Sharif Cousin Pt. Two

unidentified black mails. They soon arrested a sixteen year old suspect named Sharif Coussen after Connie Babbin identified him as the shooter, but that was really the only evidence against him other than the testimony of a friend of Sharif's name, James Rowel, though it soon became a parent that he was falsely implicating Sharif because he had a whole bunch of other charges that he was trying to get out of.

So Sharif was charged with first degree murder and as well as four armed robberies that he was alleged to have been involved in, even though Sharif claimed that he had nothing to do with any of these crimes, and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office announced that they were going to try Sharif four separate times on each of the robbery charges before they charged him with murder, and because he was being represented by a public defender, he was told that there's no way we're going to win

five consecutive trials. So it's probably a good idea if you plead guilty to the robbery charges even though you're innocent, because you'll get a lighter sentence and we can put all of the focus on getting you off on the

murder charge. Well, he did that. He got twenty year cents for the robberies, and when they went on trial for the murder charge, Connie Babin identified Charif as the robber she saw and that was enough to get him convicted and he received the death penalty, even though he was only seventeen years old at that time, which generated a lot of controversy, and of course it turned out to the whole case was rife with corruption that Connie Babin had originally made a statement to a police officer

that she didn't have her glasses on that night and couldn't actually see the robber's face, but it seemed to parent that police coursed her into identifying Charif as the robber. It turned out that Sharif had a rock solid alibi placing him at the other side of the city at the time that Michael was murdered. But they prosecutors did every dirty trick in the book to try to prevent

this alibi from making it. They even altered the tape of Shreif's basketball coach, saying that he dropped him off at ten thirty, which is when the murder took place. They even falsely detained some alibi witnesses that were going to back up Sharif. So the whole thing was pretty outrageous, but it eventually generated enough controversy that Sharif's conviction was overturned and the murder charges were dropped and he was

eventually released from prison. But the authorities continue to maintain that he was guilty all along, so he never got any compensation for his wrongful conviction. And unfortunately, the real killers, all three of them of Michael Girardi were never identified in cot, so this is technically an unsaw mystery. Again, so would you say you were suitably outraged by all the details we shared about this story in part one.

We're not going to turn this whole series into a massive crusade against the death penalty, but I will say that this story is a case study and how horribly the death penalty can go wrong. Even if Sharif Kussen was actually guilty of this murder, a lot of people still had issues with the idea of executing someone who was only sixteen years old when he committed the crime.

I mean, it's not like that type of thing is unprecedented, as the United States has executed a few people for having committed some pretty heinous murders when they were under the age of eighteen. But if you're going to do something like that, you need a rock solid case and much stronger evidence than one eye witnesses who wasn't even

wearing her glasses when she saw the crime. In an ironic PostScript to the story, only six months before Sharif was released from prison, the Supreme Court of the United States made a ruling on the case Roper versus Simmons, voting five to four at a bar capital punishment for offenders who commit crimes before the age of eighteen. The case in question involved a seventeen year old named Christopher Simmons, who was sent to death for his involvement in a

brutal murder, which he committed alongside two other friends. Even though there was no doubt Simmons was guilty, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute someone for committing a crime at that age. So if Sharif Kusen's conviction had occurred one decade later, he never would have been sent to death row. But then perhaps his story might not have garnered as much attention, and that is

ultimately the most disturbing thing about this case. The people in power clearly knew that they were sending an innocent teenage kid to be executed, but they didn't seem to have any remorse about it. Perhaps they genuinely believe Sharif was the perpetrator when his name first popped up in the investigation, but once the uncovered concrete evidence that he was at another location at the time the murder took place,

that should have been the end of it. Instead, they committed some pretty egregious misconduct in order to secure a conviction at any cost.

basketball with me that night. These are knowing, they're known actions. These are purposeful actions where these people said, if this happens, if the truth gets out, this kid's going to be released because we're hiding the truth or we're coercing a version of the truth that we want to actually exist and not the actual truth. It's disturbing because it's not just the fact that you have somebody on trial. You have someone on trial who's eligible for the death penalty

in this case, and it's a child. This is someone that literally they had no care whatsoever about this individual because they said it's more important that we are right and that we get our version of the truth across, even if it means we need to break our own professional and ethical standards. And that's exactly what they did.

You nailed it, Robin. It doesn't even matter the fact if you're pro or are anti the death penalty itself, because people can make very good arguments for the death penalty,

and people can make very good arguments against it. But when you start to look at the fact that we have had hundreds of people exonerated because they did not do the crime they were convicted for, and many of those, a large percentage of those are serving time on death row before their release, it makes you call into question. If you can make a mistake, how do you then

stand behind such a permanent punishment. There is not always a guarantee, even when there's this overwhelming amount of evidence that someone's going to be released, because other people stepped over the line and did not withhold or did not uphold their constitutional rights, did not stand behind their professional ethics and do the right thing, and instead they fought to win.

Maybe initially they did, but it seems like there's a lot of people along the way who could have looked at the evidence and went, m he's likely not the guy, but he's a guy and we've got him, so like, let's just go forward with this and close the case. It feels so egregious because we put this trust in the justice system, in the police, in the prosecutors, and we hope that they are going to uphold the standard

of justice. So when they do something like this, it just breaks our trust, and especially when they do it on purpose. These weren't tiny little mistakes. These were big mistakes that were made and Sharif paid for those mistakes, and it's just so so sad.

when the basketball game ended. Remember in part one we talked about he said, that's not what I said. It's like they spliced the audio tape. I recorded on a tiny tape. They had a large cassette tape. I think they manipulated my testimony. These are why did you avert the kids? Like they knew that a story was going to come out that did not jibe with theirs, and so they had to say, it's worth getting our story to be the truth without letting the truth actually come out.

Like it's very purposeful in this case. Sometimes it's just hey they dropped the ball, or hey, they didn't understand what they were looking at. It feels like in this one they knew every time they turned around. Ooh, this isn't lining up. Ooh, this isn't lining up. Let's hide it, let's lie about it, let's manipulate, let's hide it. And when that happens, everyone's blood should be boiling. Pro death penalty, anti death penalty, whatever you are, your blood should be boiling.

You signed up to have a justice system that provided justice and fairness and constitutionality. In this case blows every aspect of genuine truth and goodness about our country and justice system.

ninety five. In the first three months of the year, there were over one hundred murders, including twenty one which occurred in a single week. Michael Girardi's murder was one of the most problematic because it took place in the French Quarter, New Orleans' most popular tourist spot, and tourism

has always been the city's biggest industry. An innocent white man was senselessly shot in the face in cold blood by three black men during an armed robbery after leaving a popular restaurant with his date, so I'm sure the higher ups were terrified of a sharp decline in tourism

if the perpetrators weren't brought to justice immediately. It's been reported that New Orleans Police chief was notified and brought in only fifteen minutes after the crime took place, which should give you an idea of what a top priority it was. Dariff and his supporters believed that since the shooter was a black man. The police were always going to pin the murder on someone, regardless of whether or

not they actually did it. To me, one of the biggest red flags here is that even though only one person shot Michael Girardi, he still had two accomplices with him when it happened. Yet, when Shariff was charged with the murder, it doesn't seem like the police made any attempt to find these two accomplices, even though they were technically accessories. That signifies to me that they knew Sharif

was not the killer. If you're so convinced that you have the right guy, why not try to arrest everyone for their role in the crime.

You also have the real killer out on the streets, So that's another problem that they should have been considering here did not cross their mind. It is interesting when you look at this is not just someone getting on a soapbox and you know, ranting about racism, but when you look at the fact that there are areas in

our country that have always been let's say, even overtly racist. Okay, the South has been a and it's not just it's not just black against white, or white against black or Hispanic against black, like, there's just racial tension all across the board. South is incredibly prominent for that. And when you look at New Orleans, you have a incredibly you know, I don't know, the further we get in our lives, it's more and more covert racism, but it's still there.

I don't think anybody would tell you that across races, there's a lot of racism back and forth. And so when you look at these crime statistically, when there is a black offender and a white victim, you see a much stronger pursuit of harsh, quick punishment for individuals, and that makes way for mistakes. I would be very interested to see what would happen had this been a black man who was shot in the face by three white

boys young teenage boys. I'd be very interested to see what would happen if this was a black sex worker who had been shot by a white teenage boy or something like that, or even a black boy. Right that you have a difference in value of life, right, because maybe it was a sex worker or something to that extent here, Like you said, it was portrayed innocent white man, which he was walking out of his date with his innocent girlfriend and shot. One of the most horrific thoughts ever. Right,

we went to dinner and I lost my life. However, in this part of the country, there was a quick need to get it solved because this is a tourist place. We need to present as if we're safe and that this wouldn't happen to you and your family if you visited New Orleans. But when you rushed and you didn't care that as the time went on you knew this

person was innocent. You let a real killer who's potentially maybe committing some of the other murders in New Orleans the rest of that year out on the street.

what race they were. I don't think the chief of police is getting up in the middle of the night and coming down there to make sure that they get justice.

that he was no angel. He was definitely a troubled kid at the time he was arrested and allegedly accompanied his friend James Rowell on some armed robberies, though Sharif maintained that he did not do anything more than a wait in the car. And of course, we also know that following his release from prison, Sharif stole his boss's identity to commit credit card fraud and wound up back

behind bars. It seems like Sharif has finally gotten his life back on track and has not had any trouble with the law in several years, but he certainly was an immune to criminal behavior. It's unclear if Sharif actually was one hundred percent innocent of those four counts of armed robbery, but regardless, there was still a number of issues with how the Orleans Parish District Attorneys off Is

handled things. Sharif was potentially looking at ninety nine years in prison if he was convicted on those robbery charges, which seems pretty harsh for a sixteen year old kid who had no criminal record up until that point. It's pretty sad how Sharis's defense team felt that he had no shot of beating the murder charge unless he pled guilty to the armed robberies, as they felt that doing ten to twenty years in prison was still a better

option than facing the death penalty. It was an intentionally dirty, strategic tactic from the District Attorney's office to say they were going to try Sharif individually on each of the armed robbery charges before the even put him on trial for murder. There's just no way the defense attorneys for a poor African American kid would have the money or resources to secure an acquittal in five separate trials. But

as we're going to talk about momentarily. This is not the first time that this particular district attorney's office has used this questionable tactic.

Pick your poison, right, And this poor kid, I mean, it's a baby sitting there going okay, ten to twenty years sounds better than life or death, right, and both of those are my other option. So he's sitting there thinking, Okay, I don't have the money or the resources my defense attorneys who are supposed to advocate for me, or saying this is my best bet. Honestly, it doesn't help him when he pleads guilty because look, guys, he's a criminal. Right,

they're going to start assuming he confessed to this. He's a criminal.

But the reality is is that even as an armed robber at age sixteen, Okay, horrible choices, bad decision, sharif right, if he did do it, But does that mean that ninety nine years that literally that kid needs to be taken out of an adult prison in a pine box. That's the only way he's ever going to see an

exit strategy from prison. It's crazy to me the attitude that these people had, that there's no redeeming qualities of this sixteen year old kid sitting in front of him, like as a mother, as a human being, as somebody who's like, look, we're trying to protect justice and our community and things like that, let's look at this baby and see he has zero value. I don't care if he dies. I don't care if he dies via lethal injection, and I don't care if he dies behind bars, that's what he deserves.

a very weak case. And I think it says something about the prosecutors where it's like, well, if you are so confident that you're going to get a murder conviction, and what's the point trying him four separate times for armed robbery because if he's found guilty and murder, he's going to get the death penalty and he's never getting

out of prison. So it just seemed like a desperation tactic saying that we have to give him all these obstacles to overcome before he even goes on trial for murder, and no matter what, he's going to do prison time, even if he is found not guilty.

with a weapon that can cause lethal consequences. So who's to say the night this poor little couple goes to dinner, comes out, and a man loses his life when confronted by three black men, Right, who's to say that wasn't an armed robbery gone wrong.

huge role in getting Damon's conviction overturned. Well, unfortunately we can't share the same words of praise for his uncle. You're probably familiar, as we talked about in our previous episode with the famous jazz singer actor Harry Connick Junior, and yes, Harry Connick Senior is his father. Conic Senior was elected district attorney in nineteen seventy when he beat Jim Garrison, who was best known for his investigation into

the John F. Kennedy assassination. Knick wound up holding the position for thirty years until his retirement, and made it to the age of ninety seven before he passed away in January of twenty twenty four. However, Conach left behind a tarnish legacy as Orland's parish District Attorney, as during his tenure there were allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in no less than thirty six cases that his office tried, and nineteen of them resulted in being either overturned convictions or

reduced sentences. Even though Conic did not personally try Sharif Couzin, he was named as a defendant in Sharif's civil suit because of his failure to properly train and supervise his prosecutors. Shariff is not the only innocent person who was sent to death row on Conick's watch, and the most infamous example of this has a number of parallels to Sharif's case.

acknowledge I made a mistake, something happened. I'm so sorry, and you try to fix it, or you do what a surgeon does who wants to avoid any kind of legal prosecution, and that's the only thing, right as civil lawsuits the only thing they want to protect themselves against. And they say, well, I don't know what happened, and they don't validate, they don't acknowledge, they don't.

There's a lot of integrity. Remember he goes on to win his race and to continue to be a prosecutor and things like that, because I think there's value in saying someone who deals with such heavy consequences says, I'm sorry, I messed up. Now it's my responsibility to help make it right. And then you had this case where they say, oh, I'll double down. I'll triple down, just like with the West Memphis three, where everyone just looked away and said like,

it's not my fault, not my fault. If you had taken accountability and said, wait a second, something went wrong in this case, there would have been a whole lot more integrity and respect for these people and they didn't.

wrongful conviction. So obviously he has a lot of trust from the public who feel, well, he made a mistake, but he admitted to it, so let's keep reelecting him. Whereas with Harry Connick Senior, he kept trying to cover up his mistakes and he kept getting re elected and was only after he retired that he had all these horrible allegations come out about all these these aximus conduct that he did while he was in office.

And the prosecutors on their podcast went through it, and they didn't go through like all the eighty pages or whatever it was, but they went through some of the language that he used in certain parts and it was titillating. Like, if you're interested in the ad on On say ed case, I highly recommend going and listening to that.

me help make it right. That's what being a human being is all about, and not some selfish like I don't know, narcissistic kind of human being that says like I don't care what happened to you. All I care about is me. That's it's just not a good look. Like I have so much pride when I see someone who humbly says I messed up and I'm sorry, and I know what it did, and tell me more of what it did to you, and then how do I

make it better? That's what humanity's all about. And so I don't understand money's more important to you than human value in relationships, and I don't know integrity.

he had nothing to do with it. However, Freeman claimed that he and Thompson committed the crime together and Thompson was the shooter, so he agreed to testify against him in exchange for a five year sentence. Shortly thereafter, the family recognized Thompson's photo in the newspaper and identified him as a man who had robbed them during a carjacking

several months earlier. Thompson maintained that he was innocent of both the murder and the carjacking, but Harry Connick Senior made the strategic decision to try Thompson separately for the carjacking before he took him to trial for murder. As you might have noticed, this is very similar to how the District Attorney's office planned to try Sharif four separate

times on on robbery charges before they tried him for murder. Well, in this particular case, Thompson was found guilty of felony carjacking and was sent to forty nine years in prison. So by the time he went on trial for Raymond Lyuz's murder, Thompson was advised by his attorneys not to testify at his own defense because if he did, the prosecution would have been able to share his previous carjacking

conviction to the jury. As a result, Thompson was unable to testify that Freeman sold him the gun and Lyuza's ring, so he wound up being found guilty of the murder and sends to death.

crime right period, But it's not murder. And you think about the idea that, Okay, this person is going to trial this person, they're pretty convinced did it, and by the time they've walked into the courtroom, I think the jury one assumes they did it unless you can prove otherwise.

horrible decisions, they use a weapon. One action could turn them into a murder and it did in this case.

If they can do this, why not the next best thing, which is something went wrong and they shot the person.

as well, and then take them to trial. So that we pretty much prejudice the jury before they even go to trial for murder.

murder conviction. This time, several new witnesses testified that they had only seen one person running away from the scene when Raymond Lauza was murdered, and it seemed very likely that Kevin Freeman, who had received the five year sentence for testifying about Thompson, was the real killer. As a result, Thompson was acquitted and finally released from prison after serving

eighteen years. Thompson leader won a fourteen million civil lawsuit against Connick and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, but Conic appealed to judgment and the case wound up making it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In the case Conac v. Thompson, the Supreme Court voted five to four to overturn the fourteen million dollar judgment, ruling that the district Attorney's office was not liable for

Thompson's wrongful conviction. The Thompson case is pretty outrageous in its own right and could probably be the subject of its own podcast episode, But it just demonstrates the conic and the Orleans Paris District Attorney's office had a very troubling history of misconduct and railroading innocent people, particularly African Americans.

Something wrong happened, and therefore this poor person is going to need resources and access to money, services support to make sure that they can now be integrated back into society and have a healthy, productive life because we made a mistake.

but they were liable for Thompson's wrongful conviction. He intentionally suppressed evidence, he used, he orchestrated misconduct, so they should have been responsible for that money in paying it out to Thompson.

a murderer on death row. You can say they're innocent all day long. You can say it's because of DNA acceneration. There's a lot of ignorant people who will say, oh.

was essentially nothing more than a sentence of probation. But believe it or not, Jordan still had the nerve to attempt to appeal this ruling and complain that it tarnished his record and could affect his future employment prospects. Well, if he doesn't like it, maybe he shouldn't try to

execute innocent seventeen year old kids. It's mind boggling to me that Jordan would believe that a three month suspension was unfair punishment for something that egregious, I mean putting aside the unethical stuff like failing to turn over evidence to the defense. It was alleged that Jordan flat out doctored a tape recorded interview with Shreif's coach, Eric White, and illegally detained three of Shreif's alibi witnesses at the District Attorney's office so they would miss their schedule time

to testify at trial. Those are the actions of someone who clearly knew they were railroading an innocent person, but did not care. Even though Harry Conic Senior was not directly involved in this trial, you can see why he was named as a defendant in the civil suit because he created a culture where his prosecutors believed that they

could get away with stuff like this without consequences. Now, I've seen a number of cases where the state offered plea deals to wrongly convicted people which would allow them to plead guilty and walk out of prison. It's a convenient tactic which allows them to save face without actually having to admit they made a mistake and convicted an

innocent person. The Orleans Parish District Attorney's office attempted to do the same thing with Sharif, and he turned it down, But remarkably, it was literally only hours later when KLNIC publicly announced that they were dropping the case. You see, the main reason inmates are sometimes willing to accept these plea deals is because it means they can immediately walk

out of prison. But no matter what, Sharif was still going to have to serve more years on the armed robbery charges, So what motivation would he have had to plead guilty to murder? So yeah, this was a pretty pathetic attempt at damage control.

outlet for my anger for being wrongfully convicted. He had been accused of killing an elderly woman I believe in the Bronx, and he went to prison for her murder. And there was a time where he was married to an amazing woman named Trina, who helped him fight for his freedom. But there was a time where he was approached with Trina aware of the deal, and they said, plead guilty to this case and you can leave today

and go home to your wife. And she actually begged him come home to me, like, I know you didn't do it. We've been fighting this for decades.

narrates the entire video. But Dewey Bosella, I want to hug his face. I just want to I don't know, I just want to cry and celebrate with him. But same kind of thing they did, the same thing with the West Memphis three, where you had Damien Eckles on death row and his two accomplices were serving life in prison, and the two young men that were serving life in prison, they said, I'm never going to confess to something I didn't do, and Damien Eckles said, that's easy for you guys,

because you're not facing death. I am going to be killed for something we didn't do. Can you please take the Alford plea in that situation.

And it's just bad. There are people's lives at stake. There's fathers and daughters and wives and husbands sitting on life in prison and death row situations, and if we got it wrong, we owe them.

even though they maintain their innocence. What was Sharifa was particularly ridiculous because he was not going to walk out of prison. He would still have to serve time on arm robbery charges, which he claimed he didn't do, so it seemed pretty pathetic that they were going to try to save face by having offering him a guilty plea, even though he pretty much gained nothing.

impact on juris. Anyone who follows wrongful conviction cases knows that eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and has played a role in sending a number of innocent people to prison. But back in nineteen ninety six, the average jury member probably wouldn't have known this, and when they saw Connie Babin point to Sharif in the courtroom, and positively identify

him as the man who shot Michael Girardi. I'm sure they had no reason to doubt her, particularly since her earlier statements about not getting a look at the killer were suppressed at the trial. It would be easy to feel angry towards Connie for identifying Sharife, but let's not forget that she went through a pretty traumatic ordeal, and I'd say there's a good chance that she was pressured

or manipul related by investigators. We've seen a couple of wrongful conviction cases in which eyewitnesses have recounted their original testimony, claiming that even though they weren't certain that the defendant was actually the person they saw committing the crime, the police assured them that they had the right person, so if they could still identify the defendant a trial, it would strengthen their case and improve their chances of conviction.

I don't believe Connie was knowingly implicating an innocent person, as I think she genuinely believed the police arrested the right guy and probably did not expect her testimony to be the crux of the prosecution's entire case. I don't mean to make light of the whole thing. But this situation reminds me of the scene in the comedy My Cousin Benny, where Joe Pashi Cross examines a witness who positively identified the perpetrators even though she had bad eyesight

and wore very thick glasses. People should not be sent to death row over things like this.

memory in that eyewitness his mind. And it's really sad here because again she told the truth. She said, Uh, it was dark. These were some young black guys. I couldn't see them.

she's gonna help bring justice to her dates killer. And by the time she gets a trial, it's been a year of her thinking like, it's this all hinges on me, and I've been so empowered because these people are so good to me, and I'm going to get justice for my date. And she testifies with one hundred percent confidence. But remember she was honest at the beginning and she

said I'm probably not the best witness. They convince her that she is, and that makes me so mad because she also becomes a victim who, for the rest of her life is going to carry a weight of saying did I cause? Am I the reason why this poor kid also really lost his life? Because the man I was standing next to lost his and I basically caused.

So let's talk about about James Rowl, the guy who originally implicated Sharif, to begin with, I do not think anyone was expecting him to recant his story on the witness stand and say he lied about Charif, bragging that he committed the murder. When Rawl admitted that he was facing eight hundred years in prison for multiple armed robberies but was offered a lesser sentence for testifying against Sharif,

you can understand how this situation likely unfolded. Testimony from unreliable criminal informants is another primary cause of wrongful convictions, as demonstrated by the afore mentioned John Thompson case, where the real killer, Kevin Freeman, made a deal to testify against him in exchange for a lighter sentence. I don't think the lead detective in this case, Anthony Small, ever faced any repercussions for his conduct, but some of the

allegations against him are insane. In order to secure the uress warrant for Sharif, he completely fabricated two other eye witnesses to the crime who did not even exist, and he supposedly phoned in a tip about Sharif to crimestoppers

so he collect the reward. I mean, it's bad enough that a police officer could railroad an innocent person for the purposes of closing a case, but when they're also profiting and receiving reward money for their actions, that shows an almost cartoonish level of corruption.

you're simplifying their sentence. You know, one in five wrongful convictions has the use of a jailhouse snitch or another criminal who's involved in some other crime that's getting an incentive for sharing information that was either planted akai like, positioned you in a cell and then I asked.

And what's interesting is that in many jurisdictions, the prosecutor does not have to disclose any kind of reward that was given for any information that was received.

given an execution date. Time I'm on death row was filled with uncertainty about how long he had left to live. But there's one tragic aspect to this case which always gets overlooked. Will Shariffe is most definitely a victim. His story wound up taking a lot of the attention away from Michael Girardi, the person who lost his life. Sadly, one of the biggest side effects of wrongful conviction cases is that the actual murder victim often gets overlooked.

they got the wrong person. There really isn't much information out there Michael, but from what I can tell, he sounded like a sweet guy. It seems like he had really fallen for Connie and even told his mother that this may be the one before they even went on their first date. When Michael showed up for the date, he gave Connie a red rose and things seemed to be going really well until an unspeakable tragedy took place.

I think it demonstrates Michael's character that when he saw the three blackmailes approaching him and felt threatened, his first instinct was to turn to Connie and to tell her to run away, a decision which probably saved her life since she may have also been shot if she remained there.

This was a completely senseless crime because I'm sure that if the perpetrator simply ordered Michael to hand over his wallet at gunpoint, he likely would have done so without any resistance, and there was no need to kill him. This really isn't a complex crime to analyze, as it appears the only motive was robbery and Michael was just an unfortunate, random victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. But who could have been responsible?

a victim. You can't falsify information and give people a false sense of security and justice and healing in those kinds of things, and then rip it back out from under them when you're proven to be a fraud and someone who didn't have any kind of concern about the individual who was murdered, the individual who was being held as the lynch pen in this entire case, the poor eyewitness, and especially this kid who all of a sudden, the family has been rejoicing in certain ways of saying like, yes,

it's sad that this kid got caught up in this, but he killed our baby and he's getting justice. It is what it is. The court decided that we can move forward and try to regroup and build a life without our baby in it. And then all of a sudden, the eyewitness, the family, the community finds out what if they got the wrong person. Oh my lord, they got the wrong person. And you have to undo all of the fake promise you gave to everybody. You have to

undo the justice that you gave to everybody. You have to undo the safety and security that you gave to everybody, and say, oh, not only do we mess up, but we actually might have purposefully lied and cheated to get you this outcome. It's just a whole another like my whole just world perception kind of crumbles and it's so much more devastating than people acknowledge. Right, it's not just the offender, it is people like the victim, the eyewitnesses,

the surviving family, those kinds of things. They become victims in a game that these people are playing with criminal behavior, and it's just wrong.

license plate number on the perpetrator's getaway car. The number wound up matching a red nineteen eighty nine Ford Escort registered to a woman named Krystal Baham. Just over a week later, crimestoppers received another tip from an anonymous caller who implicated three potential suspects in the crime, Antonio Harper, Derek Smith, and a third person known only as Brandon. When investigators attempted to track down Antonio Harper, they discovered

a red Ford escort parked outside his address. It had the same license number provided by the bird watcher, and it turned out that the registered owner, Krystel Baham, was Derek Smith's mother. However, once Charif was charged with the crime, the investigation against these three suspects was dropped, and of course none of this information was ever turned over to Shreef's defence team at his trial. Now there really is

a much information out there about the alternate suspects. But I did manage to find an obituary for a New Orleans resident named Derek Smith who died in December of twenty sixteen at the age of forty. Since it listed Crystal Baham as his mother, this is definitely the same guy.

Interestingly enough, I also found an obituary for a Robert Harper, a New Orleans man who passed away in September of twenty seventeen, and lists Crystal Baham as his sister, So I can only assume that he's related to Antonio Harper.

so that it doesn't work in this case. Why right, It's really interesting when you look at this idea that these three suspects were called in and there was information that maybe just maybe someone else did it, or that there was information that other people should at least be explored.

went on to make other mistakes. What do you expect when you take a sixteen year old kid who didn't have resources to start with, who didn't necessarily have good examples to start with, You put him in prison with a bunch of adult men who are dangerous, scary, violent people who teach you to survive in prison by being dangerous and violent, and then you release him with a like a hangar over his head that says, hey, I'm a murderer even though they released me and said I'm not,

and you expect him to be successful, like, of course he took his boss's identifications that I got babies to feed, I need help. No one will trust me or hire me for a wage I'm worthy of. It's oh, it just makes me mad. I'm a little passionate about it. If you can't imagine that, yeah, we noticed, Yes.

about him? I don't think it says anything except for what actually just said that it is a really difficult place. It is at dogg eat dog, and it is a miracle that he survived and was able to come out the other end, be an advocate and speak up for the wrongfully convicted. I think that he's allowed a little

bit of grace considering what was done to him. Now, we're not going to go so far as to accuse Harper Smith and the guy named Brandon of being Michael Gerardi's killers, but I think that if investigators had been able to continue pursuing these guys, they may have potentially built a case against them. It's worth voting that this particular lead was investigated by three other detectives besides Anthony Small, but Small pretty much pushed their work to the side

after he set his sights on Sharif and the money. Yep, it seems like the moment James Raoul said Sharif's name, Small decided that he was their fall guy and they were going to pin the crime on him no matter what. And that's one of the most frustrating things about this story. I know law enforcement desperately wanted to solve this case, but they may have actually had the right guys on the radar get ultimately chose to railroad an innocent kid.

I mean, my god, when you consider the amount of of work the police and prosecutors had to do in order to fabricate a casey in Sharif, they might as well have devoted all of this energy to, you know, actually finding the real killers.

All that being said, if you happen to have any information on the murder of Michael Girardi, please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Astley, any final thoughts in this case. I doubt you'll have any thoughts. There's nothing else to talk about, right.

got his driver's license. Think about the sixteen year old in your life. They're all dumb and naive and make poor choices. Right, not murder, but they're dumb. And so you think about this sixteen year old kid you thought his best punishment his life to truly execute him. Thank God for Roper Simmons that took that off the plate.

For every juvenile who commits a crime. I just don't think you can say that a child has no redeemable ability, that there's no way to teach them, to love them, to give them resources that show them they're more valuable than the environment they were born into. So Lord have mercy this is one of the best and most egregious cases we've looked at. On a million levels, I feel sorry for the eyewitness, I feel sorry for the victim.

I feel sorry for the victim's family. I feel sorry for the people of New Orleans who were told they were safe. I feel sorry for the tourists who said who were told they were safe because a murderer had been caught. And I feel incredibly horrific for Sharif who as a child went to an adults world of violence and sat on death row wondering if the phone call was going to occur that said you're going to die in a couple months. Unbelievably disgusting because it wasn't a stake.

It was many people knowingly dropping the ball or coercing and manipulating facts so that they got a conviction, and afterwards they were unwilling and did not want to be called out for It.

It just feels so egregious. And the Conic Senior was involved and clearly didn't train the prosecutors properly, and they were willing to go to whatever lengths it was to get a conviction. And I think it comes down to actually said earlier, speaking of what a great job you did, ash she talked about the victims in the case. We not only have Michael Girardi and Connie Babin and Sharif Kuzen, but we also have the city of New Orleans because

they don't get justice. And what it comes down to you, I think, is having a tourist city where the majority of income that you have is coming from tourism. That gives a motivation to the police department, probably coming from the mayor's office, and to the prosecutors to find a suspect and secure a conviction. And I think that that can be done in haste, and that can be done without doing your proper due diligence, like what we saw with Connick Junior going back over the case and going, Wow,

there was a miscarriage of justice here. I made a mistake. Let me rectify that that wasn't done here. He looked back in retrospect and saw that the difference was he wasn't in the moment trying to bury somebody. There was corruption and there was collusion in this case, and it was basically a.

that can do long term. That will leave an indelible mark. This case is just heartbreaking across the board.

or jailhouse informants, and this case all of those. But it did have some other moments which just truly shocked me and made my jaw drop, Like when I read about alibi witnesses being detained in the district Attorney's office to miss their testimony and them giving the excuse, well, it was January, so we thought they would want to be in there when it's air conditioned, even though it

was a cold winter day outside. And of course like allegedly like altering the original tape recorded interview of Sharif's coach where they actually changed the time that he said he dropped to Sharif off at home in order to kind of dispute his alibi. I mean, this is the type of stuff that should get people thrown to prison. But the worst that ever happened is that one prosecutor got a three month suspension, which he didn't even have

to serve because he was essentially put on probation. And of course we talked about how the detective Anthony Small actually like phoned in a phony tip to crime stoppers and split the reward money with a friend of his, so he was profiting off this wrongful conviction. So yeah, this is one of the absolute worst that I've ever seen. And Sharif, I don't want to say that he was lucky, but because nobody deserves to spend any time on death

row if they're innocent, let alone two years. But he also had to spend other time in prison for armed robbery convictions which he probably also did not commit. And yes, he ran into trouble with the law after his release from prison, but he does seem to have changed turned his life around and he is fighting now to be an activist against the death penalty and to help wrongly convicted people, and he deserves to live happiness and peace for the rest of his life after what he went through.

But yeah, this is definitely a case of just the justice system going horribly wrong. The death penalty got horribly wrong, where clearly the people in power knew they were sending an innocent kid to death row but just did not care, which is just terrifying that people can do this and not have a conscience about these wrongful acts which nearly

got an innocent kid killed. And another tragedy, of course, is Michael Girardi, who sounded like a nice man who pretty much sacrificed himself to save his date and got shot for it, but he never received justice because the authorities just wanted to solve the case as quickly as possible and put anyone in prison, no matter as if who is the right person or not. And we talked

about these other three suspects. For all we know, maybe they went on to commit more crimes, and maybe they went on to commit more murders in the years since Shreep's conviction because they were allowed to get away with it and no one was looking for them. So yeah, this case is an absolute nightmare that went wrong on so many levels. But I think I'm glad that we shared this story because it's a good cautionary tale on how the justice system can go horribly wrong.

ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was

the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.