.
18:35Chris worked at a nursing home.
18:37Me and my mom were able to help Chris get a job
18:41at a very nice nursing home in Covington, Kentucky.
18:46He was really good with the elderly people.
18:49He got along really well, and every one of them loved him.
18:55Chris would volunteer on some of his lunch breaks
18:57to go get some of his favorite residents
19:00and bring them down for lunch.
19:03His co-workers were cool.
19:14Except for one of his co-workers.
19:16Mr. Amos did tell us a story
19:18that Chris had some dispute with another employee
19:21at the nursing home.
19:24This could be something as callous as a co-worker
19:27who's so pissed off at him
19:29for some perceived slight at work
19:32that they would do this to him.
19:36That's not unusual in a case like this.
19:39And they fought, and this person ended up getting fired.
19:43And he blamed Chris.
19:45Certainly a tip like that we would have to follow up on
19:48because that certainly would be a motive for a killing.
20:09Chris worked at the nursing home,
20:11and he had some dispute with another employee
20:14at the nursing home.
20:16We've had cases in the past where there's disputes at work
20:19and led to a killing.
20:21That certainly would be a motive
20:23because the type of injuries that Chris had on him
20:26led us to believe that it was probably somebody who he knew,
20:30somebody who he had a dispute with.
20:33We were able to follow up on that lead.
20:37Detectives showed up at his co-worker's door.
20:40He admitted they did get in a fight
20:42and that he didn't like Chris, but he said he didn't kill him.
20:46We were able to determine that he was out of town
20:48at his aunt's house at the time of the murder
20:50and he couldn't have committed the murder.
20:53So that's a dead end.
20:57We were very concerned that this case may never get solved
21:01because every lead that we had at the point
21:04was turning up nothing.
21:08Chris's dad, Mr. Amos, didn't know
21:11who could have killed his son or what happened.
21:16It's important to him to see justice done.
21:18It's important to him to feel whole again.
21:21He had to do something.
21:23There's no way in the world he could just sit still.
21:28Mr. Amos knew of the distrust
21:31that the black community had with police
21:34and he was willing to put feelers out in the community
21:37to try to find out who killed his son.
21:39He wasn't thinking about his own safety.
21:42He wasn't thinking about himself.
21:44He was thinking about all the things
21:46that he couldn't do for his son anymore.
21:49But he could do that.
21:51He did come up with some leads.
22:03I remember Mr. Amos saying he found out
22:06that Chris was hanging out with the wrong crowd.
22:16But Mr. Amos didn't know who Chris was hanging with.
22:19I mean, he had heard nicknames.
22:21In a street culture like this, nobody knows anyone's real names.
22:24Everyone has a nickname.
22:26It's a way to stay anonymous.
22:29Why would a kid like Chris, who had such big dreams
22:33and had never been in trouble,
22:35be hanging around such unsavory characters?
22:39Chris was not that guy.
22:41That was not his, you know, M.O.
22:43That was not his thing.
22:45That was not what he was known for.
22:48But we got some information that Chris was selling.
22:51It's an easy way to make money.
22:54He wasn't a street guy,
22:56but he had to get the money to pay the rent.
22:59When you feel like your back is against the wall,
23:01you normally do something that you wouldn't normally do.
23:03You step out on a limb, and sometimes those limbs break.
23:08And by the time you figure it out, it's too late.
23:16We didn't know who Chris was hanging with that night.
23:23Mr. Amos had given some information
23:25about a rap studio that Chris would also go to,
23:29and it turned out that that rap studio was on Elm Street.
23:34Based on the fact that Chris was found on Elm Street,
23:37that was something that had to be followed up on.
23:40There were a few underground recording studios.
23:44We would go to the studio, and then we would rap.
23:47We had our phones, so we would record, like, voice messages
23:50over us rapping over bees.
23:52Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Amos.
23:54Chris might have been on Thursday morning,
23:57Thursday night going into Friday morning,
23:59with Calvin, his closest friend.
24:03Talk to him. We want to talk to him, okay?
24:06Yeah.
24:07Chris and Calvin were both aspiring rappers.
24:13Mr. Amos thought that maybe there was some type of confrontation.
24:19Detectives knew that this was a personal attack,
24:22so that pointed them in the directions of someone who knew him.
24:25Someone who knew him.
24:37A couple days later on, I was riding down the street,
24:40hanging out, and I pulled up to my house.
24:44And I seen two white men in a suit.
24:47And they walked up to me like,
24:49Hey, are you Calvin Powell?
24:51And I was like, No, my father's not here.
24:53And they was like, Yeah, you're the one we're looking for.
24:55And I was like, Uh, me?
24:57And he said, Man, we're from Homicide.
25:00He said, Chris's father might have implicated you into the murder.
25:04I'm like, Wow, for real? For the murder?
25:07And they say, Yeah.
25:09I was taking it back, because I was like,
25:11Man, he blamed it on me?
25:12I'm like, How did he tell them that I did it?
25:15I mean, I was kind of like, Wow, his father, he really not playing.
25:18That was scary.
25:19I told the detectives,
25:21and I got into a heated text message conversation.
25:26When I spoke to him that day, he was at home.
25:28And we had gotten into a confrontation
25:30about the people he was hanging with.
25:33I warned him,
25:34because Chris had no idea how dangerous those people were that he was hanging with.
25:38He took it as me trying to
25:41go against him or test him.
25:44And he said some things he shouldn't have said.
25:46I said some things I shouldn't have said.
25:48And we were going back and forth with it.
25:50That was the last time I talked to him.
25:53And two days before that was the last time I had seen him ever again in life.
25:58Mr. Amos must have caught wind of the text messages
26:00or read them, because I was going to the funeral.
26:04When I went to check his dad's hand,
26:06he was like, Where were you?
26:09I said, I don't know.
26:11I was like, I was here.
26:14And they were asking me questions. I was crying.
26:16I found out they didn't want me at the funeral,
26:18because they thought I did it.
26:21I was hurt, man. I was deeply hurt.
26:23But I knew I didn't do it.
26:25And then I started getting mad.
26:27My feelings were hurt, and I started getting angry.
26:30Every time someone tells the police the truth,
26:32they say, You know how many times I've heard that?
26:33I said, Hey, I didn't do it.
26:35I knew I didn't do it.
26:37That's crazy.
26:38There was some type of confrontation.
26:40Maybe things escalated.
26:42It's certainly something that needs to be followed up on.
26:45But y'all investigated me.
26:47You are doing your job.
26:51But are you, though?
26:53They were wasting their time looking at me,
26:55instead of focusing on who actually did it.
27:06The people on Elm Street in Cincinnati,
27:09and the people in Covington, Kentucky,
27:11they were afraid.
27:13They were afraid.
27:14They still didn't know who did this.
27:16Was this killer going to strike again?
27:18I was definitely cautious.
27:20It's like a Zodiac killer.
27:22You're just walking around, chilling.
27:23Bam! Somebody killed you.
27:25You don't really know when it's going to happen
27:27or what's going to happen, or who's doing it.
27:30So they were scared.
27:34I was afraid to leave my house.
27:36When you have traumatic experiences,
27:38your body, your brain, reacts in certain ways.
27:42Well, my reaction was, I ain't leaving the house.
27:47Detectives didn't know what else the killer was capable of.
27:51There was no telling what was next.
27:55Based on the circumstances that we thought at this time,
27:58yeah, there was a good indication that
28:00he or she would kill again.
28:06The information that Mr. Amos gave us
28:08was that there could have been some dispute
28:10or something between Calvin and Chris.
28:13That was something that had to be followed up on
28:15based on the fact that Chris's body was found on Elm Street
28:18and the studio was also supposedly on Elm Street.
28:23I had an alibi.
28:24They ruled me out because no evidence led back to me.
28:28We had ruled Calvin out as a suspect.
28:31He couldn't have committed the murder.
28:33I was hurt, man. I was deeply hurt.
28:35When you're hurt, it just turns into a lot of anger sometimes.
28:38I was young and I was just mad at that man.
28:41I still kind of am upset about that,
28:44but I don't hold any grudges or anything to him.
28:47He was a father who lost his son.
28:52We were very concerned that this case may never get solved.
29:08Once we got the records back,
29:10we went back and concentrated on incoming and outgoing calls
29:14between August 31st and September 1st of 2005,
29:19around the time of death that we thought the time of death was.
29:27We were able to determine there was at least 29 phone calls
29:31that came in or out of Chris's cell phone
29:34after his time of death.
29:37Somebody was still using Chris's cell phone.
29:44Detectives worked on the list of calls that had been made
29:47and they pinpointed the name Jenna Gundy.
29:51Police called her in for questioning.
29:53She was upset, didn't know why she was being called down here,
29:57which is typical, said she didn't know who Chris was,
30:00didn't have anything to do with it.
30:03She had said that she had let two of her friends use her cell phone
30:07and she thought that maybe one of her friends had known Chris
30:10or someone named Chris.
30:16Also, one of the calls that piqued her interest
30:18was a call to La Rosa's Pizzeria in Cincinnati.
30:23You have to give a name, especially for delivery.
30:26Maybe a pizza was delivered to an address.
30:29Maybe that's the crime scene.
30:32And when police did check that,
30:34the order had been placed under Winnie Cartwright's name.
30:37Winnie Cartwright was one of the friends.
30:39Jenna Gundy let her use her phone.
30:43Winnie Cartwright came in for an interview.
30:46Her demeanor was that she didn't know why she was coming in.
30:50She had said that she and her boyfriend had lost their cell phone
30:53and she bought this for $10.
30:55She said she bought the phone from a person by the name of Tia Webb.
30:58So when she said Tia Webb, that rang a bell to us
31:01because that was the other person who used her cell phone.
31:08Tia, she's been at my house once.
31:10She doesn't really talk.
31:12She's, like, very quiet.
31:14And Tia lives there with who? Her boyfriend?
31:17Her boyfriend.
31:28We did a computer search on Tia.
31:30And Tia found out that she came up on Elm Street.
31:34Knowing that she lived on Elm Street
31:36and Chris's body was found on Elm Street,
31:39we knew that was someone we needed to talk to.
31:42We went out to that location, got in contact with her.
31:46She was willing to come in for an interview.
31:52She was saying she didn't know anything that was going on.
31:54You know, why is she here?
31:56But after a while, she finally admitted that she knew who Chris was.
32:08The fact that she knew Chris
32:10and lived right by where his body had been found,
32:13that was enough. They went and got a search warrant.
32:18When we went in, we noticed the place was kind of disheveled.
32:23We were able to go back into the bedroom.
32:26We found some sheets that had the similar pattern on the sheets
32:31that we found Chris's body wrapped in.
32:36And we also found a metal pipe and at least two box cutters.
32:42We also found some blood spatter back in the back bedroom
32:45where the box cutters and the pole were also found.
32:50Based on all the things that we found, the box cutters,
32:53knowing that Chris had been cut,
32:55we assumed that could have been one of the weapons
32:57and a pipe found there.
32:59Knowing that Chris had blunt force trauma,
33:02it was nice to know that we probably found our crime scene.
33:06Back in the office, we said,
33:08what do you know about this?
33:10She said something to the effect of,
33:12I'm not the one who killed him, I'm not going down for this,
33:14but I knew who did it.
33:17Is he begging for his life?
33:19He's begging real bad.
33:25On November 16, 2005,
33:28Tia Webb agreed to give a formal statement
33:31on what she knew about the murder of Chris Amos Jr.
33:35With us is a Tia, and last name is Webb, correct?
33:39You got to say yes or I can't.
33:41And this is in reference to the homicide of Chris Amos.
33:46Tia said that her boyfriend, Donald Jones,
33:48went in to rob Chris
33:50because Donald Jones had owed Chris money.
33:52He also heard that Chris had made a lot of money,
33:55so they assumed that he was flush with cash.
33:59We also had some information, too,
34:01that Chris might have had a thing for Tia.
34:03So the plan was for Tia to get Chris
34:06to come down to her apartment.
34:09Tia Webb was a honeypot.
34:11A honeypot is a female who lures men
34:13to be robbed by their boyfriend.
34:15So she admitted that she was the honeypot
34:17to lure Chris down to that location.
34:21On September 1, 2005,
34:23Donald Jones brought along his friends,
34:25Tony Fry and Keith Bond, to help out.
34:29I'm showing you a photo right now.
34:31Who is this?
34:3250.
34:33This is 50.
34:34Okay, for the record, 50 is Keith Bond.
34:37And who is this?
34:38Twin.
34:39This is Twin.
34:40For the record, Twin is a Tony Fry.
34:44Police then set out to find Tony Fry and Keith Bond.
34:48It didn't take them long to find Bond and Fry.
34:51They were in the Justice Center on another crime.
34:56I made arrangements for them to be transported over to CIS,
34:59the Criminal Investigation Section.
35:01They both said that they had a part in it.
35:04You basically explained to your part
35:07what happened here to Chris Amos,
35:09who you refer to as Shorty.
35:10Is that correct?
35:11Yes, sir.
35:13Then I started hearing some commotion.
35:15I heard somebody screaming,
35:17like,
35:18like, please, man, don't kill me.
35:20Like, I'm only 18, man.
35:22I got a mother.
35:23Like,
35:24like, I'm sorry, sir.
35:25Like, please don't kill me.
35:28As I enter the room,
35:29I see
35:31Shorty laying face down on the,
35:34on the bed
35:35with Donald on his back.
35:37Oh, my God.
35:41It was a lot of yelling and stuff, like,
35:44see, I mean,
35:45I look around and I get up in the room.
35:48I open the door
35:49and, um,
35:52Don, Donald was hitting him in the head with a pole.
35:56They said that they had Chris tied up
35:58and that they were trying to find out
36:00where Chris' stash was,
36:01both drugs and money.
36:03They said that he was denying that he had anything.
36:05Handed him some cigarettes.
36:07Handed him some cigarettes.
36:08That's what he did for us.
36:10And Jones was taking a cigarette
36:11and burning Chris' arms,
36:14forearms with it,
36:15to try to get him to say where it was.
36:19He was struggling.
36:20He was fighting back.
36:24He layed Shorty down face first.
36:26Okay.
36:27You know what I'm saying?
36:28Donald was on his back.
36:29He tried to stash Shorty
36:30with a box of cotton on his side.
36:31Now, where are you at?
36:32Now, you're,
36:33you're doing what?
36:34He told me I had to hold his legs down.
36:36So now you're holding his legs down
36:38by his feet.
36:39Right.
36:40And where's Twin?
36:41Twin is, um,
36:43on his back.
36:44On his back.
36:45By his butt?
36:46Yeah, by his butt.
36:49He on the ground,
36:50right there by the desk in the room.
36:51Okay.
36:52And Donald grabbed a pipe.
36:54And he started beating Shorty with the pipe.
36:56Seriously.
36:58Is he bagging for his life?
37:00He bagging real badly, man.
37:02Phil, we're sorry for Shorty.
37:04Now, Donald's got a box cutter.
37:05Right.
37:06And then he grabs his head
37:07and lifts his head up
37:08and then runs the box cutter
37:09across his throat.
37:10Like it's,
37:11he's trying to slit his throat.
37:12Right.
37:19Donald expressly told you, Tia,
37:21that he was the one that slit,
37:24that cut, uh,
37:25Stack's throat, correct?
37:26Right.
37:27They did this?
37:29Well, Tia Webbs
37:30son was in the next room.
37:32Chris was pleading for his life.
37:35And this little boy
37:36took everything.
37:38When they were done,
37:39they took everything Chris had.
37:41And it wasn't that much.
37:43He had $7 on him.
37:45In fact,
37:46the most valuable thing he had
37:47were his Timberland boots.
37:49So they took those.
37:52Keith Bond,
37:53he also said that he, uh,
37:54actually disguised himself
37:55putting on a wig
37:56so he wouldn't get noticed.
37:57No one knew it.
37:59Bond and Fry
38:00admitted that
38:01they were there,
38:02but they wanted to minimize
38:03what they did.
38:05But for us,
38:06for a confession like that,
38:08all we need is for them to admit
38:09that they were on scene.
38:11They all said
38:12that Donald Jones
38:13was the main culprit.
38:15Donald Jones
38:16had no qualms
38:17about killing somebody.
38:19None.
38:21When police picked up
38:2232-year-old Donald,
38:23they found that
38:24he had a gun.
38:26He had a gun.
38:2732-year-old Donald Jones,
38:29he claimed he didn't know
38:30anything about the murder.
38:32He said he didn't even know Webb.
38:34But they had found a letter
38:35in Webb's apartment
38:36with his name.
38:38During the interview,
38:39one of the things
38:40that we can do is
38:41use evidence
38:42that we don't necessarily have
38:44as a way to
38:45elicit a certain response.
38:47And we had said
38:48that we had, uh,
38:49fingerprints on a
38:50trash bag.
38:53Once we told him that,
38:54he started to sob
38:55and admitted that
38:56he did it.
38:57You said that
38:58you had lied to us
38:59and that you wanted
39:00to tell us the truth
39:01that you were inside there
39:02when he was killed.
39:03Is that correct?
39:04Yes, sir.
39:06No conscience.
39:07It's almost medieval.
39:09You know what he did?
39:10Execution style.
39:12Holding somebody down.
39:14I don't think he had a heart.
39:17Whatever he had beating
39:18inside of him,
39:19it couldn't have been a heart.
39:21Months later,
39:22all four
39:23pled guilty.
39:26Donald Jones
39:28got a life sentence.
39:30Bri was sentenced
39:31to 10 years
39:32and Bond was sentenced
39:33to 24 years.
39:35Tia Webb ended up
39:36getting five years
39:37of probation
39:39for tampering with evidence.
39:43For Mr. Amos,
39:45it's hard to mention
39:46his son's name
39:47because sometimes
39:48you mention
39:49your child's name,
39:50things flash through
39:51your mind subconsciously
39:52and remember this
39:53and that and that.
39:54To mention that name,
39:56that can basically
39:57increase the grief.
39:59He's not the same man
40:00that he was
40:01before his son died.
40:04He's a different person.
40:06That name doesn't mean
40:08it's the same now.
40:10I cannot tell you
40:11how much it still
40:15just really hurts
40:16to this day
40:17to realize that
40:19somebody had it
40:20in their heart
40:21to kill him.
40:23I still can't figure it out.
40:26I really can't.
40:28I loved him dearly.
40:31I still love him
40:32to this day.
40:35And what I miss
40:36about Amos was
40:37for real was his smile, man.
40:39He had a crazy
40:40little kind of
40:41sad way smile.
40:43I miss him, period, man.
40:44He was my friend.
40:46I miss everything
40:47about the guy,
40:48you know what I'm saying?
40:49It was just,
40:50that was just my dude, man.
40:51Amen.
40:53May God rest your soul, brother.
40:54We'll see you on the other side, man.
40:55Love you and miss you.