All language subtitles for Staged Deadly Deception - S01E10 - Best Friends.eng

When you learn that there's been
a fatal shooting in Berkeley,

your first instinct is kind of like,
"Well, that's weird."

You kind of automatically assume

there's going to be some
sort of crazy story behind it.

These were two longtime friends.

How could something get
so out of hand

that it ended up in murder?

You've just killed
one of your closest friends.

They're on the ground,
clearly dead.

They've got gunshot wounds
to their head.

You know, a lot of people
would have a panic attack.

We want his side of the story

of why did you
do these certain things?

Why did you put
the gun underneath him?

What were you trying to display
to the police or to the authorities?

And then, a woman in her 20s
shows up at a hospital.

She's been walking around
with a bullet

in her shoulder for several hours.

You're a witness to a homicide.

What happens if you don't play ball?

In this particular case,
unfortunately,

what grandma did is
she participated in a coverup.

She tried to let her grandson
get away with murder.

I've never seen an instance where
somebody dragged their grandma in

to cover up for a homicide before.

Somebody's fingerprints would be
on it because the gun was used.

So somebody wiped
the fingerprints off.

So there's something wrong.
There goes the red flag.

Because we know
what we're looking for.

But someone staging
the scene does not.

You've just got to think that,
if cooler heads had prevailed there,

everybody's life would be
so much better.

California is, like,
a melting pot.

There's a lot of different
kinds of people.

You get a lot of... a little bit
of everything out here.

San Francisco Bay area is
a really big region.

Other than Los Angeles,

it's probably the biggest
part of California.

Berkeley, California,
specifically,

it's always kind of been known as...
sort of a peaceful area

that has kind of
a hippie vibe to it.

Even though there's
a million people around,

like, in every direction,

you always kind of had
this small town vibe in Berkeley,

where there was
this real sense of community.

Even though it's right
next to the murder capital

of Northern California,
which is Oakland.

Sacory was very athletic.

I taught him
how to ride a bike, actually.

He was three,

and I remember doing that
with a neighbour's bike.

And then, after that,
he assumed it was his bike.

So whenever he came over,

he'll go down to the neighbourhood
and take their bike,

and they'll come knock on the door.

"Hey, Tomorrow, Sacory has my bike,"

and I'm chasing him,
and he's going so fast.

He loved children. He loved kids.

So, at a young age,
he always told my mom

he wanted to have a baby.

Me and Sacory, it was just us.

Like, there's no other siblings,
so we were very close.

And growing up,
he was, like, a handful.

He was very, like,
rambunctious

and very outgoing.

We told each other everything.

He didn't get in
too much trouble at school

except for rapping in class a lot...

...making little beats on the desk,

but just teenage stuff.

My brother wanted to be a rapper.

He started getting
his self into music...

...and started trying
to take that seriously.

This starts with a woman
in her 70s calls 911

to report that there's a man there

suffering a gunshot wound,

and that she thinks
it might be a suicide.

But right off the bat,
she's sort of very evasive,

and it's kind of unclear
exactly what's going on.

This call was made
around 9:30 on a May evening,

and it's a time of year
where it's dark,

but it's not, like,
too late at night.

This is, like, a typical

residential neighbourhood
in Berkeley.

1,300 square foot house,
three bedroom, two bath.

Police arrive on the scene...

...and what they find is

a young man basically laying
in a pool of blood

with a pistol
sort of tucked underneath him.

And, obviously, from the scene,

the... the implication
right there is

that this was the gun
that was used to kill him.

One of the first things
that they realise

that's a possible red flag is

that there are three shell casings
found inside the house,

which is a little unusual
in a suicide.

Especially when they find somebody

suffering from a gunshot
wound to the head.

Sacory Knight was 22.

He was suffering
from a gunshot wound

to his cheek and to his ear,

like, below his left ear, I believe.

And, sometimes, there's
an entry wound and an exit wound.

And so, you see two bullet holes.

You think it means two gunshots,

but it could just be
the trajectory of the bullet.

So police are still looking at this
as like a possible suicide,

especially after finding the gun

underneath his body.

But they do a clean
sweep of the house,

and they find two other firearms in
two different bedrooms of the home.

And one is in the room
of the grandmother

who made the 911 call,

and the other is actually found
in the victim's room,

in Sacory's room.

I was at home, and I want to say

it was about 2:00am,
and I got a call.

And it was a man on the line,

and he told me
that he was the coroner

and that he needed
to speak with Tomorrow Gaut.

I said, "This is her."

And he said,
"I am sorry to contact you,

but I have your nephew,
Sacory Knight."

And I was like, "No, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I'll call back in five minutes."
At that time, I hung up.

I called my nephew.
No answer. Not like him.

I call my nephew one more time.
No answer.

At the time,
he was dating a young lady.

I contacted her phone.

No answer. I contact again.

That five minutes went by,
and that the coroner called me back.

At this time, I'm very upset.

I'm shooken.

I am screaming at the top
of my lungs.

My kids woke up,
and they're looking at me,

and I'm on the phone
with the coroner.

And I said, "How do you know
it is Sacory Knight?

Tell me. Sacory has dark skin."
I was like, "Is he handsome?

Does he have facial hair?"
"Yes."

"Does he have tattoos?"
"Yes."

At that time, Sacory had
just got a fresh tattoo.

He had on his arm
his grandmother's name.

His grandmother
on his father's side is Theresa.

His grandmother
on his mother's side is Brenda.

When the coroner told me
those tattoos,

I still didn't want to believe it.

Senetria at the time,
she just had her daughter.

She just buried her father.
So I'm trying to hold it together,

driving down the road 20 minutes
to the other side of Sacramento.

I'm knocking on her door.
She's not answering.

So, now, my mind is going
everywhere. "What's going on?"

Finally, she opens the door,

and I had to deliver the news
of her brother's passing,

which the hardest thing
I ever had to do.

My reaction
when I first found out is just...

like, I was just in disbelief.

Like, I was just confused.

Like, he was just postin'
on social media the night before.

It took a while
for it to register.

And at this point,
we still don't know anything

except that he is dead.

We don't know car accident.

We don't know anything.

Police who are well trained
are trained

to treat suicides as homicides,

so that they're alert to anything

that might suggest

that this, in fact, is a homicide.

When police arrived,
they find... the decedent, Sacory,

and realised he's been shot
twice in the head,

and the gun is under his body.

That would raise
immediate suspicions,

because,
although we do have suicides

that have shot themselves twice,

it's rare.

And the gun would not typically
be under a person's body.

It would suggest that
they were able to move around.

They determined that
the death had actually taken place

30 minutes before the 911 call.

There has to be a reason
why there's that delay in reporting.

That has to be covered.

So, now, the only person who can
tell you that is the grandma.

One of the big red flags
in the beginning is,

why did this woman wait 30,
40 minutes to call 911

after the shooting occurred?

Somebody discovers a body
with gunshot wounds,

they're going to rush to the phone,
and maybe even under the false hope

that the paramedics are going to be
able to save the person, you know?

But to wait 30 minutes?
I mean, right off the bat,

there's got to be more
to this story.

It certainly looks suspicious.

It looks like
she intentionally delayed police

to give her grandson
enough time to get away

and to stage the scene.

What it looks like is...

accessory after the fact.

Anything that interferes with the
police investigation intentionally

makes you an accessory
after the fact.

The first thing I knew
was that he got shot.

I didn't know where,
I didn't know why,

and I didn't know who he was with.

And then, I think it took
about a few hours

for me to start finding things out.

For me to find out
that my nephew was murdered

in the home
that he was supposed to feel safe,

with people that gave them

the title of grandmother
and brother...

is really upsetting.

He was supposed to feel safe
where he lay his head,

and that didn't happen.

The detectives asked me
if he was depressed,

or if I thought
it could have been a suicide,

and I said,
"Absolutely not" right away.

It's pretty clear, I think,
to detectives right away

that there's a whole lot of people
living in this house.

If you have a home
where there's a whole lot

of different people living there,
and police show up,

and there's one dead person
who was a resident

and one woman who made the 911 call,

first of all, it begs the question
of where is everybody else,

and what happened here,
and where did they all go,

and why were the two of them alone

when he apparently decides
to kill himself?

The police are still
processing the scene,

and they interview
this 73-year-old woman, Linetta,

and they get
the first story from her.

What they come to learn is

that Linetta was living there
with her grandson, uh...

Devin Carrihill,

and then,
Sacory Knight had a bedroom,

and he had a girlfriend,

and she would often stay overnight,
stuff like that.

Now, all these people are potential
persons of interest or suspects,

or at the very least,
potential witnesses

to exactly what happened.

But she's not telling them
everything.

And she's claiming,
"I was in my room.

I heard a gunshot. I came outside.
I found him like this."

In the police mind,
they're not getting, like,

a full story that really explains
what they've come upon.

They already know
the grandmother is not

telling them the whole truth...

and that, for some reason,

she's giving a story
that appears to be a cover up.

They have to expand
the investigation beyond her.

This is a rapidly
developing situation.

Given the fact
that there's no one else there,

IF this was a homicide,

then your killer could be
making a break for it.

You can't assume anything
in a criminal investigation.

Even though there's a gun found

directly underneath
Sacory Knight's body,

you still have to make sure

the other two firearms weren't
the murder weapon.

And you also have
to make sure that the gun

that was found underneath him
WAS the weapon that killed him.

And if none of the guns were,
then, you have to track it down,

figure out what happened there.

And obviously, police are going
to want to know

whose prints are on that gun,
whose DNA is on that gun.

Then, they also have
to figure out who owned it,

and how it came to be
in Sacory's apparent possession.

The pistol had been wiped.

Now, you can wipe
a gun to a certain extent

so that it's almost
completely clean.

You can also wipe a gun in a way
that leaves clear evidence

that the gun has been wiped
if you don't do it properly.

But of course, the crucial
issue in this instance is

that this is supposed
to be a suicide,

and it can't be a suicide,

and then have the gun
being wiped afterwards.

All three guns were 40 calibre
guns that were found in the house.

At that point, all three of them
could technically be

the weapon that was used,
and if one of them was,

and it's not the gun
directly underneath Sacory's body,

then that would
definitely be indicative

of a staged crime scene.

One of the key things
I would want to happen quickly

would be the postmortem examination,

because the pathologist
will determine

whether one or both
of these wounds was fatal.

Plainly, if they are both fatal
wounds, this can't be a suicide.

You can actually tell
from the shape of the wound...

whether it went in
at an angle or not.

The police would have to consider
Linetta as a possible suspect.

At this point, they don't know
who pulled the trigger,

and she's the only person there.

And you can't just say,

"Oh, she's 73.
She couldn't have possibly done it."

You know, as a homicide
investigator, you can't do that.

So, the first thing that they have
to do is eliminate her as a suspect

and make sure that, as a witness,
she's telling them the truth.

If you look at the Bay area,
it's sort of this web of freeways,

and they go in every direction,

and there's a million different ways

that you can get
out of here in a hurry.

And there's so many places
that a person could lie low

if they were trying
to evade the police.

And, sometimes,
people will even flee the area

because they don't want
to be a witness, you know?

Talking to the cops is
really stigmatised out here.

Even if it's a suicide,

there's reasons that people would
just want to keep a low profile

and get out of Dodge,

even if they weren't directly
involved in anything wrong.

As soon as
investigators find out that...

the grandmother took
over a half hour to call police,

that means that
the perpetrator would have had

a 30-minute lead on them,

and that would be enough time
to get out of the neighbourhood,

possibly get out of the state.

And it would be difficult
to track them down.

So I think
what you're seeing here is

just sort of the mystery
starting to develop

and police really
ramping up the need

to track down everybody
who might have been in the house.

The only thing
that's clear at this point is

it's not entirely clear.

It's been about three hours
since the initial 911 call

when the bombshell drops,

which is a woman
in her 20s shows up

about 30 miles away at a hospital,

telling the nurses there

that she was shot in Berkeley.

To have two shootings in Berkeley
happen on the same day before?

Yeah, that has happened before.

But when you have
someone show up at a hospital

that's about an hour's drive east,

and they've got a gunshot wound,

and they tell you that they got it
in the same city

where you've had a shooting death

during the same time frame,

obviously,
that completely opens the door here.

Now, the flood gates are open,

and they've got to see
if these two things are connected.

You're going to go to the hospital

and interview her right away,

because you don't know
how life-threatening her injury is.

Now, Berkeley detectives are
on their way out to Antioch

to go interview this woman

named Taishae Powell,
who's in her 20s,

who was suffering a gunshot
wound to her shoulder.

And it turns out that she's

Sacory Knight's girlfriend.

And on the list of violent cities
in the East Bay,

Antioch is near the top.

The nurses and doctors out there
know gunshot wounds,

and you can tell
if someone's been shot recently

or if they've been shot,
like, several hours ago.

And that's one of the first things

that these people are able
to notice is

this is not, like, a particularly
fresh gunshot wound,

that she's been walking around
with maybe a bullet

in her shoulder for several hours.

So why wouldn't somebody
just come right over

and get medical treatment?

What's going on there?
There's obviously a story there.

I ended up finding out

that he was with his girlfriend
at the time of it happening.

And I found out
that she was also shot,

and she was also kidnapped.

After staging the crime scene,

Devin gets into a car with Taishae
and they go off to Richmond,

which is one or two cities
over from Berkeley.

And he gives her
very specific instructions

to get rid of the clothes.

And if the cops find out about this,

this is what
you're going to tell them.

From the police perspective,

this is a murder,
followed by a kidnapping,

followed by a cover-up...

...because if you shoot somebody
in the shoulder,

and then, you tell them
that they've got to come with you

and help destroy evidence
and stuff like that,

you're doing that under duress,
you know?

It's hard to say that the person
was a willing participant

when they're still suffering
from a gunshot wound,

and you're giving them
these instructions.

And you can almost hear
the gears clicking.

You're a witness to a homicide.

What happens if you don't play ball?

This is Sacory's girlfriend.

And what happens to her
if she gives any kind of indication

that she's going to cooperate
with the police at that point?

And Taishae acts completely

like somebody who's in shock.

And then, he just kind
of disappears off into the night.

After driving around with him

for at least an hour,
probably more...

now, she's free,

and she kind of has
this first chance to kind of take

her temperature and... and kind of
try and relax a little bit.

But she's still got a gunshot wound.

So she ends up in Bay Point
where she's got some friends,

and they actually have
to convince her

that gunshot wounds
without treatment,

I don't know, probably not a good
idea to just leave that as it is.

But by the time
she gets to the hospital,

I think sort of the fear
and the shock have

kind of evaporated a little bit,

and maybe
some of the anger of...

watching her boyfriend get murdered
in front of her sets in,

and she's ready
to tell the police what she knows.

The police are fortunate
in this case

that there was a surviving victim.

When the girlfriend began to talk...

all attention turned toward Devin.

It turns out that Taishae is
a lot more forthcoming.

And what Taishae tells police is
a real-life nightmare

that has played out over the course

of the previous night
and the following morning.

When police went
to talk with Taishae,

she says that there had
been an altercation at the house

and she got caught in the shooting.

And a man named Devin had had

an altercation with her boyfriend,
who was the person who was...

...on the floor
from two gunshot wounds.

Once Devin is the main suspect,

it is a race against time
for the police to catch him,

because this is a person

who allegedly killed
a friend in cold blood,

staged it to look like a suicide,

and then,
forced the killer's girlfriend,

who was wounded as well,
to drive him around.

What Taishae tells police is

it all started with, basically,
a nice little get-together.

They're all roommates,
living together, hanging out,

and they decide, like,
let's have a barbecue outside.

And somewhere along the line,

Taishae is in the kitchen.

She spilled some water,
leaves it on the kitchen floor,

and Devin Carrihill's
grandmother, Linetta,

slips and falls
and bangs her head.

And, you know, I think
anybody in that situation,

they're going to be
a little pissed off

that their grandma had
hit their head.

Obviously, Devin gets upset,

but it just snowballs
into this big fight.

And he's, like,
yelling and screaming at everybody.

He's blaming Taishae.
Obviously, Sacory is gonna come

to his girlfriend's defence
at that point,

and then, it just becomes,
like, these two young men

who are headbutting and... and...

and having this, you know, big
argument right there in the kitchen.

Taishae tells police
she's getting ready to apologise,

and she thinks,
you know, probably rightfully,

like, "We should get out of here and
just let the temperature cool down.

But first, I'm going to go apologise

for leaving the water there
and not cleaning it up."

And she's getting ready to do that.

She... But first, she's microwaving
some food in her room

cos the barbecue is off now.

And then, gunshots rang out.

And she's so concerned

with her boyfriend's safety and...

and trying to make sure he's OK,

and then, looking down
the hallway of the room

and realising, to her horror,

that he's on the ground
with gunshot wounds,

that she doesn't even know
right away

that she's been shot
in the shoulder.

Then, she starts to kind of
feel the blood trickling down

and the pain kind of setting,

and she realises
that she's been hit, too.

And from there,
just pandemonium unfolds.

Somebody gets shot in the head
right in front of you.

You've just killed
one of your closest friends.

There on the ground.
They're clearly dead.

They've got gunshot wounds
to their head.

You know, a lot of people
would have a panic attack.

And that's, by all accounts,
what Devin does.

He starts screaming.
He starts pacing around the house.

He just kind of starts
going into freak-out mode,

and it's like you've done something
terrible that you can't undo.

Apparently, his first instinct
is to cover it up.

So he starts kind of coaching
everybody, like,

"Tell them it was a suicide."
You know

"you have to do this
and do that."

And then, they're just going
into this kind of haphazard,

badly thought out,

"you got to cover up
the crime scene" thing.

He's the one who then takes the gun

and just slips it underneath,
uh... Sacory's body.

And then, you just start
to see the gears turn

and how he's constructing

this suicide theory in...
in real time.

He takes off all the clothes
that he was wearing,

you know, puts them into a bag or
something, and puts on new clothes.

And actually, despite his panicking,

and despite sort of the intensity
of the situation,

it sounds like he displays
a pretty good knowledge

of what the police
are going to look for,

because they're absolutely going
to want to test the clothes.

Another thing is that
he apparently wipes his fingerprints

and tries to wipe
his own DNA off the gun,

so he's thinking ahead of, like,

"The cops can't find my DNA
or my prints on this thing.

They can only find his."

And so he's... he's trying to think
like a homicide investigator

and sort of stay one step
ahead of the police.

And of course, the last step of that
is simply to try and disappear

and not let the cops find you,

and then have a story ready
for when they do.

There would be an immediate rush
to find the suspect.

This would be a person considered
armed and dangerous,

and the investigators are already
several steps behind

because the suspect's already fled.

That's the challenging part
of these staged crimes.

The police are going
to go look in another direction...

...and by the time
the staging is suspected,

too much time has gone away.

Seems like, at this point,
that the cops kind of have

a pretty clear picture
of what happened here.

And, obviously, the next thing
they have to do is

talk to Devin Carrihill
and track him down.

Because now
he's become a murder fugitive,

they don't know for a fact
that he doesn't have another gun.

Police eventually track him down
to this apartment in Oakland,

where they're able
to safely arrest him

and bring him into custody.

And then, now, the big question is,
"Is he going to talk?"

"Is he going to give
his version of events,

and they get sort of
the final piece of the story here?"

Because everybody's story kind of
leaves a little bit of ambiguity

as to what exactly was going on
when the shots were fired.

Linetta was in her bedroom
because she hit her head.

Taishae was microwaving food,

and everybody heard yelling,
and they heard signs of an argument,

but they don't exactly know
what went down.

The other thing the police do is

they go back to Linetta.

And she says just enough

to get herself arrested
for accessory.

It turns out Devin IS willing
to speak with investigators,

which you don't always see.

But what he tells them is
what the police described

as multiple versions of sort of

the crucial moments
before the gunfire,

where one of the things
that he stuck to was that...

they began fighting
and struggling over the gun,

and then, it kind of accidentally
goes off during this whole fight.

Now, that doesn't
necessarily account

for three bullets being fired,

because usually one gunshot
gets fired accidentally.

Everybody kind of jumps back,
and that's what you'd expect, right?

So the police don't buy his story.

At that point, Devin's arrested
for murder, gun possession,

and he's also arrested
on suspicion of kidnapping

because of that whole ordeal

that he puts Sacory's
girlfriend through

following the fatal gunshots.

When Devin finally admits
to the shooting

and the staging of the scene,

police have to get
corroborating evidence to back it up

because, at any time, he could say,

"I was coerced into this,"

or "No, I didn't mean
any of that. I...

I was just playing with you."
I mean...

there are any number of ways
he could retract his confession.

I was told
that it was, like, over...

the grandmother falling
in a wet spot.

I was just shocked...

because they had been
friends for years.

So I just didn't understand

how it just turned
like that so quick.

One of the saddest things
about it, man,

is that Sacory and Devin have
been friends for years.

They're all living together,

and they're basically
like family friends

who have all apparently been
cool for a really long time.

There's no reason
for deadly violence

to come from this situation.

Staging a suicide

and blaming their death
on the victim,

even after the fact,

it does make
the crime seem more egregious.

It shows
that the perpetrator knew

they did something wrong

and wanted to get away
and get away now.

Murder is basically defined

as the killing of a human being
with malice aforethought.

You have to directly kill
somebody in sort of the ways

that anybody would imagine
a murder going down,

or you have to act so dangerously

that the danger
to human life is obvious.

You know, like driving down
Main Street at 80 miles an hour

or shooting a gun out
just haphazardly around,

not caring, like, who it hits.

Voluntary manslaughter is
a little bit more complicated

under the law compared to murder.

Manslaughter,
at least in California,

can be boiled down to two things,
which is:

the unlawful killing of someone
in the heat of passion.

And that has a specific definition

that requires something

that would be, like, universally
accepted as enough

to just, like,
rile somebody up so much

that it lessens the severity of
what they did legally a little bit.

Or what they call
"imperfect self-defence,"

which is like if someone's,
like, beating the hell out of you

and you shoot them,
you might be able

to make an argument that
that was imperfect self-defence

because, you know,
it's obviously not fair

that you'd bring a gun
to a fistfight.

But if you were really getting
your ass handed to you,

then, maybe,
there's an argument to be made

that it's something
slightly less than murder.

If they're charging him
with first-degree murder,

they have to show
a premeditated intent.

I think that would be
very difficult,

given the behaviour at the scene

and the various stories
that they've been told.

There was no premeditation.

They couldn't prove that he had
the intent to kill Sacory

because, uh... a couple of things.

One is...

it is confirmed
that the two got in a fight,

which led to a shooting.

That day, he didn't wake up and say,

"I think I'm going to kill Sacory."

He didn't say,

"I'm going to kill him"
when they first started arguing.

But he ended up killing him

when the argument turned violent.

So you couldn't disprove

that he may have acted
in self-defence,

or thought
he was acting in self-defence.

And if his story is self-defence

or is sudden provocation,

without any other evidence pointing
to such things

as lying in wait or premeditation,

you can't prove that he had the
intent to murder before he murdered.

When his attorney's offering
voluntary manslaughter,

and they accept it.

I think they're conceding that...
they probably would have a hard time

making a first-degree
murder charge stick.

This part of California,

you're not going to see more
murder cases anywhere else.

The courts are really
just oversaturated

with felonies
in this part of the Bay area.

What happened in Devin's case is
what happens in a lot of cases.

It's sat exactly
where it was for years.

And that whole time,
he's sitting in the jail

just waiting for some sort
of resolution or anything.

If this had gone to trial,
and if he had tried to argue,

"Hey, this was a suicide,"

then the prosecutors would have
ALL this evidence

to show that not only
was it NOT a suicide,

but if you argue something else
like self-defence,

or that the gun went off
during a struggle,

the cover-up then becomes
proof of consciousness of guilt.

Like, if you don't know
that you did something wrong,

you wouldn't drive somebody who's
bleeding out from a gunshot wound

around the Bay area,
and then, burn your clothes,

and then, do all this other stuff.

Nobody would go to all that trouble
and bring in all these people

and make their own grandmother
part of the cover-up,

unless they knew
that they did something wrong.

So, in court, it becomes,
like, a very big weapon

for the prosecutors can yield in...

in order to prove a murder
if they need to.

In this case, as I recall,
doesn't even go past

the preliminary hearing where
a judge will look at the evidence

and say, "Hey, there is enough,
there's not enough."

Doesn't even get that far.

After four years.

It just resolves kind of quietly

to where he pleads guilty

or no contest
to voluntary manslaughter.

And he's sentenced
to 11 years in state prison

with the time that he's already
served already on the books.

I assumed that we were
going to get justice.

I assumed that my family...

was going to be able
to live their life,

knowing that this guy was going
to be behind bars forever.

Unfortunately, that did not happen.

I definitely feel like it was
an injustice because...

...not only was a life taken,

but another person was injured
and kidnapped.

And I just feel like...

it just wasn't taken seriously

as it should have been.

I don't think that they feel
that Sacory Knight matters.

It was just on the news,

and then, it slowly went away.

They didn't take the time
to truly put this guy behind bars.

It's not fair.

I could see how the family
of the deceased...

may see it as his life was
only worth 11 years.

And people who commit

far less serious crimes
than taking a life

get far more serious sentences.

And, unfortunately, it's the
charge that they were able to prove.

And he did get the maximum.

And I'm certain that the judge
would have given him more

if he had the opportunity to.

Devin will be home...

...before my niece is ten,
and she's four.

She was a baby when Sacory died.

He held her like it was his child

because he wanted to be a father.

And that's the only image I will
ever be able to remember of him

having his own child is his niece.

An 11-year term is a...

a significant interruption
of someone's life...

...in terms of their family,
in terms of their relationship.

It may not be as much
as the victim's family wants.

It's something.

And, sometimes, the justice system
can't go all the way.

There's a couple things
that I think about

when I look back on this.

One of them is
how any of us could find ourselves

in this nightmarish
situation where...

we're basically being kidnapped
by your loved one's murderer

in the blink of an eye.

Where, one second,
you're microwaving food,

the next few minutes go by,
and then,

you're stuck in a car
with a responsible person,

and you don't know exactly
how the night's going to go.

You know, are you going

to end up in a ditch somewhere,

or are you going to even be able
to get out of this situation?

And the other thing,

just from a newspaper
reporter perspective, is...

I've never seen an instance
where somebody dragged their grandma

into, like, the cover up
for a homicide before.

You know, a woman in her 70s...

...who I don't think was
fully committed

to covering it up.

But she also didn't want
to get her grandson in trouble.

But just by saying just enough,

she now has, like, accessory
to murder on her arrest record.

I'm just sad that my nephew laid

on that ground for...

...30 minutes...

with the grandmother...

...waiting to call for help.

In the end,
Linetta ends up not getting charged.

But just taking someone
into custody for a crime

that has the word "murder"
on the end of it,

it's a pretty big deal,
and you've got

to sit in a holding tank
and think about, you know,

what are the next few years
of my life going to look like here?

And what do I want to do?

It's really sad to think about

how a barbecue
between lifelong friends

could devolve
into something like this,

where one young man's lost his life.

You know, the other people
who were there witnessed

this horrible thing happen,

and they're probably
irrevocably scarred by that.

And then, you know,
you have somebody

who had just graduated high school
a couple of years ago.

And when you're that young, 22, 23,

you have sort of the whole world
right there at your fingertips,

and you have
all these different options.

And now, he's got his whole entire
20s to spend in...

in state prison.

You know, you have a family

that is never going to get over
the loss of their loved one

and who I'm sure
probably doesn't think

that 11 years is very fair to,

you know, compensate
for the loss of a human life.

I just hope that people
remember my brother,

remember him for being funny.

He was very funny, funnier than me,

and I'm pretty funny.

And he was just, like...

he put everybody in a good mood.

Like, he was always cracking a joke.

Um... Good with kids,
good with his nephews and nieces.

And we just miss him. Yeah.

He was a son.

He was a brother.

He was an uncle.

He was a friend.

He was a coworker.

He was a classmate.

He was somebody.

And to be taken away
from this Earth...

...it's just... it's just hurtful.

This is the loss of a loved one.

And the legal system is designed

to punish wrongdoing,

not to heal grief.

No legal system is attempting
to provide closure.

Closure is about emotions.

They're really attempting
to offer justice...

in some form.

Sometimes, it's imperfect justice,
but something will happen.

There will be some accountability.

We've all been in situations
where we get pissed off

at the people closest to us.

And you've just got to think that,
if cooler heads had prevailed there,

everybody's life would be
so much better.

I try to remember
my nephew's life,

how happy he was,

how great he was,

what kind of man he wanted to be.

It's unfortunate that his nephews
will never get to see that,

the man that he was trying to be.

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