Under Oath

0:28Amazon has everything for everyone on your list. Support for this show comes from Strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown? Or never wanted in the first place? Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying, but are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer. I grew up in West Baltimore, Sandtown. I come from three different neighborhoods. Sandtown, Holland Park, and what we call the Avenue.

1:11I grew up one of nine kids, hardworking father, very loving family. We were very close, and we're still close today. This is Ron Bishop. He's the youngest of all of his siblings, and he has a twin brother named Don. He remembers sometimes people wouldn't be able to tell them apart and just call both of them Ron Don. I just think of my childhood as having fun all the time. And there were times when my father would get laid off, and he never missed a beat. A lot of things we didn't have, but I would always tell people that we never consider ourselves poor because we were happy. And as kids, there were things you couldn't have, but I could say you didn't miss it because you had fun.

2:01You grew up in a neighborhood full of kids. What kind of things would you do with kids in the neighborhood? Were you always outside playing? All the time, yes. Like, you know, this is for any major city. If you have, if you grew up in a row home, just in a one-block radius, you would have kids. You would have maybe 10 to 30 kids in one-block radius. So, my block, we had at least 20 of us. And we became like that whole Sandtown Harlem Park family. So, there's always someone to run around with. All the time, all the time. And back then, kids used to look for other kids to play with. And let's say you might meet a kid for the very first time, and then that particular kid would end up being your best friend for a long time.

2:49When did you meet DeWitt Duckett? Oh, gosh. It's making me laugh because I met DeWitt Duckett first grade. So that would put us at 1975, I think. And he sat beside me. He was a very quiet kid. Actually, he was the tallest kid in the class. And we didn't say much to each other. We just, like, he was asked to borrow a pencil. But he was a really nice guy. Over the years, Ron and DeWitt got to know each other better. They'd play at the playground, even after DeWitt transferred to a different school nearby. When Ron was in eighth grade, his oldest brother, George, was in the Army. He returned home just before Christmas in 1982.

3:38too. One night in January, George had plans to meet up with friends at Shake and Bake, a complex that had a roller skating rink. And he told us, he told my sister I'll be back, and maybe an hour later we got a phone call. Actually, I took the phone call, and when I answered the phone, it was a family friend, and he just right away just told me that he got shot. George died. He was 22 years old. Ron later learned that George had accidentally bumped into someone. And when he went to say, excuse me, the guy really didn't accept it well. And my brother said, what was told to me, he said, hey, I just said, excuse me.

4:18But the guy just couldn't accept the apology. So one word led to the other. My brother said, well, forget it. So as he walked away, that's when he shot him in the back. And, you know, when we heard that news, we were like, wait a minute. The way we grew up, what my father told us, like, you walk away from situations, you don't argue with people. And when you say what you have to say, just keep it moving. So to hear that, my brother was a peacemaker. And when he walked away and how the guy just shot him for no reason, it was very bad for us.

4:53Ron started ninth grade the fall after his brother died. He was surprised to see his old friend, DeWitt Duckett, back at the same school as him. When he popped up in the ninth grade, in my ninth grade class, I'm like, whoa, what are you doing here? He looked at me like, as if he didn't remember me. I'm like, come on, man, you know who I am. And that was, he was, you know what, he was a jokester too. He'll try to downplay things and be sort of silly, like almost had like that Mr. Bean or Benny Hill type of humor. So you totally reconnected? Oh, yes, right away. Ron says their school, Harlem Park Junior High, was tough.

5:35And a lot of kids who graduated, moved on, or just dropped out would come back and hang out at the school. So there was always this potential for, like, bullies or getting into fights. Did you and DeWitt spend a lot of time together? Did you try to stay away from all of that? All the time. We took a hallway, myself, DeWitt, and another friend of ours from the neighborhood. We used to take this hallway, this empty, lonely hallway, just to avoid the crowds because you always get caught up in some stuff in the hallways. And back then, some kids would not use their manners and say, excuse me, you can get bumped.

6:13And back then, if you got bumped, then that was a sign of aggression. And if the person didn't say excuse me, then there's the potential to get in a fight. So we would like to avoid all of that stuff by just taking this other hallway. One day that fall, when it was a little cooler outside, DeWitt came to school wearing a Georgetown basketball starter jacket. I'm like, whoa, what are you doing with that? That's a pretty good jacket. And, you know, back then, if he had like a starter jacket, you know, you were looked upon as like a really cool guy. So for him to even have a George—actually, he was the first one I saw with a Georgetown jacket.

6:50And we were all amazed that he had it. Explain what a Georgetown jacket was. What did it look like, and why were they so special? See, Georgetown, let me see. Because back then, no one really never heard of Georgetown. And when Georgetown basketball team came to prominence, they had an almost all-black team. But what made Georgetown special was they had two local Baltimoreans on their team, Reggie Williams and David Wingate. When they're in Georgetown, they're representing Baltimore, East Baltimore, Baltimore. So that was a special thing for us because, hey, it's like, hey, these are local guys.

7:29and they're playing on a national championship team or soon-to-be national championship team. DeWitt was wearing his Georgetown jacket one day that November when he, Ron, and a friend of theirs were walking to lunch. As usual, they took the quiet hallway. It was empty that day. And that's when someone came up from behind us and he grabbed DeWitt by the back, but he had the gun in my... As I turned, he had the gun in my face. So the gun was within like a few inches of my face. So that's when the gun went. He took the gun, and then he put it in the back of Dewey's neck. I tried to get the attention from our friend.

8:14That's when he saw the guy with the gun. And then he started running, and I started running behind this friend. And so as we're running, we're approaching the C-unit hallway. and their stairwell. So as soon as we go through the double doors and down the stairs, that's when we hear the gunshot. So as we go downstairs and we enter the cafeteria, that's when we see Mr. English, the unit principal. And so we went straight to him and said, hey, we think DeWitt got shot. And he said, what? Like that. And as soon as we told Mr. English, we're standing in the middle of the cafeteria. As soon as we told Mr.

8:58English, that's when DeWitt came through the double doors of the cafeteria. And he ran. He saw us right there standing, so he ran to us. And by the time he got to us, he collapsed at Mr. English's arms. And that's when he got the attention from other students who were sitting. And, you know, you're talking about a cafeteria that might have 300 students at that time. And when he collapsed, that's when you hear the gasp, like, students saying, and then that's when Mr. English walked him out. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

9:39When DeWitt ran into the cafeteria, could you tell that he was bleeding, that he had been shot? Yeah, because he was holding his neck and he was sort of like, he was sort of running but limping. And he was, put it this way, he was struggling to run. After DeWitt was taken out of the cafeteria, Ron and his friend had no idea what to do next. So we just said, you know what, let's just leave school. Ron's friend lived across the street from the school, but Ron lived about a mile away. He asked his friend to walk home with him. And we waited a while, and then a Baltimore City Patrol car pulled up, And the officer got out, and he started talking to us, and then he asked me or he asked us to go down to what we call the main police station, downtown Baltimore.

10:34So when we get to the police station, the patrol officer walked us up to the homicide department. And when we get there, we sit in the lobby. And then eventually, I think I meet Donald Kincaid. He seemed like a very nice man. Donald Kincaid was the detective assigned to the case. And he introduced himself while the patrol officer was sitting there with us. I have to point this out. Out of nowhere, the patrol officer told Donald Kincaid this. He said the big one, meaning me, told the smaller one, the other witness that was with us, that I told him not to say anything. And that just blew me away because I never said that.

11:24So when the patrol officer left the room, I told Donald Kincaid, like, hey, I never said that. I don't know why the officer told you that. I never told the other witness to not say anything. Donald Kincaid took Ron into an interview room. Ron told him what he could remember about the person who shot DeWitt, which wasn't much. He'd been wearing a gray hoodie and had dark skin and a faint mustache. During the interview, Donald Kincaid, he left, came back a few minutes. That's when he told me that DeWitt didn't make it. And I'm looking at him like, what do you mean he didn't make it? Because when I saw him, it looked like he was okay.

12:05Even though he was shot, it didn't seem like it was a big deal because, you know, he had enough strength to run and get to us in the cafeteria. So, you know, my mind is racing. and I'm getting this empty feeling like I got when my brother got shot. So when Donald Kincaid told me, I'm experiencing my brother's death all over again. And I'm like, what is happening? And, you know, you're in a state of shock. You don't know what to do. You're just sitting there. And, of course, you have to sit through this interview to ask some more questions. How long did they keep you? I would say several hours.

12:49I can't give you like a distinct, like, two or three hours. I know it was several hours. By the time I left out of homicide department, it was nighttime. The same patrol officer who had picked Ron up earlier drove him home. and this officer, he never dropped me off at my house. He sort of dropped me off a block away and told me, you know, I had to get out and walk. And I'm like, huh? He said, you can get out right here and walk. And I'm like, okay. And as I'm walking down to the house, you know, sort of like you're paranoid. You're seeing things. You don't know if someone's going to come out of the alley behind a car and shoot you.

13:32So by the time I, you know, knocked on the door, my mother was there, and she asked me what happened. I had to go through everything, and they were just, you know, they were heartbroken to know that a classmate, a good friend of mine's, was shot. And she treated his death as, like, my brother's death. DeWitt Duckett's death made the front page of the Baltimore Sun the next day. According to the school's security chief, it was the first time that a student had been murdered inside a Baltimore public school. The Sun reported, the victim's two companions told police that a teenage boy came up from behind, grabbed the collar of the ducat-use coat, waved a gun, and said, give me your jacket.

14:19Police also said that there had been no other students nearby when the shooting happened. What was it like to go to school? I mean, was everyone in the school talking about what had happened and who had done it? And no one knew. No one knew who'd done it. But everyone was, I mean, the whole school was shocked. And, you know, you see students crying or talking about it. Like, why would someone do this to him? Because he didn't, he was a nice guy. He didn't have no, not a bad reputation at all. And when we got the class, in my homeroom class, we had my homeroom teacher who was Mr. Dozier. And so as soon as we all sat down, he looked at us.

15:00And he, you know, he said, you know what, I'm sorry to hear about what happened to DeWitt, something like that. And he said, things like this happened, unfortunately. And then, you know, he started crying. When he cried, then almost the whole class started crying. So it was a very emotional thing for us.

15:23DeWitt's mother, Franz L. Duckett, told the Baltimore Evening Sun that the Georgetown jacket had been one of DeWitt's prized possessions and that it was the first thing he bought when he got his first paycheck from a summer job. He'd bought it for$75. She said DeWitt bought a lot of his own clothes and wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer when he grew up. She was divorced from DeWitt's father, and DeWitt had always told her he'd take care of her when he was older. In the days after the shooting, Detective Kincaid stopped by Ron's house several times to question him further. He would show Ron a collection of Polaroid photos of teenagers and ask Ron if any of them had been involved in the shooting.

16:12Ron recognized some of the boys. Three 16-year-olds named Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart. Ron told Detective Kincaid it wasn't any of them. They were all guys I knew from the neighborhood. And not only that, they also attended Harlem Park Elementary Junior High. I mean, Andrew and I, we go back to at least maybe six or seven. And we used to play at a playground. We called it the Curry Street Playground. What made that playground so special was they had a tire swing, and Andrew and I would take time swinging each other. Andrew Alfred and Ransom were two years older than Ron, but they'd been seen at the school the day DeWitt was shot by some staff members who reported seeing a group of older teenagers hanging out and goofing around in the hallways.

17:07But Ron said it wasn't them. Detective Kincaid kept coming by. Once he showed up twice in one day, the second time, past midnight, Ron's mother had to wake him up. And Donald Kincaid, you know, he's this smooth, tall guy at the moment, or at that time, very nice guy. But then I could tell when I told him, no one, I don't recognize anyone that was involved in DeWitt shooting in those pictures. And he looked very tired and frustrated. That I do remember. And then he left. The next day, Ron went to DeWitt's funeral. And, you know, at the same time, it's like I'm reliving my brother's funeral as well.

17:53So it was the most strangest, emptiest feeling ever. I'm like, this is just a few months apart, and I'm back at someone else's funeral again. I'm like, this is so sad. Later that evening, a patrol car showed up at Ron's house. Detective Kincaid wanted to speak with him again, this time at the police headquarters. Some officers picked him up without checking in with Ron's parents. This time when I get there, you know, Donald Kincaid, he's sort of like, you know, flat. He's all business. He's serious this time. Ron remembers Detective Kincaid showed him the Polaroid photo lineup again. And again, asked Ron who shot DeWitt.

18:41I'm like, well, none of these people or none of the persons here I recognize as the shooter. He said, oh, yes, you do. So he and I go back and forth. He kept going back and forth. How long this lasted, I don't know. But what I really remember is he made a statement of, you know what? You're not going to leave here. Your ass is not going to leave here. If I have to, I'm going to keep your ass here the whole night. And I told him, well, I guess you're going to have to keep me here the whole night because I don't know what you're talking about. And it went back and forth, and that's when his voice escalated.

19:20He got really tense, clenched fists, all this stuff. And then he said, well, I think it was I ought to put your goddamn head through that wall or the window. I know you mentioned wall and window. So I'm like, well, I guess you're going to have to put my head through this wall or window because I don't know what you're talking about. We went back and forth and you could tell he was super frustrated, angry. So he said, you're going to pick tonight. You're going to pick. And I told him I'm not picking anything. And then he started making gestures to his gun. And when you grow up in an all black neighborhood and you see what officers do to like people in my neighborhood, like innocent people, not just criminals, but innocent people.

20:02then you know you can't trust this officer. Ron says he was feeling more and more scared. He started pointing to different Polaroids in front of him. According to Ron, after the first few photos, Detective Kincaid would say, no, keep going. And when I pointed to Alfred Chestnut, he said, oh, he was the shooter, right? And I'm like, I don't know. He said he was the shooter. then I realized that's who he wants me to say. He wants me to say Alfred is the shooter. Ron says slowly, Detective Kincaid also guided him to Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins, who he seemed to think were Alfred's accomplices.

20:46And then he placed a statement in front of Ron to sign. Ron didn't feel like he had a choice. And as I'm signing the statement, all that frustration or anger, it goes to happiness. And he's like overjoyed, like, oh, I solved this case. I mean, you must have felt terrible but also been relieved because you had been so terrified about what Detective Kincaid was going to do to you. Yeah, actually, I just felt terrible. Ron wasn't the only witness who'd identified the three teenagers. Earlier that day, police had spoken with a 13-year-old whose school security had called a possible witness. She also identified Alfred Ransom and Andrew.

21:34That's when Ron was brought to police headquarters. Two more students, one of them was the student who'd been with Ron in DeWitt in the hallway the day of the shooting, were also brought in. None of them were accompanied by a parent. One of the kid's mothers showed up at the police station to find him. He could hear her from the interrogation room yelling, let him out. By the end of that night, the police had four witnesses, including Ron, who all identified, Alfred, Ransom, and Andrew.

22:11We'll be right back.

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25:04Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart were arrested very early on Thanksgiving morning, 1983, and charged with first-degree murder. A police spokesperson told the Baltimore Sun they issued warrants after they, quote, finally came up with some more eyewitnesses. Police had found a Georgetown starter jacket in Alfred Chestnut's room when they arrested him. But his mother told the son that she'd bought it for him and that she had a receipt to prove it. Alfred Ransom and Andrew, who had become known as the Harlem Park Three, would be tried as adults. They were 16. Ron was 14. I thought of them like, oh my God, but I'm putting them in the worst situation possible.

25:55They're juveniles. They're basically teenagers, but they're going to an adult prison. So, you know, that stayed in my mind all the time. Like, how are they going to survive in prison? A date was set for the trial. Ron met with the prosecutor, a man named Jonathan Shoup, to prepare to testify. The three other witnesses were there, too, as well as Detective Donald Kincaid. and Donald Kincaid was right there in the state's attorney's or prosecutor's office and he was there to monitor or supervise to make sure our word or the statements we gave him coincide with what the prosecutor wanted us to say.

26:38So as we're rehearsing and that's all it was, it was scripted and the prosecutor is telling us, okay, this is what happened and I couldn't even really say it because these are all lies. So I'm stumbling. I can't get my words together because you want me to lie. And eventually I sat down, and the other three witnesses, they got up. They knocked it out. They had everything. Ron remembers Jonathan Shoup praising the three other witnesses. But he was confused because he suspected two of them hadn't even seen the shooting. So when Donald Kincaid left the room, that's when I approached Jonathan Shoup and said, you know what?

27:22And I had to be careful on how I phrased my words. I said, you know what, Mr. Shoup, the stuff y 'all saying in this room, it really didn't go this way. It didn't really go this way. I couldn't come out and tell him, like, hey, Donald Kincaid is lying. So I told him, like, hey, you know, it really didn't go this way. And that's when he said, OK, just go over there and sit like no big deal. Ron didn't really know what else to do. You know, you don't approach, you know, my frame of mind back then, these are two white men. And they're, you know, one is an attorney and the other one is a detective.

27:56The day of the trial, Ron says he wanted to get up on the stand and tell the truth. He says he'd been told he'd be the first witness to testify. But when he got there, he realized he would actually be the last. The three other witnesses had already testified. Ron says he felt a little thrown off by that, and that when he got up on the witness stand, he remembers it already felt like a done deal. The jury seemed tired and unfocused. So in the end, Ron told the same story the witnesses before him had. At one point, a defense attorney brought up the fact that Ron's testimony went against a written statement he'd given on November 18th, the day of the murder, that only one person had attacked DeWitt.