S02E01: THE WRONGFUL CONVICTION OF JEFFREY DESKOVIC (PART 1)

Crime Family is back and we're kicking off our new season with a 3-part premiere episode about Jeffrey Deskovic- a 17-year-old high school student who was wrongfully convicted of his classmate's murder and spent nearly 16 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.

Angela Correa disappeared on November 15, 1989 in Peekskill, New York and her body was found only two days later having been beaten, raped and strangled. The police very quickly zeroed in on Jeff as the prime suspect, who was one of Angela's classmates but barely knew her. Not only this, but he had a perfectly reliable alibi for the time of the crime.  Only two short months after Angela's murder, a series of illegal police tactics and a shoddy polygraph test led Jeff to confess to a crime he didn't commit.

This is the story of the police misconduct that resulted in devastating consequences not only for Jeff, but for another innocent person whose life was taken by Angela's real killer only three years later.

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EPISODE RESOURCES:

Jeff's Exoneration:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3171

The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation:
https://www.deskovicfoundation.org/

Report from Westchester County DA's Office:
https://www.westchesterda.net/Jeffrey%20Deskovic%20Comm%20Rpt.pdf

Jeffrey Deskovic Interview (Compound Media):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2hEZI5AVu4

Jeff’s TED TALK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDSvbm1NX_o

Investigation Discovery UK
Shadow of Doubt: season 2 episode 1: New Girl in Town:
https://www.discoveryuk.com/series/shadow-of-doubt/ 

Transcript

Coming up on this episode of Crime Family:

Jeffrey Deskovic, a 16 year old from New York who was wrongfully convicted for the murder and rape of a fellow classmate. After a shoddy and corrupt police investigation, Jeffrey was charged and eventually convicted. 

15 year old Angela Correa went out after school to take some photos for a photography assignment. So after she left home and she headed out and she didn't return that evening, her family was extremely worried and she was considered a missing person soon thereafter. 

They were talking to Jeff and they were like, "Pretend it was you, what would you have done?" And like talk, tell us from your point of view. And so when he was talking, he was talking like first person, he was like, I walked down the path, like I saw her.

And so they took this as like, look, look, he's telling the story when it actually, that's what they told him to do. 

Seminal fluid that was found on Angela's body that was sent for forensic testing and compared to Jeff's blood sample that he provided. And it was not a match. So looking at that alone should have exonerated him.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to season two of Crime Family. So we're so excited to be back and we've been working very hard during the hiatus to research, intriguing and interesting cases for you guys. And we've even booked some very special guests to come on and chat with us as well. In fact, our first two guests are going to be coming on to chat with us in this special three part premiere episode.

So we're very excited about this. And so in part one here, we're going to be telling you the story of Jeffrey Deskovic, wrongfully convicted for the murder of his classmate. He was wrongfully convicted of the murder and spent the next 15 years incarcerated for a crime that he did not commit.

So in part one, we're going to be telling you that story and. What happened in the case, as well as all the police misconduct that led to his very unfortunate conviction. Then in part two, we are very excited because we have Jeffrey Deskovic himself here, and we are going to be chatting with him about his case, about his time in prison and about the foundation that he was able to create after his release from prison and all the great work he's doing now.

So we're very excited about that. And then in part three, we're going to wrap it all up with an interview with documentary filmmaker, Jia Wertz who actually made a short documentary film about Jeffrey's case. So we're going to be talking with her about what it was like working on this documentary about Jeff's story. And we're also going to be chatting with her about her connection to another case that we actually covered last season.

So it's going to be a very exciting three-part premiere episode for you guys. We can't wait to get started. So without further ado, let's get into it. How do you guys like being back?

Happy to be back! Season two, kicking it up a notch.

 I'm excited to be back for season two and, I'm excited to see how the season goes and what we have in store for you guys.

Yeah. So, you know, we, yeah, we're coming to Katie, so we're kicking it up a notch.  We have some guests planned after the success of season one. We're hoping that season two is even bigger and better. So with that being said, let's get started into our very first case of the season. And like I said, in the intro, it is about Jeffrey Deskovic.

And this is a very frustrating case and lots of injustice in this case, as you could probably tell from what I said in the intro. So there is a lot of information and Things to note about this case. So I'm not going to go into every little detail because like I said, we will be interviewing Jeffrey and he'll probably have lots more insight and lots of other information that he can provide in that.

So I'm going to kind of give you an overview of what happened in the case, as well as some of the major pieces of the investigation that were shoddy and stuff like that. So it's going to be comprehensive, but not the full rundown of every detail that we'll probably get from Jeff. The story all begins on November 15th, 1989 in Peekskill, New York.

Fifteen-year-old Angela Correa went out after school to take some photos for photography assignment. So her last stop before she headed out was at her own home. She went home after school to change into some different clothes and to pick up her camera for the photo shoot. So after she left home and she headed out and she didn't return that evening, her family was extremely worried and she was considered a missing person soon thereafter.

So the last known sighting of Angela was from approximately 3:30 PM that afternoon, when an eyewitness claims that he saw her as he was walking through a Hillcrest park, he said that he heard voices, which sounded like people were arguing, but could not hear what was being said. Exactly. Nobody was certain who this other person was, who was with her, or if this other person was the one responsible for her disappearance, all they know is that according to this person. She was with  someone else at the park around 3:30 PM. So however, the missing person investigation quickly turned into a murder investigation when Angela's body was found only two days later on November 17th. During the initial investigation, the police learned that she had been beaten, raped, and strangled.

So the police cordoned off the area where her body was found, which was a wooded area of Hillcrest park. And her body was covered with leaves. And there was actually three different parts of the park, that were considered crime scenes. So there was various clothing items, belonging to Angela that were found near her, as well as a few pieces of white paper, part of a handwritten note.

And the note was actually written by Angela to a man named Freddy. And the date on the note was dated the 15th. So the same day as her disappearance. So of course, finding out who this Freddy person was, would probably be a good place to start the investigation.  Could this have been the person that was arguing with Angela around 3:30 PM on the 15th?

So autopsy results were able to conclude that her likely time of death was between 3:30 and 4:30 PM on the same day that she disappeared. And this was right around the time that, of course she was seen with someone in the park, by the eyewitness. So other findings from the autopsy included the cause of death, which was determined to be a fractured skull, internal hemorrhage and asphyxiation due to strangulation with the ligature, there was evidence to suggest that she had been sexually assaulted and evidence that she had been actually dragged face down over a dirt surface. During the police investigation, it became very clear that the police had a specific suspect in mind.

And like in a couple of other cases that we've covered and , Other wrongfully convicted cases, the police really started to have tunnel vision and became hell bent on pinning the murder on one specific person. And in this case, that person was Jeffrey Deskovic. So he was a 16 year old classmate of Angela's who had been allegedly absent from the school around the time that Angela was murdered.

But other than Jeffrey's alleged absence, there wasn't much evidence leading the police to Jeff, really at all. The police noted that he seemed very upset and hysterical over the news of Angela's death, which they did find odd, but that's hardly a smoking gun. Plus police claim that he had matched a psychological profile of the supposed killer, but don't really know how they determined the psychological profile or what specific things matched Jeff. We might never know that, but, they said that he matched this psychological profile that they came up with and they said that he was absent from the school around that time. So therefore he had to be suspicious. And I don't know, but I guess they thought that his behavior was odd. Like, he was very devastated, about hearing the news , and they kind of saw that as a sign of guilt or a sign of remorse. So they kind of use that as like a reason as to why they were focusing on him initially. 

Did they, just pick him out of the blue? Did she have a boyfriend or anything like that at the time that she went missing or they just picked Jeffrey?

Well, I don't really know. I mean, I'm going to get into it a little bit, but they did question the question. I had a bunch of students and they did question, Freddy, who was the one that she had written a letter that they found near her body. But I don't know  the specifics of what was it about Jeff? Like maybe it was based on what other kids had said when they interviewed the other kids at the school. Cause he was kind of  an outsider, he didn't have a huge social circle or maybe he was a little bit odd or, you know, different than the rest they just kind of, but maybe the police were asking leading questions as well. Maybe they were asking questions about Jeff in  a weird kind of suspicious way, kind of leading them down to say these things about Jeff. Bolster their own theory. 

I don't know if you've said this, but was Freddy, her boyfriend, or was he just a friend?

I don't know.

 I think it was just the guy that she had a crush on. 

Okay.

 I was watching like another documentary. I think it was investigation discovery. It said that , when Angela was like a new student, he was the one that kind of showed her around the school and he was really nice to her and stuff.

So she knew him from that sort of but, they didn't really have a relationship though. Just friends.

 I'm just trying to wrap my head around why they just picked Jeff out of, maybe cause he was an outsider, but I just don't... if it was just his class. And he didn't really have any connection to her.

I just don't. I just find it odd that they would just pinpoint him. Well, we'll get into that. 

But I also, I know, like they did question a bunch of other students, but apparently a lot of them had support from their parents. I remember in this other documentary, they were questioning one guy and  his dad was outside the door, furious, like yelling, like, let me, you can't talk to him.

So they had to stop and let like these other kids go because of things like that for Jeff didn't have. Somebody like on the outside fighting for him like that. So they were able to like, take him and talk to him without  interruption or without, you know, a lawyer. So he was kind of an easy target in that sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe he was one of the only ones who wouldn't have their parents intervene and like not allow them to speak to the police or whatever. Right? The others had parents that were sticking up for them or kind of protecting them from that. Whereas Jeff didn't, so they kind of were like, well, This, guy's making it easy for us.

So we're going to just, yeah. 

 And you'll probably get into this, but like, Jeff was super willing to help because he wanted to be a cop and stuff. So he was like, yes, I really, I really want to be involved. Yeah. Yeah. So he didn't fight them at all. Like he was like, yeah, I really want to do this so that didn't probably help him either.

Um, he was 16, sorry. He didn't know that he was being looked at as a suspect. He thought he, they were just questioning him. Cause he was a student. So like, I could understand why he was so forthcoming with some information and stuff like, yeah. But and like any 16 year old.

Just chill, but also like when you're 16 and stuff, you're not thinking , oh, they're trying to pin this on me. Like, you're thinking, oh, I'm innocent. I have nothing to do with this. They can't pin it on me. So like, he didn't think that, you know, offering up his help or assistance would be bad for him.

He thought like, I have nothing to hide. So like what's the harm. 

Yeah. And he probably was completely unaware that they were like manipulating him the entire time when they thought that, you know, they were being really friendly and nice to him. It was helpful. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it just starts off crazy. And it gets worse.

 A lot of this information is coming from actually a report that was done, at the request of Janet DeFiore which was the Westchester county DA at the time of Jeff's exoneration. So it was like a report kind of telling the story of the case and how  the police investigation was botched and unjust.

So that's where a lot of this information is coming from. But yes, so initially he was kind of looked at due to his reaction to the murder, like his hysterical reaction and the fact that he was allegedly absent. And he matched the psychological profile, like I said, but who knows. How they came up with this.

So the DNA evidence that was found at the scene did not match Jeff's either. So it seems that the police had very little to go on except for circumstantial evidence or subjective observations of Jeff's reaction to the murder. So, you know, they're just kind of in their own minds, they're like, oh, this is kind of odd behavior.

So that must make somebody guilty versus you know, it's kind of a weird, weird way to kind of come to that conclusion. But Freddie Claxton, who was one of Angela's classmates, and I guess Katie, like you said, was someone that Angela had a crush on. So he was assumed to be the Freddie  that Angela had written that letter to that they found.

But Freddie had an alibi for the timeframe of the murder. So it was pretty quickly ruled out. And in fact, Jeff had an alibi as well. He says that he was playing wiffle ball with a friend at the time of the murder. But for some reason, this alibi wasn't satisfactory to the police, even though Freddie's was.

But I guess with the police, they only were going to hear what they wanted to hear and his alibi didn't really fit in with their theory that they were going to go with. So they kind of just ignored it. So in order for the police to craft a case against Jeff, they began a months long process of grooming and befriending him kind of like you had mentioned a little bit earlier, this is kind of to trick him into believing that he was helping them with the investigation.

So as you said, as well, Important to note that at this age, Jeff had aspirations to be a police officer himself in the future. So obviously the opportunity to help investigators with solving this crime that happened  to his classmate in his school in his hometown was probably really exciting for him.

He thought, this is like my first chance. To get to do police work, but it was all a part of the police's bigger plan. They had to kind of gain his trust enough in order to be able to corner him into a position where he would feel like he would have to cut and clean quote unquote.

  The police misconduct in this case is so blatant and infuriating every step of the way involved lies manipulation tactics, and basically just the blatant setup of the teenage boy who had no idea what the true intentions of the police really were. Jeff was being very cooperative with the investigation.

Like we kind of mentioned probably so cooperative that it worked against him in many ways. He did provide the police with a blood sample in early January. And basically my understanding of how that went down was the police just went to, said to Jeff, that they needed him to provide a blood sample just to completely rule him out.

 Again, another manipulation tactic,. Feel like, well, we're not, we're not like suspecting it's you, we just need you to  be fully clear. We just need to get the blood sample out of the way, just to kind of show a sign of trust, on your end , so Jeff, obviously, because he had nothing to hide and didn't really know what was really going on, he provided the blood sample. So Thomas MacIntyre and David Levine were two of the lead detectives on this case, and they were responsible for a lot of these tactics that were being used against Jeff. And so Jeff provided the blood sample to the police on January 10th, 1990. 

And something else that's very interesting and frustrating. During the various meetings and interrogations that the police were having with Jeff throughout these couple of months, there were tape recorders that were available that were not being used the recorder was turned off and on multiple times throughout their many meetings.

And there was one actual meeting, I guess, or interrogation that they had with Jeff that was actually over four hours long, but only 35 minutes of that session was actually recorded. So what was happening in these sessions where they didn't want it to be recorded. Like, obviously we'll never know. And there's another session on January 25th that Jeff had with police that was actually not recorded at all.

 Sounds familiar.

 Yeah. Reminds you of the Adnan case. Right. Like with all those, all that tape recording and the craziness with that. So obviously the police are having something to hide. And I did read in that report too, there was tape recorders that were always readily available.

There was nothing wrong with them. They should have been turned on. Like the acoustics in the room were like, perfectly fine. So it wasn't like you couldn't use the excuse of like, oh, well it wouldn't have picked up well on the recorder or whatever like that. They tried to use. The police had said that one, excuse they gave her why it wasn't recorded was that the police left to go get coffee, to turn it off and then forgot to turn it back on.

And they came into the room. Which even if that's true, it's like horrible. Horrible to forget something like a major detail like that. 

Why not just leave it on the whole time? Like maybe he could have, he would have been like said something to him himself while he was in there or something like you would want to get that kind of stuff you'd think, but yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Those are the moments you'd probably want to record the most, when he's alone and doesn't necessarily. If he's being recorded or whatever, right. 

Yeah. That's why, yeah. That's why they have, like, now they even have like videos of everybody, even when they're alone, they don't shut the videos off.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, so we can like constantly see what's happening. 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then there was another moment during all of this where the police officers tried to say that, at first he was recording it, like.  His  pockets. So it wasn't like visible to Jeff. And then he like pulled it out and put it on the table.

And then he said it invisibly, visibly made Jeff upset and uncomfortable. So then they turned it off just to show like a sign up. Didn't want to make them uncomfortable. Like they didn't want to stop what he might say or so that was another reason that they gave according to that report, um, 

yeah. Most of the time when you see like interviews with people, with suspects, they do have  tape recorders, 99% of the time just sitting there on the thing.

And plus going back to like the , excuse of not, if not having the right sound interrogation rooms are made to be, I think soundproof. So you can  take out the background noise. So it's like easier for you to record stuff like that. That's why they have them in those little rooms.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it was in an official interrogation room though. Like if they weren't interrogating him, like, obviously that might've made him feel nervous. It was just like, uh, I don't know where else they would meet, but if it was somewhere else that wasn't like official interrogation, but still basically the report said that everything, all of the like situation was right for like the recording.

Like there's nothing that would've hindered the quality of the recording. So. Really there's no reason why it wouldn't 

been so unfortunate that a lot of  those things don't get recorded. Like it happens a lot more than we think it does. And like most cases and a lot of those recordings aren't usable in court per se, because they're not reliable or whatever.

Well, the recordings are reliable. Like if it's recording, it's recording. But like, I think like when there's a session that's over four and a half hours long, and you only record 35 minutes, like that's good. Four hours. That's just not even recorded. So who knows what's being said. 

These people are just letting that  slide, not questioning the police of why they didn't record.

Like, you know what I mean? Like stuff that wasn't investigated properly on the police side, because it's like, why would you only record 35 minutes somebody would have to be like, well, you should recorded the whole thing. Like their chief of staff or whatever, you know what I mean? Like you think somebody like that 

would, we're just kind of seems that like somebody out there obviously have something they want to hide.

It seems shoddy and shitty.

 I think now their like are laws or they're, they're more strict about like, you have to record everything. I think in some places there are anyway. 

Yeah. Which is obviously a good thing because maybe things like this won't happen. And those laws I mean, they're probably still like, there's probably ways to get around the laws and like all that stuff.

So the police know how to like, you know, I feel like they know how to get their way around certain situations, but, , yes. Back to the DNA findings and Angela's body. So there was some seminal fluid that was found on Angela's body that was sent for forensic testing and compared to Jeff's blood sample that he provided.

And it was not a match. So looking at that alone should have exonerated him and. Not made him guilty in any way. Cause you can't really refute DNA evidence at all. So there was no scientific evidence that linked Jeff to the crime, no eye witnesses or other leads that led the police to Jeff at all.

In fact, all of those things did the opposite. So I don't really know, like I know I mentioned there was that eye witness that said that they saw somebody with Angela in the park around the time she was murdered.. Potentially arguing with someone, but nobody ever said that this person matched the description of Jeff or anything like that.

So no eyewitness was able to like definitively say for sure. And then if you just look at the DNA evidence, it wasn't a match for Jeff at all. And this was like back in 1989 or early 1990. So maybe like DNA, wasn't what it is now. And it wasn't as like, you know, the end all be all. It might not have been trusted as much.

So you can't really take it with the same. I mean, it's still DNA evidence. You can't refute DNA evidence, but I'm just trying to. Maybe it wasn't as well respected back then as maybe it is now because like now it's pretty much like end of story. Like if it doesn't match, it doesn't match. Right. There's also a million excuses people can give for, if they're trying to push a narrative.

Yeah. They used to be able to just do like blood testing, it's a blood type match. Then it was like, oh, maybe it was him. So it wasn't like it was inconclusive. It was actually not a match at all. So, I mean, I think it would still hold more than it actually did to them.

Right. Like, and also you probably get into this too, but I mean, it was enough for them to have to, you know, manipulate what happened. 

Yeah. Like clearly they knew that they didn't have what they needed, just upfront to like, yeah. So like they needed to find a way to like, make it fit their narrative, which is just crazy to me.

So  for unexplainable reasons, the police seemed uninterested in actually finding the real killer and just seemed to ignore all the DNA evidence that should have ruled Jeff out immediately. Instead, the police asked Jeff to conduct a polygraph test on January 25th, which he did agree to and keep in mind, he didn't have any lawyer or family members present at this time.

And again, he's probably thinking like, well, you know, I'm not lying. I have nothing to hide. I'm not involved. What's the harm of providing this polygraph test. If like they need me to do it. And it's kinda like completely ruled me out then, like, why not do it? But as we know, I feel like we've talked about this before.

Never do a polygraph. It never ends well for anyone for any reason. But even if like, even if you don't do it, it seems suspicious. But I think that 

would have ended well, though, but. 

Well, I mean, they probably would've spun it though. If he didn't do it, they would have spun it and be like, well, why wouldn't you just do it?

If you're innocent? Like, what do you have to hide? Like, it's okay for them to hide stuff and not record hours of sessions. But like, if he refuses to do a polygraph test, then, oh my God, he must be guilty 

I never understood. I never understood why they make people do polygraphs if it's not admissible in court ever.

And they will never, ever 

accurate use it as a manipulation tactic. Like they use it to scare you and then they can use like the results. Like if you're nervous, They know it's not like accurate, but if you fail it, they could use that to be like, but if you pass 

it, you could be like a really good liar to do it badly.

So it doesn't matter. It's like, oh, you pass, but you're just lying. Or you failed because you did it. Like, you know what I mean? So it doesn't matter. 

Like, and obviously like for him that he's 16 and they can use it for any way that they want. They don't even have to, they can, they can, you can, they can lie about the results of it too.

Did Jeff pass his? 

Um, well they say the police say that he failed, but I don't trust a damn thing that the police say. So maybe we'll ask Jeff.  But I mean maybe he doesn't even know. 

And it's really easy to manipulate too, if you don't record everything. Because I know even in that  episode that I talked about, that that investigation discovery, they like, were talking to Jeff and they were like "pretend it was you, what would you have done? And like talk, tell us from your point of view". And so when he was talking, he was talking like first person, he was like, "I walked down the path, like I saw her". And so they took this as like, look, look, he's telling the story when it actually that's what they told him to do.

So I mean, if they can just like cut that out of them, telling him to say that they'd be like, look with what he just told us. So, I mean, 

And then record when he's saying that I did this, I did this another go see, see what happened? It's a gap, but there's three hours before that. 

Yeah. Yeah. We fed him the story and then told him to retell it.

So it's like they only recorded 35 minutes because there was only 35 minutes of things that we could actually spin to make it sound like he's guilty. So we'll just use that 35 minutes. The rest of it will, it's not important.

 It actually frightens me of how like, shoddy a lot of police work is, and a lot of cases that we've done, we've seen a lot of shoddy police work and it's actually kind of bizarre how much there is out there that they don't, they don't show, they don't do anything.

Just the shoddiness of their work. Like, I feel like it's so common that it's actually ridiculous.

 It's crazy. It can happen to you basically is the message I'm getting from this. So, the police asked Jeff to take a polygraph test on January 25th. So from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM that day,  Deskovic was questioned and polygraphed and was eventually informed by the police that he had failed.

But like, as we kind of touched on, I don't know if that's even true, if he did fail the test or whatever, because I can't trust anything to please say or do, but at this time after hours of telling Jeff that they know that he committed the murder due to his failed polygraph, Jeff, eventually with air quotes, confessed to the rape and murder of Angela.

And then afterwards it's reported that he went into the fetal position under the table in the interrogation room after this quote, unquote confession. So one major reason that the prosecution gave in their arguments during all of this for why Jeff was guilty, surrounded, a detailed sketch that Jeff had provided to police outlining the locations of three distinct crime scenes that were mentioned.

Remember, before I mentioned that there were kind of three areas of, I guess, the park that were considered crime scenes. So there were three different ones.  And this was information that they claimed that Jeff would not have known unless he was involved in the murder. However, this report on Jeffrey's case, Right.

The Westchester county DA claims that information about the specifics of the crimes, such as the crime scenes may have been told to Jeff by the police themselves. So of course we don't know what was said in those moments that were not recorded on tape for those various interrogations. So like I said, it could have been, they could have been planting seeds or giving little bits of information about those specifics, not like in full detail, but just enough information.

And then he might go off on those and they talk about them and then they. You know, just say that he knew the stuff and there's no record on the recording of them telling him this stuff. Of course, but they didn't record that. So also another the thing that they mentioned in this report, that's possible, it's like maybe the information did get around in the community, despite the police's best efforts to keep it secret.

So like Peekskill was a small ish town. I Googled it. And like the population now is like 23,000 people. I don't know what it was in back in 1990, but you know, small enough, like maybe rumors about the circumstances of the murder can run rampant. So,  you know, you couldn't really control those kinds of rumors and stuff.

When something happens in a small town, the defense never argued these points in the original trial, like about how, like the rumor mill might have taken place in the town or like that the police themselves might have. Feeding him this information. So they didn't argue that in the trial, which is one example of how Jeff's attorney completely dropped the ball throughout the whole process.

He didn't have a good defense attorney at all, but there are those possible reasons why this information may have been out there like it is explainable but looking at all the other blatant misconduct in this case, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that the police leaked this information to Jeff themselves and then use it against him when he mentioned this information later.

So there's no actual supporting evidence to back up this claim, but it could easily explain how the information that the police say was only to be known by the perpetrator made its way to Jeff. So those are just like two possible reasons as to how that could have happened. And. I just wanted to say, just think about it.

Like, you all know how in small towns, like, you know, we grew up in a small town and like when we had that case that happened in our town, um, back in 2011, like with Amber Kirwan you know how like people talk about rumors and like you were speculating about why it might've happened or like people who might've been involved.

And I eventually don't even know what's true. What's not. Have the information's out there. That's not even accurate, but people just take it as fact. So like, you know, you just think of a small town, like high school students, like it's probably running around the school, like all these rumors about like, how she was killed or where she was killed and all that kind of stuff.

I don't see it as like, out of the realm of possibility that these are just stuff that was out there in the community that just because Jeff did end up knowing a little bit about it and he was kind of helping them with this police work. Right. Like you could have talked to people at school who might've heard that.

It got to his mind or more likely to with the police just said that to him themselves. So like, there are reasons they're like, it's not crazy to think that he knew this information. Yeah. 

Just it's crazy. How, like in small towns, how things get so blown out of proportion, it's kind of like that. I don't know if you've ever played that, like that secret game where you tell someone a secret and then they go around the room and you, whatever, it's kind of like that, like, so you get, yeah. You get to the end and it's like totally different than what that person first person said. So it kind of like that, like somebody says something, then somebody blows that out of proportion, then somebody else says something.

So it's kind of crazy. Um, not that it's probably, doesn't not relevant, but the population back in 1990 in Peekskill was 19,000. Okay. Not that it matters 

smaller than 23,000, but yeah, I mean, so small enough, like, you know, our town obviously was like 4,000 or less or whatever, but like 19,000. So small enough, like it's, you know, I feel like the rumor mill is still a thing, even in cities, it's the thing.

But, you know, I just feel like it's like the gossip of the town. Like people want to talk about stuff that happened. I don't know. 

Jeffrey came from like a low-income family. And like, he didn't really fit in with like this class, like kids class or whatever. He didn't have a lot of friends, so maybe a lot of people were thinking like he could have done it.

Like he was just like a loner. I dunno. There's rumors about him probably going around to about like, why he would have, he would have done it. 

Yeah. Yeah. Crazy to think that obviously this information was out there. So it's not like privileged information, like, you know, in other cases, when they keep information close to the vest, like to prevent, you know, this sort of thing from happening.

 But obviously that wasn't done in this case and it was really matter exactly what the reasoning was, but all we know is that Jeff had this information. Well, yeah. I mean, we shouldn't have done 

the police, took him out to the crime scene to like reenact things. So I feel like it's super. Like not unbelievable that he would know some of these things, whether they meant to tell him or not like, you know, he was in it with them.

It's kind of like going back to Adnan's case where  they take Jay out to where he was, or like, I forget what it was, but they like were kind of were telling him what to say in the story of the day that the girl was killed, kind of like the same thing. Like you're grooming him, telling him what to say in Jay's situation

 Jay's story changed so many times. Cause it didn't fit. So the cops were like, oh actually, this didn't happen. So what actually did like, so I mean, yeah, it's super, it doesn't surprise 

me. Yeah. It's um, it's just crazy. But like the prosecution tried to argue that confidentiality and the investigation was thoroughly maintained throughout the entire process.

So therefore, if Jeff knew this information, then it was because of his own guilt. Obviously, if Jeff knew this information, despite not being involved in the crime at all, in any fashion, obviously it wasn't the case. That's not the case that their confidentiality was maintained. So it was just lies, lies and lies from the police and the prosecution in this.

Um, also Jeff's knowledge of the note to Freddie Claxton, which was found underneath Angela's body was also a reason why police claimed that he had to be the killer again, because they say that no one else would know that, , that wasn't public knowledge, but again, there's no evidence to suggest how this information became known to Jeff, but he did know about the letter, and in their report also, I believe it says that the police questioned Freddy about the letter.

When they were interrogating them initially. So like, like I said, it's high school students. They ask him that that's going to be in his mind. And then he's going to tell his friends who are going to then tell other people. And then soon everyone knows about it. So I feel like people forget, like it's common knowledge, but it's not public knowledge.

You know what I mean? Like everyone knows about it, even though it hasn't been like necessarily reported. Or whatever. Yeah. 

I feel like you have these people, those kids that were talked to police in the school, they're going to talk to each other like that. Stuff's going to get out. Even if the police tell them not to talk about it, like they're high school kids, they're gonna, they're going to want to talk about it.

So it's, yeah. It's so easy for that kind of stuff to get out and around.

Even, not even them, like they're, their parents of the students are going to talk about it too. Like if they like. Just because it was going to talk about it, but yeah, just cause it's not reported in the media. It doesn't mean everyone in the whole time.

Doesn't know about it like that. Yeah. And back then, like media wasn't as prevalent as it is now. So I like a lot of it probably was like word of mouth where now would be. You're texting somebody or you're like putting it on Facebook or whatever. Yeah. 

Yeah. And like, now it'd be easier to be like, okay. Yeah, somebody did put it on Facebook or there's a Facebook chat about it. Like that's stuff they can prove, but when people are just talking, there's no way to prove that. So I think that it hurt Jeff that there was no like social media kind of thing. 

Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true too. That's a good point.

Never thought of that. Really. So, yeah. It's  just kind of crazy how that all of that kind of, information got twisted and it got turned back around on Jeff. So jump to a year later in January of 1991, Jeff was tried and a jury, convicted him of Angela's murder at the age of 17. So at the time of the sentencing, Jeff was quoted as saying, I didn't do anything.

I've already had a year of my life taken from me for something I didn't do. And I'm about to lose more time and I didn't do anything. So, unfortunately Jeff spent the next 15 years incarcerated for this crime that he didn't commit due to the false confession that he gave. But this confession was also given under immense pressure and suspicious circumstances.

So for one, Jeff was driven out of his hometown to another police station in another city. And in an interview that I watched with. He mentioned that this was probably, you know, so that he wouldn't be in familiar territory and he felt like he couldn't really easily escape or walk away. So like, if he got uncomfortable during the questioning or whatever, it's not like he could just get up, leave the police station and walk home he's in  a completely different town.

He didn't have a driver's license, like he's stuck in this town. So he felt like he was. Couldn't go anywhere. He was kind of trapped in that place, um, he was also given no food at all during that whole day. And he was given lots of coffee. Jeff says he wasn't a coffee drinker. So this made him very jittery and nervous from the.

From the get-go. So all these factors in play plus the failed polygraph were then used against Jeff in a situation that was so intense and overwhelming that Jeff was tricked into confessing to a crime that he had no part in and had no information about who had done it either. So he was completely innocent, but police misconduct, manipulation and their strong desire to pin this murder on him was with almost nothing concrete, linking him to it is pretty baffling.

So pretty crazy that he even got convicted.  But like I said, in the trial, the main things that were used against him were obviously this confession, but a lot of information about like how that confession was given was like withheld from the trial. So the jury, I don't think knew the full circumstances of that.

,also the fact that he knew all this information that the police say that they maintain confidentiality the whole time throughout all that stuff was kind of used. And then they also used his demeanor. And like how devastated he was about the murder. They tried to spin that as being a sign of remorse and guilt.

So the jury just kind of saw that, took all those factors in and then just convicted him. So it's pretty crazy.  So he was only 17 were he got sentenced  ,to, 15 years to life. And so flash forward to 2006. So he's been in prison for 15 years. The Innocence Project takes on Jeff's case, and were actually able to enter the DNA from the case into the New York state DNA database.

So this was actually some newer technology that wasn't available at the time of the original murder. So they were able to use that new technology and put this DNA into that database. And they actually found a match and the DNA matched Steven Cunningham who was already in prison for the rape and murder of a woman named Patricia Morrison in 1993.

Patricia was the sister of his then girlfriend. So Cunningham, eventually confessed to the murder of Angela Correa and explained that he strangled her during sex. He was under the influence of cocaine at the time, according to his confession and he notes that Angela did absolutely nothing to provoke him at all.

It kind of just seemed to be a situation of the wrong place at the wrong time.  Unfortunately he also says that he doesn't even remember her struggling or telling him to stop. He says that he likely blocked it out. So due to the DNA match and confession from Cunningham Deskovic was officially exonerated and released from prison on September 20th, 2006.

So it's crazy. Jeff went into prison when he was 17, then he spent the next 15 years incarcerated and then it's been 15 years since he was released from prison. And he's spent the last 15 years of his life working hard as an advocate for wrongfully convicted people, even going to law school and eventually graduating with a law degree in 2019. And he was able to take his personal experiences and story and use that to motivate him in order to advocate for real criminal justice system reform. So after he got released, he also took, some lawsuits that he took against the police, of Peekskill. And , he did win some lawsuits and he got some settlements.

So he took some money from those settlements and was able to start the Jeffrey Deskovic foundation. It's an organization that helps to overturn wrongful convictions. Also provide support., once these people are released from prison. So things like social programs, employment, housing, and the, foundation also advocates for the reform of the criminal justice system in order to get accountability from the system and the people within it, for their role in these wrongful convictions, Jeff has helped to exonerate seven people who are wrongfully convicted since he started the foundation and even had a role in abolishing the death penalty in Connecticut since.

So he's been very active in doing lots of great work,, unfortunate that he had to go through 15 years of hell, basically in order to do that. But he at least is helping other people now you know, he's giving back to the community and it's the system that screwed him over, he's trying to prevent it from screwing other people that were out.

But as we know, there's so many people who are still wrongfully convicted even to this day. So yeah, it's pretty crazy case. And , it's just baffling to me that he was even able to be convicted based on that lack of evidence. But we see that in other cases all the time. So. Yeah. Do you guys have any thoughts or opinions or?

 I was just like, I wanted to go back to like the beginning of when he was looked at as a suspect. Like I find it so crazy how police get just like tunnel vision of this, like one person that they're focusing on. Um, there could be like a thousand other witnesses, but the focus is one person. Like we saw it like in Adnan nine, we see it in, like, if you guys have watched the Steven Avery.

Thing. Like we see it all the time and it just frustrates me to no end that they'd have the one person because of like, I don't know, like just the way he acted during the, like an interview or just the way he, his demeanor was like, they just focus and have this tunnel vision of this one person and they don't care what anybody else who may have been affected or been involved. 

Like, I feel like, I don't know when you look at like people or like body language experts or like people's demeanors. Like, I feel like that alone should not be used as any sort of like indication. Like, obviously I'm not an expert in that, but like, I feel like everyone just reacts to things differently.

Like people react to trauma or grief or loss differently. So just looking at him like, oh, he was acting strangely, like. Like, it can be used to be like, to kind of back up other arguments. I'd be like, why did this happen? Or why did this happen? But on its own, I don't think should stand as like, 

like if I, if you cry too much, then you're like, you're showing remorse.. Or if you cry too much, then you're showing grief. Like there's no like middle ground. It's just like, oh, of you crying. It could be a good thing if crying too much could be bad thing. Oh yeah.

They'll spin it. Like whatever way suits them basically.

Yeah. 

So basically it's like the police. It doesn't really matter what you do. The police are going to spin whenever you do to, uh, fit whatever narrative they're trying to push.. So frustrating and, um, yeah, it's a crazy case. Like I said, there's probably, there's so many other details in that report. So we'll probably put that link to that report in the show notes.

So you can, that could read it in full it's really, really interesting read it's like 40 pages. Um, but it's like fascinating to read. Cause it's, there's so many other things that were wrong with like the defense attorneys, the prosecution, all this stuff.  When you're listening, or if you want to know more about the case, and obviously we're going to interview you interviewing Jeff.

Um, so we're going to get probably a lot more information there as well, but there's, I just kind of touched the surface on some of the police misconduct, because there's so much more 

When I was looking at this case for this episode, I, when I came across it, that, that report and it's, I normally don't read something that's like that long, but like, as soon as I started reading it, I just like, got so interested in the whole, like I read the whole thing.

I'm just like, wow, this is like crazy this case. So it's, it's a really good read if you're into, if you're into that type of, into that type of stuff, reading reports, it's not 

really like, but it's not really, I don't know. It wasn't really written like a normal report that you would think like, boring. Like it was written in like layman layman's terms.

Like anyone can kind of really understand what it was saying. Easy easy to understand, easy to read, but just very interesting. 

They do talk about boat like police, police, and prosecution like misconduct and tunnel vision in that report too, of 

like it basically gives you a whole entire rundown of every reason why the police investigation was a sham. Definitely worth reading. 

Yeah. I'm looking forward to talking to Jeff because there's only so much we can understand by like research and, you know, looking things up and just things that you can't get, unless you're actually talking to the person that went through it. So it's going to be super interesting just to like, hear like from firsthand.

Yeah. That's like, that's what I'm waiting. Like I'm really interested to see like his thoughts of the whole. The whole thing, like even starting off when he was being questioned, like what was going through his mind at the time? Cause the case that we can, like, we can read about it. We can like watch documentary about it, but talking to the actual person that was actually there at the time.

It's a whole different perspective and it's going to be interesting to see what he has to say. 

Yeah, for sure. Like, it just adds a whole other level, right? Like you can research, you feel like you can understand the case from like top to bottom, you know, everything about it, but like actually hearing from it firsthand, like you're not going to get those, like that perspective of like what it was like in prison for 15 years.

Like you're not going to get that really from reading. Report on a piece of paper. 

So, and like, we could even like talk to him about like, what happened when those tapes were turned off. Like nobody can know that except obviously him and the police and, you know, he'd be the ones aren't going to be honest.

That's what I mean, he'd be the one that's going to be like, this is how it went down. So it's going to be super interesting. 

And like in case anyone is like, has any doubts or questions out there? Like he is totally 100% innocent. Like the DNA exonerated him. Like he is in no way involved in this. So, you know, hearing his perspective and what happened in those meetings, like it's going to be totally like, like legitimate, like obviously, you know, he has nothing to hide. He didn't do it. So.. 

And the fact that he sued the police, the fact that he won just shows us like how shoddy the work of the police was though, 

This report that we're referencing was from actually written in 2007. So it was written like a year after he was released. That was probably during like all of those like civil cases and all of that kind of stuff is when this report came out. 

Yeah, it's a crazy case. And like I said, we did just touch the surface of this case.  We went into a little bit of the police misconduct, but there's so much more so you can definitely check out that report by the Westchester county DA's office.

It's a really interesting, read if you want to know more information and also definitely stay tuned for part two, because we're going to be interviewing Jeff himself and he's going to have such a unique perspective. It's such an interesting conversation and we're very, very excited to have him with us for part two.

So thank you so much for listening to part one.  As always you can find us on Instagram @crimefamilypodcast, also on Twitter @crimefamilypod1, we do have a Facebook page Crime Family Podcast, and you can email us as well at crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com. Send us some case suggestions and feedback.

Tell all your friends about the podcast, leave us a review if you would like on apple podcasts, and get the word out there because all your support and word of mouth is really supportive as well. So thank you so much for listening. And we're releasing part two and part three today as well. So you can go keep on listening and, um, we'll see you in part two, take care. .