OT: NY Daily News: Central Park Jogger Case Confession (1 of 2)
Jogger case confession
DNA evidence from con may clear teens in '89 park attack
By ALICE McQUILLAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Matias Reyes in 1989
One of the most savage entries in New York's crime annals - the 1989 Central Park wilding attack on a female jogger - may have to be rewritten after DNA testing now clearly points to a new suspect, the Daily News has learned.
New DNA analysis has confirmed that genetic evidence taken from the victim belongs to a convicted rapist and murderer who first admitted to the attack in January.
What's more, key pieces of physical evidence that swayed juries in two racially charged trials to convict five teens are being discredited through DNA tests.
The new testing was done with forensic technology not available when the case was tried.
Law enforcement sources said these tests show hair found on one youth is not from the victim, as prosecutors had said.
They also said blood - believed to be from the jogger - found on a stone allegedly used in the attack is not hers.
Other physical evidence introduced at the trials included grass- and dirt-stained clothing that prosecutors said came from the scene.
The viciousness of the April 19, 1989, attack, in which the jogger, a white investment banker then 28, was brutally beaten, sexually assaulted and left for dead, stunned New Yorkers and flamed racial tensions.
The black and Hispanic youths, ranging in age from 14 to 17, were initially among some 30 teens who were picked up after rampaging through Central Park that night, assaulting as many as nine people.
Wild night
They described their escapade as "wilding" and later were reported to have sung a streetcorner hit called "Wild Thing" from their cells.
Eventually, they confessed to attacking or sexually abusing the jogger - but all said later that the confessions had been coerced.
Yesterday, a lawyer for defendants Antron McCray, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson said he has taken court action to reverse the convictions.
"It was a great miscarriage of justice," said the attorney, Michael Warren.
The others convicted, Yusef Salaam and Kharey Wise, are expected to follow suit, according to an adviser, City Councilman Bill Perkins (D-Harlem).
"From their point of view ... they were falsely convicted and sentenced for a crime they did not commit, which has blemished them and their families," Perkins said.
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney, said the office "is conducting a thorough review of the Central Park jogger case." She declined further comment.
But a law enforcement source familiar with the case said, "It's an [open] question whether the outcome of the original case can survive this new information.
"There was no forensic connection to the defendants," Warren said. "They were prosecuted mainly on manipulated confessions and the emotions of the day."
Con says he did it
The case was reopened this year after convict Matias Reyes suddenly admitted to the crime.
Reyes, serving 331/3 years to life for the rape and murder of a woman on the upper East Side in June 1989, said he attacked the Central Park jogger two months before.
Finding God, he said, compelled him to come forward.
"I had to get this off my chest. I had to do one thing right in my life," sources said Reyes told authorities. "I feel bad about this."
Reyes said he was alone in the park when he saw the woman running on a deserted section of the 102nd St. Transverse.
He said he hit her in the head with a piece of wood and dragged her down a ravine, where he raped her and beat her senseless.
Because this account matches part of the confessions given by the teenagers, authorities aren't sure whether Reyes was alone or attacked the woman with the youths.
The victim, now 41, is married, living in Connecticut and writing a book about her life and recovery.
She was in a coma for 12 days and has no memory of the attack.
All contents © 2002 Daily News, L.P.
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Who did it? Jogger asking
Wants the truth on new suspect
By BARBARA ROSS and ALICE McQUILLAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Cop searches site of Central Park attack on jogger.
Kevin Richardson, convicted in Central Park attack on jogger, arrives at court in 1990.
The Central Park jogger wants to know - once and for all - who did it?
The woman who was beaten, raped and left for dead in the 1989 wilding attack was stunned by the news that DNA tests had identified a new suspect in the case after 13 years.
"She's as anxious as anyone to know the truth here," said Joni Evans, a spokeswoman for the jogger.
Evans, a high-powered William Morris agent, handled the deal for an upcoming book in which the jogger tells her own story for the first time.
Evans said the woman, now 41 and living in Connecticut, has been monitoring reports that a convicted rapist and killer not charged in the Central Park case has confessed to attacking her - and that his DNA matches genetic material in her rape.
The convict, Matias Reyes, now 31, came forward in January, claiming he had acted alone - raising questions about the conviction of five Harlem teens more than a decade ago.
The jogger, a white investment banker who was then 28, testified at the trials but could not overcome the amnesia she suffered as a result of the beating.
Even now, Evans said, "she has no memory of the attack and ... doesn't wish to comment [on the case] at this time."
But the jogger, anonymous all these years, will go public and identify herself in the book about her life and recovery, Evans said.
Charles Scribner's Sons will publish the memoir next spring.
Reyes told authorities he spotted the jogger near the 102nd St. Transverse and tailed her as she ran wearing earphones.
"I was drawn by her appearance and I just had to have her," he allegedly said.
The jogger was in a coma for 12 days after the attack the night of April 19, 1989. She lost 75% of her blood before she was found by passersby.
Case reopened
Reyes' jailhouse confession led the Manhattan district attorney's office to reopen the case.
It also prompted three of the men found guilty of the crime to go to court recently to have their convictions reversed.
In the court papers - filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court - Michael Warren, the attorney for defendants Antron McCray, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson, said there is no physical evidence linking his clients to the crime.
He also said their confessions were obtained "through the most abhorrent form of psychological duress."
At the time the Central Park case was being prosecuted, Reyes was arrested in Manhattan and charged with raping three other women. But he was not linked to the attack on the jogger.
A spokeswoman for District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said his office is thoroughly reviewing the case.
Law enforcement sources defended Morgenthau's handling of the original prosecution, denying there was any conspiracy to frame the black and Hispanic youths, who ranged in age from 14 to 16.
Parents saw confessions
One source noted that all but one of the teens confessed with their parents present, "so how coercive was that?"
What's more, several younger kids in the park that April night said they witnessed the gang rape and led authorities to the five teenagers.
Prosecutors always knew that "at least one of the worst guys was missing," the source said, because there was genetic material from the attack that did not match any of the suspects.
The sources said new DNA tests show that hair found on the clothes of one of the teens does not to belong to the jogger. Similarly, blood on a rock is not the victim's.
The review also has brought to light a 1989 jailhouse fight between Reyes and another Central Park defendant, Kharey Wise. The two fought at Rikers Island that year while awaiting trial for their separate crimes.
Prosecutors suspect Wise was angry because he knew back then that Reyes was involved in the jogger attack and was getting away with it.
Reyes cannot be prosecuted for the attack because the statute of limitations has expired.
All contents © 2002 Daily News, L.P.
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