Cental Park 5- Who is Matias Reyes? Central Park Jogger Case Who Did It?

um so we are back with part two of the Central Park five episode you have not heard the first part um go back and listen to that so so that you won't be completely lost um but this one's gonna be a good one so buckle up [Music] I was doing the rewind not to hurry up just so you guys know and I should probably hurry up we are back um I'm tired I'm straight up tired this working full time and doing this podcast is a lot yeah and it's it's once again hot but it's hot it's gonna get better not outside but inside hopefully we got we got plans to get it fixed we have plans all right um so I think we should probably just jump right in yeah so this this one is our uh refresh my memory here this one is I'm gonna do a recap well that way we can kind of know okay you might have this in your recap then I was gonna say is this where we talk about the other side of the case um so this is where we're gonna get into the suspect the suspect okay that is not the five boys that were okay for all that time gotcha so let's do a little recap um 28 year old Tricia melee was found in Central Park in the early morning hours of April 20th 1989. she was barely alive she had been beaten badly and was very badly essayed she survived but had no memory of the attack 30 to 40 young men were in the park that night uh basically causing trouble out of those boys five teens were held and tried on the sa of Trisha they were taped confessions from the boys but they say to this day that they were coerced and that they did not do this crime they were convicted of this and served time so that all brings us to 2002. uh interesting side note I just thought about it when you said that in like 30 to 40 boys that's basically the size of my entire High School graduating class don't spit your water out um so that literally my entire High School graduating class roaming Central Park is like a weird like I can actually picture it now because I saw us all at graduation and hey this is pathetic which part the part but uh now I can imagine how many people that was and that's just so weird that's a big group that is a very big group and for them all to have like done up there and had all been together at least yeah yeah that's I mean I don't have 30 to 40 friends and there was this was the time before social media so it wasn't like hey let's all meet the social part it wasn't like him it wasn't like a flash mob where it was like everybody get together and dance right that would have ended a lot better yeah um so that brings us to 2002. now this is where some just craziness happens but first let's talk about the year leaning up so in 2001 Corey wise one of those five men um or boys were serving time at Auburn Correctional Facility in Upstate New York while there he exchanged some words with a man named Matthias Reyes shortly after this in the same year of 2001 Reyes contacted officials and told them that he in fact committed the sa and the beating against Tricia so this is year one of him being in prison but um you said the year that it happened right okay so what were you saying was the year so you said you said like the year of something this person said it and I was like was it the year they got arrested that uh Corey found this out from Matthias or like was it like way into a sentence or I don't know um it was into his sentence because remember all of these boys did complete all of their sentences right for this attack so this was kind of into um them serving I guess um and Mateus Reyes had been in there for another crime gotcha yeah I didn't know I guess for some reason in my head I got it in my brain that it was like right after he got into prison someone else was like yeah haha you did you know right in prison and I actually did it so we're going to get more into all of that in a little bit but I want to dive deeper into who Mateus Reyes was and when I say dive deep oh good um we are diving deep so buckle up it gets crazy um okay so Mateus Reyes was born in Puerto Rico in 1971 and moved to New York City as a child um I am not going to get like super into like his childhood background because there's not a ton but in school reports described him as being emotionally disturbed he later told psychiatrist that he had been essayed as a small child he had a very dark past and it was very violent but it doesn't come out in the media basically all of it was pretty much between him and his psychiatrist which okay you know like that's his business um in 1989 at the time of the Central Park attack he was working as a Deli clerk in Upper Manhattan he was considered a loner and he spent his night sleeping in a van near the store so that's um somebody who's violent I really don't want to be a Deli clerk I mean like I'm I'm just saying like it's better than being like a dentist or I mean yeah I guess but like he's literally chopping up meat like yeah that's his job like that doesn't make me feel good right um it's very Dahmer yeah giving me Dahmer Vibes um so Mateus committed his first crime when he was only 17. her name was Jackie she's 27 and she was on her lunch break from work on September 21st 1988. she saw a church nearby so she decided to go in and just pray on her lunch break she was walking out of the church when a young man approached her that's when someone grabbed her from behind one hand over her mouth the other over her neck and told her to shut up and not scream otherwise he would kill her he had a knife he took her into a stairwell and told her to take off all of her clothes thinking on her feet Jackie told him she had an infection that he didn't want to catch she did not in fact have an infection this was a ruse but it worked incredible on her yeah and then second of all man I'm just I'm just sitting here thinking I'm like I I she was going to church on her lunch break I mean yeah she already seems like she's like you know like she's a good person like that's what you're doing with your lunch break and then that happens to her that's messed up and like he had to have been close to the church probably to yeah to do that so I mean he was waiting outside of a church is pretty bad yeah all things there pretty bad but good on her like that's good thinking it may not always work but it in this instance I was trying after she told him that she had this infection he said I don't want your body forget it he told her to lie down on the concrete floor face down for a few minutes after he left she went for help and survived good for her so she wasn't um attack I mean she was attacked but she yeah this was his first cry it could have been a lot worse yep so this was in 1988 one year before the attack the attack on Trisha so just remember that and I try to update you as we go here because there's a lot of crime oh great um his next known attack occurred on April 17 1989. this was two days before Trisha's attack a woman was doing um Tai Chi near the laser rink at the Northern end of Central Park a 28 year old woman was by herself in the middle of the afternoon he approached her and asked her a question probably where something was she began to walk away because she was scared and he was creepy um he attacked her tearing off her clothes and started to sa her she screamed a man nearby came to see what was happening and he the attacker ran off so that was the second year too um I think it was during the middle of the day like she was doing Tai Chi yeah afternoon in the park right I felt like that'd be a weird thing to be doing at night I guess but right well so when I think of a park I kind of think of an open area because we have a lot of that I think Central Park has a lot of trees so I think like he was gonna maybe like take her to a wooded part right because that's what happened with um um I forgot her first name Trisha Trisha yeah they um they drug her yeah right um so yeah but I think by the skate ring part that that's kind of weird because that is probably pretty open and pretty visible yeah and maybe it's in the summer and nobody was there but I don't know it just seems like a place that would be highly populated yep um so investigators never connected Trisha's sa to the similar attack that had occurred just two days earlier so let me say that again investigators never connected Trisha's sa to the very similar Park attack that had happened just two days earlier two days yep I mean at least you suspect him but definitely I mean yep it's an attack um ASA in Central Park and if they hadn't arrested him like if they hadn't caught him at that point then they know he's still out there so I know Central Park is big and there are several crimes that happen in a short period of time but I've never gone to Central Park right everyone's like hey I'm leaving work now um I think they just had their sights set on the boys um that they didn't even go back and look or try um which happens a lot yeah um because they did not catch or link Mateus Reyes to this crime he continued um this is really sad because it could have stopped here with just a couple of crimes but it escalates and it gets a lot it actually does yep um so in the next couple of months he assaulted five more women um he forced his ways his way into their Apartments he was dubbed the East Side Slasher um he was like a whole nother thing other than what Trisha Trisha's crime was right um so I did not put Trisha's attack in here because we already went over that right but that is just one of the many many crimes that he committed yeah um and like I said he assaulted five more women um he he was just on a rampage and it could have been stopped at Trisha's and that's what I think is just so sad for me I mean it could even been start it should have been stopped or at least slowed down before that because if they would have caught him on the first two that he did they would have at least given him some jail time and it would have you know it I don't know maybe like had them have their eyes on him had it cooled off you know like it's I don't know all right so um April 19th 1989. uh that was Trisha's attack um two months after that he laid low June 11th 1989. um this was an unnamed person um she decided to not go public it's totally fine yep uh her apartment buzzer sounded not once but several times she asked who it was he said he was the son of the building superintendent she let him up because she believed him um over the next two hours he raped this woman three times um he slashed her in the eyes with a kitchen knife he tried to drown her in the bathroom sink then he left her there to die and she figured she probably would but after all of that she got the strength up to get up and walk out of her apartment and get help so for her I can't even imagine how hard that would be so he's escalating a lot yeah um and he's being successful in these and it's kind of sickening yeah um okay so on the night of June 13th 1989 um you have lordeis Gonzalez now I'm going to refer to her as Gonzalez because I'm not sure I'm pronouncing her first name right I am so sorry if I am not this is not my language and I'm very sorry but I'm trying I'm doing the best right um I want to get it right so yeah um Okay so she was 24 and she had just told the love of her life Antonio that she was pregnant again um they had celebrated the announcement even though it was unexpected um Antonio had an older boy who was seven and she had an older boy who was six and then they together had a little baby who was three months old um so they weren't really planning on having another one so soon but they were happy um Antonio got up and went to work in the morning like usual um it was a morning pretty much like any other in their household the boys were in their living room um and there was a knock at the door his mom called from the kitchen where she was with the baby um for the oldest one to see who it was he opened the door there was a man with light skin hair short wearing dark blue pants a white and blue short sleeve shirt and white sneakers he asked if the super attendant was there the boy looked up at the man and said no the super was his father and he wasn't there then without hesitation the man just barged in the boy was scared and said he was too big for him to stop him um the man then asked if he had any change um and there was none to give him so I was I'm sure a little bit scary right um after hearing some noise Gonzalez came out of the kitchen she picked up the baby and handed it to the boys telling them to go to their shared bedroom and lock the door Gonzalez was a little woman but she put up a big struggle um the next five minutes passed um the little boy said later he didn't hear anything um my mother closed the door the only thing I heard was the man's voice threatening her I'll take your eyes or I'll take your kids um what was going on on the other side of the door was horrific um Gonzalez was stabbed nine times in the chest the abdomen and once in the face with one of her own kitchen knives the kids didn't hear any of this um which is good um and they also didn't hear her being essayed but they did hear her scream my head my head I'm bleeding and please stop um and then later she said please don't hurt my kids you can take anything you want then she called him an MF which yeah okay um offering or ordering him to get out he did but only after he was done with the attack um when the man fled the boys left the bedroom they discovered their mother was still alive frantic Artie on the telephone um get help she screamed to them um then on a 9-1-1 call she says give me the police please it's an emergency I'm bleeding to death they said are you inside she said yes I'm cut they said what apartment are you in she said in the basement they said stay on the line let me connect you with an ambulance she said please hurry I'm fading um they said ma'am are you pregnant and she said I'm fainting basement hurry hurry um the oldest boy hid the baby in the closet next to the hamper swaddling her in the basket hoping that she would be safe there the boys ran to the elevator but they didn't have the key to get access and by the time they reached the first floor their neighbor had called 9-1-1 as well uh the two boys were standing outside the elevator panicking because there was no way to get back downstairs now to get their mom um they said their mother was hurt um Gonzalez by this time her face was slashed streaking blood on her ripped shirt and pants she staggered out of the apartment and collapsed at the elevator she just kept mumbling that the baby was downstairs by the time the paramedics got Gonzalez to St Luke's Hospital it was already too late she would live just an hour or two more in the emergency word before dying at 8 pm on June 14 1989. she did not provide any details on her attacker because she couldn't but investigators and detectives knew enough to censor killer had struck before and he would strike again and she did that's awful yeah the whole thing like every part of that's all I mean it always is but that's just awful that story I wanted to really highlight because I think in all of this the other crimes that Matthias Reyes did goes unlooked and they are poor yeah um and so I really wanted to get all of these stories but definitely that one in particular out there yeah um yeah he's horrible yeah he's uh he's locked up for a long time but let's see yeah um so then there was Amanda July 19th 1989. she was an art student and she was just in her apartment when a man came um at her oh she was getting into her apartment when a man came darting at her and these are all super close together because this is July of 89 so it's like still the same year yep um so he came darting at her um and then she felt the pinprick of a knife at her neck he forced her into apartment um he essayed her several times and then he said I don't or I have to kill you or I have to Blind you Amanda made a conscious decision not to fight back when he was done he ripped the telephone cord out of the Jack wrapping it around Amanda's wrists and ankles then bound her limbs together he took what money she had in her ATM card and then began to cut around her face and her eyes she did survive but it was a lot that's I so I don't even understand his logic Theory and I don't really want to but like he's what's the deal with the blinding thing like not like she's gonna be like yeah I'm blind now so I forgot what you looked like before I was blind like I mean yeah she probably wouldn't be able to pick him out in the lineup at that point but she could describe everything right I don't know um he escalates and he he does a thing where he cuts their face and for me that kind of like I don't know what psychologically you know like a trauma that he had as a kid somehow yes or he's just ashamed and doesn't want to see them in other cases where they um were ashamed and so they would do certain things like they put their victims face down or whatever yep so July 27 1989 this is the same month just a couple days later um she was unnamed uh she called 9-1-1 three times after the assault um the man had followed her into the lobby of her apartment building and then when she someone called 9-1-1 he fled um Meg this was August 5th 1989 so again a couple more days yep um she was 24 and living like this single life in New York um she said she loved just living free with her cat um it's funny you said single life and so people probably got a specific picture and then it was like living free with my cat yeah which is probably the best single life honestly I love make I love her um so she'd gone around the corner that Saturday afternoon to get a bagel for a late lunch and on her way back to the building she noticed her front door was propped open um she'd guessed it was probably for movers so she she just went on she didn't notice that a man had seen her on the street and he followed in right behind her he watched her get into the elevator and when he saw it stop on the third floor he ran upstairs and knocked on the door he forced his way in and repeatedly S8 her he took her to the shower to clean her up and wrapped her in a white towel and then he took all the money and cards she had when he least expected it she bolted out the door and he followed chasing behind her a janitor this guy yeah a janitor and another tenant saw the man in the lobby and saw her running from him so before he could flee they sat on him and pinned him to a couch for 15 minutes until police arrived that was I don't know why I was picturing it with the Janet maybe this is just because this would have been me but like as the janitor I'm like if I had a mop or something I'd be slaying the mop at the guy because if you see somebody wrapped up in a towel and a guy is chasing them through like the lobby like I'm doing whatever I can to stop the person from chasing them right because there's obviously one person's in the right and one person's in the wrong there yeah and if you're running like that yeah yep so uh they sat on him for 15 minutes until police arrived later that evening after the cops had arrested the man and after her Hospital examination the cops asked Meg where she wanted to go she just laughed and said the liquor store oh God I love Meg I absolutely love her um so we have the police getting him in the act now I I would have been a jerk when I was sitting on that dude that way for 25 minutes I would have farted all I could have I would have been like just like much gas I just been like flicking him in the pace and stuff I would have just been like I don't know saying the worst stories I could just being like like hey does everybody have a piece of paper just million paper cuts like and there you go whatever little things that I could do to not get in trouble but still all right so at first Matthias Ray is denied having anything to do with any of the assaults um never mind that he had been apprehended in the last victims apartment lobby as he fled right um but soon he admitted to the rapes and admitted to all of everything June through August um literally three months yeah um and right in the time what was uh what was the month on on the first one um not on the first one um on Trisha's Trish's uh it was April okay so that was April so it's it's within that range basically I mean it's not within the range but it's close to the range yep so if you didn't hate this guy already he said that what he was doing was called making love no no no no no no he's called being a piece of yeah um he held off on confessing to Gonzalez's murder until the next day um and then he spoke um that his intent was to Rob and then S A her yes um he recalled how much she fought back and how the kids were hidden in the bedroom based on all the other things he said I'm saying BS but right um he also never was asked or given up information about the Central Park rape of Trisha and he never said that was one right that's all right so maybe there's other ones that also got unreported yeah we don't know how long I was waiting to ask something to see if you'd cover it and I think you're probably at about the end of his stuff right um close yeah what so the fact that he was never asked I'm guessing they never tested the DNA then of him we'll get to that oh man I was like I've waited long enough before I asked that question I was like I was like there's no way that part's still coming we'll get to that all right well cool we'll get there all right maybe it was something everybody else was thinking too so I'm sure it was like just ask right um because of him being caught in the act they arrested him for the crimes and named him as the East Side Slasher um his DNA was later found to match three victims including Gonzalez so he did do right for sure yeah um he accepted a plea bargain agreeing to serve 33 years to life in that would put him to serve until 2022. last year yep um at his 1991 sentencing before the sentence was handed down Reyes stood up mumbled [ __ ] judge and punched his lawyer in the forehead I shouldn't laughed but like this is funny I don't know what was wrong with this guy I don't know did he just think like oh man I'm gonna get away with this yeah uh he he was carried out by guards and the judge said yeah I recommend him be in prison for life right yeah I recommend the Life part of that real life sentence please um so matteus Reyes went to prison to serve his term and after all the trials the Central Park five boys Antron McRae 15 Kevin Richardson 14 Yusef Salon 15 Raymond Santana 14 Corey wise 16 all went to serve their time as well so this overlaps them serving right time now from all the research of what it says I guess Corey and Matthias got into a fight while in prison together over a television while in Rikers Island jail but this didn't lead anywhere then I guess later while at Auburn prison they had a friendly conversation quotation marks there after this apparently Mateus Reyes felt guilty for the fact that Corey was still imprisoned for the crime he didn't do so Mateus come forward and confessed which Corey what only two Cory though right like no that's when he came oh he came out officially okay so he had gotten in a fight with Corey and I don't know didn't lead anywhere so then they had a friendly conversation after that and I guess maybe Corey said I'm in here for this attack on Trisha melee and Matthias felt so bad because that he came forward and confessed it's got such a conscience now this is where there's fishiness to me this is a little weird and I only say that because could it be and I am not saying anything officially but no speculation just speculation it could have been where Mateus confessed because he knew he was going to be in there for life and maybe you know they traded something they had said something I mean I don't know yeah but it just seems awfully weird that he has this oh I'm an angel I need to come forward now yeah and after he met up with Corey I think logically that makes sense but then obviously we have no proof of anything right we have no proof of nothing so there's no way no way to actually know it but right logically it makes sense is something that you could possibly do if there somebody was sure and maybe that's why there's also there's so many false confessions in general is because people are you know like hey uh when you get out start sending me what's that commissary or whatever the money for right you know I mean we'd have proof of that I feel like uh yeah yeah maybe he didn't follow through with it great idea honestly yeah right I mean what is he gonna do he'll totally do that when I get out right I don't know it just seems very weird because he has this guilty conscience now but he had essayed how many women killed how many women and maybe he was reformed yeah yeah you don't get reformed from that no I just no uh anyway moving on yeah there's no reform from that right so like I said this seems out of the blue and kind of odd um I don't I don't know I just weird yeah I can see that so in 20 or in 2002 matteus Reyes told officials that the night of April 19 1989 he assaulted in essayed the female jogger he was 17 years old at the time and the assault he said he committed a loan he said that he had intended to burglarize the victim's apartment um now remember he had never been looked at for this crime right that's Trisha so even though he literally committed a crime in Central Park days before right so this is what he says about it quote I know it's hard for people to understand after 12 years why a person would actually come forward to take responsibility for a crime at first I was afraid but at the end of the day I felt it was definitely the right thing to do no I'm not buying it I don't know I mean I'm not I'm not saying that he didn't do it I'm just not buying that his conscience suddenly I don't buy that he was gonna virgoise her because why did he attack her well in the middle of such a thing like the um the one the woman before that in Central Park was doing tai chi in Central Park he wasn't burglarizing her unless he was just like robbing her on what she had on her which is the same as the case before that right so like he hadn't escalated to the burglary part yet he also has an escalated to murder right unless it was like an accident I guess because like the her injuries um this is like a kind of recap but her injuries were like fractures to the back of her skull right right she'd been hit with a branch or yeah so like he might have accidentally done too much because at this point I feel like this always goes on like if you don't if you don't catch a serial killer at the beginning like they're bad and they make a ton of mistakes at the beginning right and then like they get the more and more they do it and the longer it takes for a police to catch them the better they get at like avoiding things yeah so Matthias Reyes provided officials with a detailed account of the attack details of which were collaborated by other evidence that the police held the big thing was that his DNA matched the DNA evidence at the scene it did match uh-huh confirming that he was the sole source of the semen found in and on Trisha melee I'm about to walk outline like that to me it was like open and shut like what it is like he did it like yeah he did it and there's no I don't think anyone's denying that he didn't do it Mateus Reyes definitely did it yeah now did he do it alone with the other people around yes uh yeah but um that I get that part that part's a little tricky because you would think one of the 40 30 to 40 boys that were there would have been like yeah I saw this dude like like I know he was around us like they they could have been an eyewitness to say like he was there and or like said that they saw him in the park said that he was never part of our group and then that would have like absolved the whole group like like we never saw him the whole night like we don't even know who that guy is but I don't know it just there's so many witnesses you feel like they would have and we'll get into that too because there's some taped confessions there is some a couple of the boys mentioning someone else being around um they didn't know his name right but they hadn't seen that he's been familiar and I mean he'd have been in the same neighborhood and around the same people around the same age yeah um so there's just confusion with this well and if you have a group that big I imagine it kind of snowballs to get that big like I'm I'm probably starts with you know like 5 10 and ends up being like more and more people being like hey what are you guys doing right um so I left you guys like hanging a little bit but he did do this yeah uh there's no indication that it wasn't him that did it like he he was the only semen that was found now there's some discrepancy between what was found and what wasn't because the cops did a just horrible job yeah so I'm collecting evidence one interviewing suspects too yeah um but I mean it came back to that he he was there he did essay her um now it's just kind of did he do it alone was she in like did they attack her and he said oh opportunity right there's a woman now laying there right that he could attack and do things with we don't know yeah and and all of it's just very wishy-washy because we just don't know yeah because I mean if you're um if you're an accessory to it you're gonna get it like the same and maybe not the same penalties but you're still gonna get thrown in prison for it so I mean at this point him admitting it matching and everything it wasn't gonna let them go but they might have gotten lesser sentences or even gotten fully reduced sentences if they're you know proven to not have anything at all to do with it right um so another piece of evidence um was that he tied up melee with her t-shirt in a way that um other ones he had done it the other victims so the only thing he didn't do that he had done at the other ones was the eye thing which he didn't do at the previous he was I mean her eye socket she if you remember her eye second was complete but it was from blunt force [Music] um which a lot of the other victims were cut uh right so maybe he just didn't have a knife yeah this this guy like it seems very impulsive too so like it matches up there to you as far as the victim goes because he he just does he picked these people up in public places like Central Park like outside of a church we followed somebody going into like they're in apartment buildings like it's not like you waited till these people were alone it was like you got an impulse and he did it so I I don't know I mean I could very well see him this is just me making a random Theory but I can very well see him just joining in with that group and them you know doing bad stuff but him joining in with that group and be like being like okay well now I'm just gonna do it in front of all these people and everybody just being like whoa like what are you doing and they should have stopped him for sure but um what's interesting for me is on the confessions now this could be the coercion part because in the interrogations it kind of made it seem like the police were like oh we know that your friend did the essay so what part did you have in it right but what's interesting is a lot of the boys said that they held her down or was one to hit her no one actually except for one right one of the was it Yusuf uh didn't admit to any of it right because he you know got a lawyer like his mother was very adamant about a lawyer being there right A lot of them didn't say that they did the essay right now of course they're not going to yeah I mean obviously but could it be that they were there and we're holding it yeah could it be that they were there and hit her could it be that they had saw something and just were scared but this comes back to where the police didn't do their job because there if somebody is hitting somebody to where there's blunt force trauma to where like fractures in the back of her skull um you know like swollen eye socket there's going to be blood splatter on those people's clothes and so if they really were holding her down on or or even like her like because there was a lot of blood we know now what the defensive ones and things like that that a lot of times like there would be other skin under her fingernails from those people and one of the boys did have a cut like on his face right and had said you know like and at first they said they didn't that wasn't part of that and then they said it could have been from that right um so I am not blaming anybody but I do know that they these boys were in the park conveniently at the same time attacking people yeah and now could it be a coincidence absolutely it was interesting to me that she was dragged because could she have been on the ground incapacitated they had stole things from her those boys did and he just conveniently walked upon it yeah or was waiting for them to attack somebody I mean he kind of dragged the first victim somewhat he he held there at knife point and took her to a you know like a stairwell basically so I mean he has done that but at the same point in time yeah I mean it's possible that she was attacked and then he decided to drag her off I mean yeah there's just there's just so much we don't know yeah and it's in the end of the day there is some guilt by association but at the same point in time too if there's just somebody who um there's just somebody who joined your group and just does something like yes you they're the way they're guilty in my mind if that happened is they're guilty for not stopping and and if he didn't join their group and he did it separately of the group completely then it's they're kind of not guilty at all if he was never even in their group right it's just he did it and it happened to be while they were causing trouble too yeah so there's just so many options of what could have happened but definitely he is a POS yes so based on what investigators believe uh the essay of Trisha appeared to have taken place in the North Woods area um after the almost 30 teenagers had all moved South and the timeline reconstruction of events made it unlikely that any of the boys had joined or did this that's what they said wait after so after they said that they said all of this way after yeah after they were probably all out of prison at that point because um his confession conveniently occurred after the statue of limitations had passed and the Central Park five had already served all their sentence gosh yeah so basically the police just said they're innocent because they're like they weren't even there they weren't even there to be doing part of it right yeah um however Mateus Reyes was in for life either way right um after an investigation into the defendants innocent was conducted in 2002 um district attorney from New York County uh the city withdrew all the charges against the men and the defendants sentences were vacated in 2003 the five men sued the city of New York for malice prosecution racial discrimination and emotional distress they reached a 41 million dollar settlement with the city government in 2013 an additional 3.9 million in compensation from the state in 2016. a vacated judgment also known as a vaker relief means a previous legal judgment is legally void so the law is basically saying oopsie erase that yeah you don't have a felony on your record anymore yep like we can just erase that from existence that too yeah like they're they already did all their time in prison yeah like we're they're like oopsie we're just gonna erase all that that happens are bad no but it doesn't work that way right um because you know a lot of these men went the right way I mean they they did very good after this yeah I mean all of them did good after um one of them I think did another crime but like they were pretty I mean they did well after yeah and um it's just it's horrible because it could have went the other way yeah yeah this crazy thing that the police even came back and we're like yeah they weren't even there like how long did they know that part like right how long into the sentences did they even was it before they were even sentenced that they were like oh well we know it's not them but we already started yep uh Mateus Reyes is still in prison good uh the five men went on to live very productive lives some of them are activists some of them are just laying low um they were in a very popular Netflix Netflix series when they see us as premiered in 2019. that's the one I think I watched yeah will you watch that yeah um it definitely got people thinking about Rachel discrimination and the case again um especially because it was right around 2020 when covet hit right so we were all watching that as the world was a lot of other um racial discrimination cases that happened at that time yep um I think there is no doubt that there is discrimination in this case um I will say that with certainty yeah um however I want us to break down this case in a big way I want us to look at the victim and victims in this case um take a look into the facts and the evidence and really decide for ourselves because some things turn this thing upside down and we will explore that next week yeah and uh yeah I'm the at the end of the first part I was very Pro the five and um at the end of this I'm still very proud of the five um and I hate that that race guy Matthias I I hate him I hate him I hate him right um so it'll be interesting to see what you have for us um this next time because we I feel like you've laid it all out I feel like it's like we're done like I feel like this so I don't know what you've got for part three I mean there's a any teasers there's a lot of people who believe yeah um there's a lot of people who believe the other side they believe the men had something to do with this now scouring the internet there's people who believe that they are guilty but no one is denying that matteus Reyes did it that he's really guilty right I mean he was there for sure DNA matched right yeah um a lot of people just think that they were there when this crime committed and that they had more to do with it than they say and the way that media in the recent years has painted these boys as these Angels who did nothing wrong kind of rubbed people their own way who looks at the evidence and says well at least they did the attacks on the other people right like they were not just innocent bystanders completely yeah but and I said this in the last video they they might not have done this right it's possible that they didn't do this but are still not Angels like it's it's possible to have to be both to be both and that's what I think honestly like and even with everything that I'm gonna say next week like I think you can be both and I think in this case some of it seems fishy so this next this next episode sounds like it's going to be a lot of uh theories and allegedlys and allegedly posts and so be ready for a lot of theories and maybe it'll get you thinking one way or another maybe you'll still be on the same side you were before but give him a listen and find out yes I do want to say um I will probably pull some of your guys's comments from the first episode maybe the second depending on when we Premiere these things if you say anything off color I am not going to feature your comment yeah I may delete your comment it just depends on how bad it is right because no matter what happens the racial profiling is not right the um if you're coming on here to say anything racist we're not cool with it like you just yeah I want you guys to comment what your what you feel your honest opinions but I also want you guys to the purpose of me doing it in this format was to make you think differently because if I came on here and I said these four five guys are completely innocent nothing happened end of story there's no thinking further into evidence into coercion in these cases you're just gonna make up your mind to be done I want your opinions on the evidence and what you take from that rather than just looking at the big picture that makes any sense it absolutely does and at this point I if we just if you had just done that and we hadn't been taking comments and having a discussion and you just said like they're innocent and that's it you might as well just be the Netflix documentary they might as well I think this is this is where it's different as you guys get to actually talk to us you get to have a discussion you get to be part of it whereas the Netflix documentary you just you watch it it's what the story they told you about it and it's done you don't hear anything extra about it and that's what I I liked about our Casey Anthony coverage as well is like a documentary can put their opinion in it and just be like here's my opinion yeah here we're gonna steer you the way that we want you to right so I mean if you look at kind of what I did here the first episode you're going okay well there are they guilty are they not guilty then I hit you a second with okay they are they are innocent in this crime yeah at least at least a big part of it right I want to get your guys's real opinions on it and real feelings on it yeah um I don't want to be like here's my opinion case closed yeah right it's not fair yeah because we're at the end of the day we're all operating off the same evidence and maybe you find some theories out there too that are that we haven't seen before too right yeah um so keep it keep it PC keep it clean keep it good comments because I want to have this like the Casey Anthony thing and I want to read all your comments and I want to read the Reddit post and I want to get involved in this because this is the stuff that gets you thinking about true crime in a different way right yeah absolutely so yeah um it was a great one I'm looking forward to part three I really do hope you all comment because that will that'll help things a lot because it's cool to talk to you guys and this episode goes out to the victims that are getting ignored that are of Matthias reyes's that no one talks about there's a lot of survivors there's a lot of like the kids yeah those kids you know like the house I have thought about that a lot too how much they had to live through and losing their parent too and I I hope that I was able to tell stories that weren't before yeah I hope so too yeah um yeah always respect to the victims there's a lot of strong women in this case who fought through a lot every one of them really yep and we'll see you part three all right peace everyone take care okay I just wanted to say I hope enjoyed this if you like any of the content for code 187 please click that subscribe button that like button that share button help us out help us grow um you can find us on your favorite podcast platforms um yeah check us out on there give us some ratings um tell us what you think we're also across every social media on code 187 so we're on Tick Tock Instagram Twitter Facebook I think that's it um and of course YouTube so please please please subscribe um if you like our content and spread the word we'll see you guys next time bye