Of Guilt and Innocence (24 page)

“MAN, IT AIN'T LIKE THAT! I AIN'T NO FAG!” Jemile interrupted in an explosion. Detective Cantore just smiled back at him.

“All right, Jemile, just to refresh your memory a bit,” Detective Cantore opened a folder and pulled out a booking photo of a black male that looked similar to the one in the video with Jemile. “You know this guy, don't you?”

“Nope.” Despite his defiance, Jemile knew he was in big trouble. He knew there was no way out of this. Jemile had been dealing drugs since he was fourteen years old. He had had a few brushes with the law but nothing ever resulted in jail time.

“So you're probably wondering why I'm still talking to you at this point and you're not already in a jail cell getting used to your new pad for the next twenty years. Well, because it's your lucky day, I guess. See, normally I could give a shit about a drug dealing thug like you, but today, well, I'm going to give you the opportunity to help yourself out a little bit. I want your supplier. You know, your buddy from the disc.” Detective Cantore pointed to the booking photo that still lay on the table. “I want him on tape. You know, better than this one. I know you get your stuff from this guy. Slipping that envelope of money in his back pocket, I gotta give it to you, that was smooth. Thank God for video manipulation. Anyway, we know he goes by the street name Prince. His real name is Tashawn Jordan. You're going to get me Prince on tape discussing his operation and who he gets his shit from. See that's who we want, and that's how this works. Hell, he can't be that smart of a guy either, agreeing to meet you on the street like that when there is a homicide investigation going on two doors down. It gives me hope that you can pull this off.  You give us Prince, he gives us his guy. If you do that, well, then maybe some of these more serious charges go away.”

Jemile smiled at Detective Cantore, flashing his gold teeth. “You crazy right? You think I'm giving you shit? First off, Prince ain't gonna tell me any of that shit, and he sure as hell ain't gonna give you anything. And you expect me to wear a wire? He'd smell that shit a mile away. He'd cap my ass. Ain't no way.”

“Jemile, maybe you're not understanding the situation you're in. A fully loaded, stolen gun was found on your person. A crack pipe was found on your person. Detectives are going to testify you sold them felony drugs nine times. You're going away for a long time. This is you're only shot to avoid that. You give us Prince, those things get reduced to maybe a misdemeanor and probation. And besides, what's Prince gonna think when we show him this video? And then we tell him all the charges we got on you, you think he's gonna trust that you won't roll over on him?  I'm sure he's got friends in the can. Guys that would be willing to shut you up for him before your trial.”  

“You ain't gonna show him this shit! You can't do that!” Jemile leaned forward in his chair as he shouted. He knew it would mean a target on his back if Prince thought there was a chance he had or would flip. He leaned back with his arms crossed again. He tried to consider what his legitimate options were. If he gave up Prince he knew he would be facing a death penalty on the streets. It wasn't an option. He shook his head from side to side again.

“You know what, screw this. Time's up,” Detective Cantore said as he stood up. “Get up, Jemile, get up and put your hands behind your back. Hope you enjoyed your last day in the hood cause you won't be seeing it for a long time.” Detective Cantore came around to the other side of the table.

“Wait!” Jemile shouted as he leaned in his chair away from the approaching detective. “Just wait a second.”

“You gonna give me Prince?”

“No, but I can give you something else. If I give you Prince I'm dead. But I know other stuff.” He looked desperately at the detective in hopes he would have the opportunity to bargain for his freedom.

Detective Cantore looked at Jemile pensively. He didn't care about anything Jemile had to say other than information about Prince, but something about Jemile's desperate plea made him curious.

“OK, Jemile, I'll bite,” he said as he went back to other side of the table and sat down.

 

A week had passed since Anne Bradford's death and Jorge and the taskforce still had not gathered enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for her son's apartment or his vehicle. Jorge was confident that Louis had not fled the area as of yet, even though twenty four hour surveillance on him had been discontinued two days ago. Someone drove past the house each day and the car was always in the same spot. Even when an officer was sitting in front they never saw Louis do anything but go between the garage and the main house.

The police had also confiscated a large sum of money from Anne's bedroom during a search of her home after her murder, as well as frozen her bank accounts. Jorge was trying to make the decision to flee, and life in general, as difficult as possible on Louis.

Jorge was certain that something that had been collected from the garage or the main house would come back from the crime lab and link the other South Florida Strangler victims to Louis, and then they would have enough not only for a search warrant, but an arrest. He was hoping for the crime lab's report on those things today. What had Jorge most anxious was the small amount of DNA successfully collected from the back of Anne's neck. He had high hopes a profile could be extracted from the samples obtained. If it could, he knew it would be a match to Louis.  

As the hours ticked away he found it hard to focus on anything other than the pending results, so he, John, and Kristin decided to go to a nice lunch to ease the tension a bit. While there, Jorge received a phone call on his cell phone. The call was brief, but Jorge's reaction to it was telling to the other members of the lunch party. They assumed this was it.  

“What is it?” Kristin asked, seeing through Jorge's attempts to hide his excitement.

“Gonna have to wrap up your meals and eat them later. We gotta meet with Narcotics ASAP.” Jorge said as he motioned for the waitress.

“Narcotics, why?  I thought we was waitin on a call from Forensics?” John said looking confused as he packed up his lunch.

“We are, but Narcotics just called me, said they got a guy in custody saying he has some info on the South Florida Strangler. They said it sounds legit.” The three hurried out of the restaurant, each carrying a Styrofoam container.  

 

Jorge, John, and Kristin all pulled chairs up to the table across from Jemile, who by now had a can of cola in front of him. Detective Cantore leaned against the two way mirror and prompted Jemile to tell the detectives what he had told him. Jemile took a sip of his soda and began speaking in a slow, calm tone, much the opposite of how he had spoken in the bulk of his interrogation with Detective Cantore. “The house where that lady got killed, the old lady, I've seen stuff there.”

“What kind of stuff do you mean? Just to be clear, you are talking about 320 J Street, the Bradford residence, correct?” Jorge asked, tape recorder on the table in front of him.

“Yeah, 320 J Street, a few houses down from me. I lived in that house all my life and long as I been there she lived there with her son, the fat dude. Weird guy, guess he was a child molester back in the day, least that's what my grandma told me. Anyway, she always told me to stay away from him, you know, when I was younger cause he older than me you know, he like forty.” He took another sip.

“Did he ever try to interact with you?” Jorge prodded.

“Nah, never really. But she say back when my aunt was young she had a dog and he had caught the dog in some kind of trap he had in his yard and tried to steal it. He tried to take it into the garage with him but my pops caught him before he could shut the door and beat his ass good. She said he used to have lots of traps in the yard he'd catch animals in. I never forgot that story, cause it weird right? Stealing a dog from your neighbor? He'd have to be a dumbass to think my aunt wouldn't have known he had it. She would have seen it if he tried to keep it for himself.”

Jorge was beginning to get excited with the minimal information he had received so far. Though it did not incriminate Louis in any crime, it gave some background information on who he was. He let Jemile continue, in hopes he had some actual usable information in reference to the South Florida Strangler killings.

“So anyway, I always kept an eye out for him. He was known around the neighborhood as a child molester and a weirdo. He didn't really come out much, never stepped off his property unless he was in his car. He made his moms walk to the bus stop, but he drove everywhere. Sometimes when he'd come home, some of us would sneak over and peek down his driveway to see what he was doing. He'd be carrying laundry out his car all wrapped in a blanket. Sometimes he'd even talk to the shit. We always thought it was weird. Sometimes we'd sneak over at night when we'd hear the garage door go up and see him bringing laundry out to his car wrapped in the same blanket. It would be late, too, like two, three in the morning. Who does they laundry at night? Some weird shit, going to a Laundromat at two in the morning. But the weirdest thing was, few times years back, I'd be out on the porch at three, four in the morning and I'd hear sounds coming from his backyard. You know, the street quiet at that time so I could hear it clearly. I snuck over once and the motherfucker digging in the backyard. I couldn't see what he was digging exactly, it was dark, but I could see him and the shovel would catch the light from the street. We used to joke he was a serial killer, but this was way back, you know, before this serial killer shit came out in the papers. Then, couple nights before his moms got killed, at least a couple nights before y'all showed up and found her, I was walking in front of they house and I heard him screaming at her, calling her stupid and selfish and shit. I stopped to listen for a few minutes. It was crazy. Dude just went off on her. That pretty much it, he your guy, now what y'all gonna do for me?”  

He took a sip of his soda, his swagger returning. He felt confident he'd saved himself from prison and the wrath of Prince by giving them this information, which was all true and accurate. When Jemile had seen all the police at the Bradford home on the day Anne's body was discovered he had thought to himself that the police had finally found the bodies Louis had buried in the backyard. He chuckled about it, but part of him felt there was a possibility that's what was going on over there. He had always joked, but never actually linked him to the serial killer striking in the area until someone had said it while they all sat on the porch a few days after Anne's body was discovered. He never would have volunteered the information he had just given, but it had been in the back of his mind that he might be able to use it as a bargaining chip if he had to. He actually had forgotten about it until he saw the video of the newscast.

“Write everything you just told me down and if it turns out to be legit, we will work with Detective Cantore and the State Attorney's Office on your charges.” Jorge slid a piece of paper and a pen across the table and Jemile began to write.

Jorge now had enough, he was certain, for a search warrant of Louis Bradford's apartment and car. He wrote up the warrant himself and hurried it to a judge, who approved it without a problem. He assembled a team of forensic personnel, uniformed officers, and members of the SWAT team. This was a man who was the prime suspect as a serial killer; Jorge was taking no chances. He didn't have enough to charge Louis yet, but he had enough to bring him in for questioning once again. And once in for questioning he could detain Louis until the results of the hair analysis was in and the DNA retrieved from the back of Anne's neck was matched to Louis's profile, which was already in the system as part of his sex offender status. Finally, the team had a plan of attack and was on its way.

Because the setup to Louis's apartment was so unique, it posed a nightmare to the SWAT team as far as making entry and bringing Louis out. There was a small window in the front of the apartment that allowed Louis to view the driveway leading up to the front of the garage. The team decided they would cut through the property next door and enter the backyard instead of walking down the driveway. That way they could access the garage door from the side instead of the front so even if Louis happened to be looking out the window, he wouldn't see them coming until they were there.

The next problem they faced was getting the garage door open. The only entrance was a pull down garage door that had the capability of locking. It was an older model, not electric, and so they brought a tool with them that would punch the lock if necessary. One team member would be positioned across the street from the garage with a clear view of the window and would be trained on it with a rifle, ready to fire if he felt it necessary to protect the officers making entry. There was also the chance Louis was inside the main house by the time they arrived and so they positioned officers around the front and back doors. The apartment was their main concern, however, since they knew he spent the majority of his time there. Everyone knew there was no one hundred percent safe way to go about this. There were multiple safety risks involved.   

The team slowly made their way to the garage door. Four SWAT officers went first, with Jorge, Kristin, and John waiting in the backyard for entry to be made. As the first officer grabbed the garage door handle the tension grew, anxiety built. This was a very violent man, and now his back was to the wall. He hadn't been seen in days, he could have been anticipating this moment, preparing for it, barricading himself in. They knew that once inside the garage that was not enough. The tactical nightmare continued with the entrance to Louis's actual apartment. They would try to coax him down voluntarily, but if he did not come, they knew they would have to go up the ladder after him.

The garage door handle turned; it was left unlocked. The lead officer looked back and motioned to the other officers that it was time, the door was going up, get ready. In a flash the door went up and the officers rushed into the garage, guns drawn. Jorge waited to make sure there was no gunfire before he made his way in.