December 20, 2024 • 28 mins
In August 2024, I aired an interview with the Yates family—Rochelle Yates Whittington and her sons, Tony and Malcolm Yates—who tragically lost 5-year-old Marcus Yates in a 1988 shooting that shocked Philadelphia. Over 35 years later, in a journey of healing and reconciliation, the family sought to speak with the two men sentenced to life for Marcus's murder, Michael Gaynor and Ike Johnson. Through this process, they came to believe that Michael Gaynor was innocent and not even present when the crime occurred. The family is now dedicated to seeking justice and overturning what they believe to be a wrongful conviction. Recently, journalist Barbara Laker investigated the case and published a six-part series uncovering police misconduct and other evidence supporting the claim of a miscarriage of justice. In this episode, I speak with Barbara Laker about her investigative series, The Wrong Man, and delve deeper into this decades-long fight for justice. Links:
Here’s a link to my original interview with the Yates Family.
Here’s a link to my original interview with the Yates Family.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to Insight, a show about empowering
our community. I'm Lorraine Ballatmorrow. In nineteen eighty eight, five
year old Marcus Yeates was tragically killed during a shootout
in a Southwest Philadelphia candy store. Two men, Michael Gaynor
and Ike Johnson, were quickly arrested, convicted of murder, and
(00:24):
sentenced to life without parole. Decades later, Marcus's mother, Rochelle
Yates Whittington, seeking peace through forgiveness, met with both men
and became convinced of Gaynor's innocence. An investigation by reporter
Barbara Laker from the Philadelphia Inquirer supported her belief, uncovering
evidence that the actual perpetrator was a man known only
(00:46):
by his street name Harbor. In the interest of full disclosure,
I have known the Yates family since the death of Marcus.
This was an important moment for me and really inspired
me in my commitment to addressing gun violence. I'm godmother
to daughter Tanisha, who was born nine months after Marcus's death,
(01:07):
and when I got married in twenty twenty, newly ordained
muster mom Shelley Yates Whittington officiated my wedding, reading the
six part series took several days because I was sobbing
so hard with each chapter. And now I'm very, very
delighted to speak with Barbara Laker, the author of the
six part series. Barbara, thank you so much for joining
(01:30):
us here today, and I wonder if you can start
by telling us what prompted you and the Inquirer to
investigate this old murder case.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, actually it started at a Temple University event where
you were there and we started talking because we've been
friends over some time, and you were asking me what
I was working on. I was asking what you were
working on, and you told me that I forget exactly
how you worded it, but you said, you know Shelley Yates, right,
(02:00):
And I said, yeah, I remember her from years ago.
And you had told me that Shelley was on this
road to forgiveness and had met both men convicted of
killing her son, and I thought that was just an
amazing turn of events. And I couldn't imagine a mom
who had lost her a five year old little boy
(02:20):
to murder would want to even fathom forgiveness or want
to meet them. And so I had asked you if
it was okay if I reached out to Shelley at
that point, even though I'd known her from years ago,
and you said yes. So that's how it started. I
met with Shelley and she told me that she had
(02:40):
met with one of the men, Mike Johnson, and then
was going to meet with Michael Gainnor. And I decided
to myself meet with Michael Gaynor. I set up a
time to go see him in Huntington Prison, and what
he told me was startling to me. He was extremely believable, humble,
not bitter, and he gave me little tickbits about the
(03:03):
case that made me believe that this was worth me
looking into investigating.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'd like to roll back the time machine a little
bit and talk about what was the world like at
the time in which Marcus was killed. Is I recall
looking back over thirty years, when a child like Marcus
was murdered, it was big news. It was news that
galvanized the city, politicians, leaders, everyone seemed to coalesce around
(03:35):
this particular case among many others. We have unfortunately come
to the time today when the murder of children doesn't
seem to have the same impact on us as it
did back then. But back then it was something else.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It was.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A very traumatic experience for the city, and of course
there was a tremendous pressure to come to some kind
of conclusion arrest in the murder of Marcus Yates. And
I wonder if you can talk more about the circumstances
leading to the arrest and conviction of Michael Gainer and
(04:14):
Ike Johnson for the murder of Marcus Yates.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, what was going on at the time in Philadelphia
was there was a spike in gun violence against children,
and the week before Marcus had been killed, a little
boy had been shot and paralyzed, and another little girl's
body at four years old, Barbara Jeane Horn, her body
had been found. And then Marcus, at five years old,
(04:38):
was shot in a candy store when two men were
shooting at each other. At the same time, there was
like an increase of crack cocaine in this neighborhood and
other neighborhoods in the city where there were drug dealers
selling crack cocaine. And there was such an outcry after
Marcus was shot and killed in his little face was everywhere,
(05:01):
like on TV at morning, noon, and night, and he
became kind of a symbol of the horror of gun
violence against children. So there was pressure on the police
department to find these two men and lock them up.
So that was the backdrop of what led to pressure
on the police department and outcry from the public, and
(05:24):
they wanted the police to arrest these two men.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Fast.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Let's talk about the initial investigation in nineteen eighty eight
that identified Gaynor and Johnson as the primary suspects. How
did it come to be that they were arrested and
what were some of the conditions or incidents that occurred
leading up to the arrest of those two men.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, the police interviewed or interrogated the son of the
candy store owner who witnessed the shooting. His first statement
described a shooting between Mike Johnson, whose street name was
Baby Don and the son of the candy store on
our new Baby Don, so they knew it was they
were looking for Baby Donn or Mike Johnson. And then
(06:10):
Christopher Duncan, the son of the candy store owner, said
that the other shooter was someone he really didn't know,
and he described in detail that he was a passenger
in this car and he knew the driver of the car,
and another witnessed the driver of the car, and the
word on the street was that the other shooter had
a street name of Harbor. It's unclear what the police
(06:32):
did to try to find Harbor, if anything, because later
in the trial, the lead investigator, Paul Larel said they
concluded that this person didn't exist. But what happened was
Michael Gainor lived around the corner from the candy store.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
He was young.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
He admits he was like a low level crack dealer
at the time. The police impounded a number of cars
around the candy store after the shooting and murder. Michael
wanted to get his car out of impound and so
he called the police station and according to him, Detective
Warrell told him to come down to the police station
(07:10):
the Roundhouse in order to get his car. He did,
and as soon as he got there, the police started
interrogating him. Warrell took him into a room and according
to Michael Gainor, he told him, look, we know you're
the other shooter, we know you're responsible for killing Marcus.
You've got to confess to this. And Michael said, what, No,
(07:32):
I wasn't even there. I'm here to get my car
and Warrell, according to Gaynor, put a plastic bag over
his head and clamped it tight, so Michael thought he
was going to suffocate. Each time he did this, Michael said, Okay,
I'll talk to you. Warrell would remove the bag, and
then Gaynor would say, I'll talk to you, but I'm
(07:54):
never going to tell you I did it, because I'm
not going to confess to something I didn't do. The
bag was over his head had at least ten times.
He never ever confessed. He's always maintained his innocence, but
that night he was arrested in charge with murder.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
What is disturbing certainly about this information that is now
being revealed years and years later, is that the information
that led to Gaynor's arrest was tainted in so many
different ways. There were certainly other witnesses who confirmed that
he wasn't there. Talk about some of the other witnesses,
(08:31):
and also the use of the children who were witnesses
to this event, how that was used by the prosecution
to achieve this conviction.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, there was another witness who was also the candy
store owner, and she called the roundhouse right after Gaynor
was arrested and told them, look, you have the wrong man.
You do not have the right person. I was in
the store. She knew Michael from the neighborhood, and she
said he wasn't even there. They also talked, like I said,
(09:03):
to the son of the candy store owner who said
the same thing. They also talked to the girlfriend at
the time of Michael Gainor. And her statement was alarming
to me at first when I read the statement, because
it said that Michael told her that he actually was
one of the shooters and he was in the store
(09:23):
and he had a gun and started firing back at
this other person. It really caught me aback because that
was the only statement that described that. I tracked this
woman down and Marine Mills and I asked her what
happened During the interrogation, she said she was new to
Philadelphia from Jamaica. She'd only been here a month. She
(09:46):
was scared out of her mind. The police said, you've
got to come down and talk to us.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
She did. All she wanted to do was leave.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
She was scared, she was petrified, and so they said, look,
you can leave if you sign this statement. She told
me she couldn't read English that well, she wasn't highly educated,
and she just wanted to leave, so she signed the statement.
I said, I had obtained the statement, and I said,
Amory said, okay, if I read you your statement to you,
and she said sure. I started to read her her statement,
(10:16):
and when I got especially when I got to the
part where it says that Michael told her he was
one of the shooters, she just gasped in horror and said,
I said none of that. I never said anything like that.
I didn't even read the statement. I just signed it
to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And the children who were witnesses, including Marcus's two brothers,
one of whom Malcolm was severely injured at the time,
and then Tony, who was witnessed to the murder, and
then there are a couple of other kids as well,
certainly experiencing the tremendous confusion and trauma of being in
(10:56):
the middle of a gunsight, and yet they were being
asked to look at people and identify potentially who the
shooters were with a police lineup. Tell us more about
that and how that came down.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, there were eight men that the police had in
the lineup. They took the children down to do the lineup,
and they asked them to identify the two men who
were responsible, who were in the store at the time.
These were young children, and they were traumatized. I mean
when I talked traumatized, I mean especially for Marcus's brother.
(11:36):
Tony put his fingers on the hole in Marcus's head
to try to stop the bleeding. Malcolm, the other brother,
was shocked. Another little boy was shot. This candy store
was extremely tiny. They were trapped in there. There was
nowhere to go. Take that and then put them in
the lineup, and some of the children picked out all
(11:56):
different numbers they you know, like the two men or
say Ike Johnson, Michael Gainer wore numbers two and six.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Some of them did pick out two and six.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I talked to another little girl or now she's an adult,
Shannon mccode, who was in the store, and she did
the lineup and she told me, she said, Barbara, I
was petrified. I couldn't I didn't know who to pick out.
She said, all the men looked alike to me. She said,
the police kept bringing two men forward and asked them
(12:27):
to step forward and turn left and right. So she
thought that the police were wink wink, telling her those
were the two shooters, because they would know. I talked
to these the now adult children, and they said looking back,
they could not. There was no way they could identify
these two men. They were in terror, they thought they
(12:47):
were going to get killed, and they watched Marcus on
the floor with blood seeping out of his head. In
today's courtroom, the defense would be able to call a
witness or an expert witness to describe, how like whether
it's it's accurate to count on a child's testimony to
identify two men when they were in the middle of
(13:08):
a candy store and everyone's getting shot up. There was
no expert witness that was called in this case. And
you can tell even by the testimony at the time
in nineteen ninety they were waffling, they were uncertain. But
that was the key factor that the prosecution used in
order to get a guilty verdict is the words of
(13:30):
these children and the identification from these children, right.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And what I think is so remarkable about your reporting
is that you actually track down the person known as
Harbor and he was allegedly involved in the nineteen eighty
eight shooting. Tell us about Harbor and how you were
able to track him down and what happened to this
(13:55):
man who might have in fact been the person who
pulled the trigger and was involved in this murder.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, it took me a long time to find Harbor
identify him because no one in Philadelphia back then or
even now knew who Harbor was. All I knew was
that a man named Stanford was the driver of the car,
and he was He told police he was, and he
told me. I also talked to him that he was.
He met Harbor in prison when they were locked up
(14:23):
on separate charges in Rikers Island, and that's all I knew.
So what I had to do was I called as
many people and as I possibly could and get closer
and closer to people who may know Harbor or the
people who friends of friends who knew Harbor. Eventually, after
(14:44):
talking to i'd say two dozen people, I found a
woman who knew a woman who was actually visiting Harbor
at the time he was in Rikers prison, and that
person knew that Harber's name was Paul Ja Jacobs. Obviously,
that wasn't enough for me, So I heard from this
(15:06):
circle of people who knew of him and his family
that he had done a number of crimes and had
been killed in La County in nineteen ninety six. So
I had to confirm that, which took me a long time,
because Paul Jacobs kept going back to Jamaica getting deported
(15:27):
and then would come back under an alias. And so eventually,
after I'd say several weeks, I determined that I found him,
or found the person who was Paul Jacobs who was
killed under the name Peter J. Jacobs in LA And
then I found his death record, and the death record
(15:47):
matched up with the person I knew was his wife,
and I had her name, and I had her birth date,
and everything matched up, and then I found that he
was buried in New York. And so it took a
long time, but eventually all the pieces came together, and
then the candy store owner's daughter actually knew Harber's wife,
(16:10):
and Harbor's wife then subsequently, years later in twenty twenty one,
admitted to her that her husband at the time, Harbor,
was the one who was responsible for the shooting. And
I tracked down Harbor's stepson who also knew the same
and could describe in detail what his stepdad was like.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Right, And the wife of Harbor kept that as a
secret for so many years, and it was a dark
secret that weighed on her, but she I guess felt
at the time, and you were able to discover that
she was in an abusive relationship and was afraid to
speak up or come forward. I'd like to talk about
(16:54):
the Yates family, you know, as you know and you
and I talked, Rochelle Yates Waiting had told me that
she was planning to meet with Gainer and Johnson in
this effort to heal. And this is really quite unusual,
I think that, And as you write, it's kind of
(17:14):
unusual for parents of a child that was murdered to
come to meet with the people that were convicted of
the murder. So it was surprising to a lot of
folks talk about that. What was the initial reason for
doing this and then how it evolved into something quite
different was.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, they're a remarkable family. But I think from
talking at length to Shelley, she was describing that, I mean,
her son had been murdered decades earlier, in nineteen eighty eight,
and she had never found peace. She'd become a minister herself,
she buried a minister, and she wanted she was living
(17:57):
in torment. She told me that she had this that
her only way out to find peace herself was to
meet these two men who had been locked up for
killing her son. She had no idea at the time
that one of them was not the killer. She had
no idea. She just wanted she was on this road
to forgiveness, to heal herself. And I think that's the
(18:21):
way she describes it to me. She tells it extremely eloquently.
It was for her, It was for her to find
like any kind, because she hadn't had peace in decades,
and that's what she was seeking. And when she met
Johnson and first she met Johnson first, and Johnson told
her he was so sorry.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
He apologized.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
He always admitted that he was one of the shooters,
and he said, I never meant that your son would die.
But he told her that Gainer was not the other shooter.
He wasn't even in the store. And because she wasn't
in the courtroom for part of the time because the
defense said she couldn't while the children testified, And she
(19:02):
was also like, you can only imagine, like you're at
a trial looking at two men who had supposedly killed
your son. So some of it didn't all the testimony
didn't sink in. So when she heard this it was
a shock to her. But she believed Johnson, and she
believed Gainer wholeheartedly, and she walked away thinking that not
(19:27):
everything she'd been told was a lie, and that she
was on this mission to try to free Gainer and
she will not let up until Gainer is freed.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Just jumping back to the detective that was the lead
detective oral. He has been accused of many things, many
improprieties regarding arrests, and some of those arrests have been overturned.
What's happening with him now.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Well, he's retired.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
He has been attached to, like you said, some of
these cases where that confessions were coerced or allegations of
fabricated statements or physical violence threats against witnesses.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
But he is retired.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
The DA's office, I believe, is looking at more cases
that he's attached to. That little girl that was killed
a week before Marcus was killed, Barbara Jane Horn. The
men convicted of that murder, Walter Ogrod, he has since
been released from prison, and morel and a longtime colleague
of his, and Martin Devlin, they were the lead investigators
(20:34):
on that case. So I think there are a lot
of cases that now are being looked at from the
nineteen eighties. I mean, there were no cameras in the
roundhouse when people were being interrogated, and it was easier
to coerce confessions or do lots of other things that
shouldn't have been done where today that shouldn't and probably
(20:56):
couldn't happen.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
What are some of the legal avenues of villain for
Michael Gainor to challenge his conviction in light of this
new evidence.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, I talked to some experts, and what would have
to happen is there's an investigative file that would have
been put together at the time that Michael Gainor was arrested.
They call it the H file or the investigative file.
And what would have to happen is the district attorney's
office or another attorney lawyer would have to get hold
(21:28):
of this H file and go through this file and
see what the police knew at the time.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Did they really try to look for Harbard, did they
dismiss Harbard?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Was there evidence in that file that shows that they
would have reason to believe that Michael Gaynor was innocent
or was not even in the store, Or if that
evidence or if those tips were not turned over to
the defense, then the District attorney's office can I mean,
(21:59):
if they are looking at it, they can say I
think this information should go to an attorney, Michael Gainor's attorney,
and then that attorney could file a petition with the court,
and a judge could decide whether to vacate that sentence,
and then the District attorney's office could decide whether to
file charges again, which if all this plays out, they
(22:22):
probably would choose not to do, and then Michael Gainor
would be freed.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
So there are several steps that have to happen, but.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
The key is that what the police knew at the time,
what the prosecutor knew at the time, and how much,
if anything, they turned over to the defense.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Reading your six part series, it's so detailed, thorough and impactful,
but just even the way that you wrote it, it
was as though I felt as though I was there.
You were so descriptive. I particularly note the first section
when you describe exactly what happened based on getting together
(23:02):
all the different eyewitness reports of what happened, you really
really paint a picture that is so so vivid. You've
spent so much time doing the six part series, and
I wonder if you can just reflect on what your
own personal reaction has been to covering the story and
coming up with the final result that is now published
(23:25):
in the Inquiry.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Well, from the jump, I became obsessed with this story.
I think that Michael Gainor was he's extremely believable, not bitter.
And then you have Shelley who is in this fight
to free him.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And I knew that in order.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
To discover and tell the readers what really happened, I
had to get every piece of paper.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I had to track down every single person.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I read like thousands of pages of testimony, and I
put all the statements in order because some of the
people gave multiple statements, and I had to see the
discrepancy in that there were roadblocks. I mean, a lot
of the people involved in this story are dead. The
candy store owner is dead, her son is debt, the
(24:14):
one who had the statement that kept changing Harbor's debt,
his wife is dead. And so I had to rely
on the written word from way back then and make
sure that I had every piece of paper that I
could possibly find. And not only that, I wanted to
track down every single person who was in the store
(24:36):
or knew of Harbor or knew of Michael Gainer and
weave all the pieces together. I mean, some of the
readers may not have even been alive in nineteen eighty eight,
so I also had to describe what was going on
in nineteen eighty eight and the neighborhood, what it was
like then, what it's like now, and all the changes
that have happened. And get a clearer picture of of
(25:00):
what the police department was like back then, and the
pressure on the homicide detectives to close this case. So
it was just putting all the pieces together. But I
lived this story. As you know, there are some stories
that stay with you morning, noon and night and you
can't get out of your head, and you wake up
at two am thinking, oh, I need to go there, I.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Need to find this. This story for me was that well.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
It is an incredible achievement. This six part series one
that everyone should read because it's not only a story
about forgiveness and justice, but about the extraordinary resilience of
individuals through tremendous hardship, the resilience of the Yates family,
(25:43):
the resilience of Michael Gainer, the fact that he's been
in prison for all these years, over thirty years and
isn't bitter and certainly there is some hope that he
may be released based on this new information and this investigation.
Words before we.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Close, thank you so much for having me on and
listening to this story and giving it a platform. I
think it's real important for both the Yates family and
for Michael Gaynor to see closure and to see a
result that might be pleasing to everyone. To the Yates
family and to Michael Gainor.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Thank you so much. Barbara Laker, who is an investigative
reporter who's written a six part series about the murder
of five year old Marcus Yates, who was tragically killed
during a shootout in a Southwest Philadelphia candy store in
nineteen eighty eight. Two men Gaynor, Michael Gaynor and Ike
Johnson were arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life
(26:43):
without parole. Decades later, we now see that Michael Gainnor
may well have not been, in fact one of the
individuals who was responsible for Marcus's death. And this is
a story of finding justice and also finding peace and forgiveness.
And I thank you were doing this extraordinary series. Thank you, Barbara,
(27:04):
thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
We end with an excerpt from a video companion piece
to the six part series, first Rochelle Yate's Whittington and
then Michael Gaynor's mother to lauries Edmund. I believe Michael
Gaynor is innocent, and I will stand in front of
the world to tell them that this man should be released.
(27:30):
He always have a hope, that he.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Always have a hope, and that hope, you know, he
have it in mind that he's going to be out
one day. He keep on saying, Mom, don't cry, don't cry,
don't cry.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I'm gonna be out.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I'm just longing for the day. Maybe I want him
to be out with my eye because I'm eighty seven
years old and tomorrow's gone. Promise to me, you know,
so I would like, I would like. I don't listen
to Mike before I past.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I've You can listen to all of today's interviews by
going to our station website and typing in keyword Community.
You can also listen on the iHeartRadio app Hey Words
Philadelphia Community Podcast. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
Lorraine Ballard. I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrel and I stand for
service to our community and media that empowers. What will
(28:25):
you stand for You've been listening to insight and thank
you
Good morning, and welcome to Insight, a show about empowering
our community. I'm Lorraine Ballatmorrow. In nineteen eighty eight, five
year old Marcus Yeates was tragically killed during a shootout
in a Southwest Philadelphia candy store. Two men, Michael Gaynor
and Ike Johnson, were quickly arrested, convicted of murder, and
(00:24):
sentenced to life without parole. Decades later, Marcus's mother, Rochelle
Yates Whittington, seeking peace through forgiveness, met with both men
and became convinced of Gaynor's innocence. An investigation by reporter
Barbara Laker from the Philadelphia Inquirer supported her belief, uncovering
evidence that the actual perpetrator was a man known only
(00:46):
by his street name Harbor. In the interest of full disclosure,
I have known the Yates family since the death of Marcus.
This was an important moment for me and really inspired
me in my commitment to addressing gun violence. I'm godmother
to daughter Tanisha, who was born nine months after Marcus's death,
(01:07):
and when I got married in twenty twenty, newly ordained
muster mom Shelley Yates Whittington officiated my wedding, reading the
six part series took several days because I was sobbing
so hard with each chapter. And now I'm very, very
delighted to speak with Barbara Laker, the author of the
six part series. Barbara, thank you so much for joining
(01:30):
us here today, and I wonder if you can start
by telling us what prompted you and the Inquirer to
investigate this old murder case.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Well, actually it started at a Temple University event where
you were there and we started talking because we've been
friends over some time, and you were asking me what
I was working on. I was asking what you were
working on, and you told me that I forget exactly
how you worded it, but you said, you know Shelley Yates, right,
(02:00):
And I said, yeah, I remember her from years ago.
And you had told me that Shelley was on this
road to forgiveness and had met both men convicted of
killing her son, and I thought that was just an
amazing turn of events. And I couldn't imagine a mom
who had lost her a five year old little boy
(02:20):
to murder would want to even fathom forgiveness or want
to meet them. And so I had asked you if
it was okay if I reached out to Shelley at
that point, even though I'd known her from years ago,
and you said yes. So that's how it started. I
met with Shelley and she told me that she had
(02:40):
met with one of the men, Mike Johnson, and then
was going to meet with Michael Gainnor. And I decided
to myself meet with Michael Gaynor. I set up a
time to go see him in Huntington Prison, and what
he told me was startling to me. He was extremely believable, humble,
not bitter, and he gave me little tickbits about the
(03:03):
case that made me believe that this was worth me
looking into investigating.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'd like to roll back the time machine a little
bit and talk about what was the world like at
the time in which Marcus was killed. Is I recall
looking back over thirty years, when a child like Marcus
was murdered, it was big news. It was news that
galvanized the city, politicians, leaders, everyone seemed to coalesce around
(03:35):
this particular case among many others. We have unfortunately come
to the time today when the murder of children doesn't
seem to have the same impact on us as it
did back then. But back then it was something else.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It was.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A very traumatic experience for the city, and of course
there was a tremendous pressure to come to some kind
of conclusion arrest in the murder of Marcus Yates. And
I wonder if you can talk more about the circumstances
leading to the arrest and conviction of Michael Gainer and
(04:14):
Ike Johnson for the murder of Marcus Yates.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well, what was going on at the time in Philadelphia
was there was a spike in gun violence against children,
and the week before Marcus had been killed, a little
boy had been shot and paralyzed, and another little girl's
body at four years old, Barbara Jeane Horn, her body
had been found. And then Marcus, at five years old,
(04:38):
was shot in a candy store when two men were
shooting at each other. At the same time, there was
like an increase of crack cocaine in this neighborhood and
other neighborhoods in the city where there were drug dealers
selling crack cocaine. And there was such an outcry after
Marcus was shot and killed in his little face was everywhere,
(05:01):
like on TV at morning, noon, and night, and he
became kind of a symbol of the horror of gun
violence against children. So there was pressure on the police
department to find these two men and lock them up.
So that was the backdrop of what led to pressure
on the police department and outcry from the public, and
(05:24):
they wanted the police to arrest these two men.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Fast.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Let's talk about the initial investigation in nineteen eighty eight
that identified Gaynor and Johnson as the primary suspects. How
did it come to be that they were arrested and
what were some of the conditions or incidents that occurred
leading up to the arrest of those two men.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, the police interviewed or interrogated the son of the
candy store owner who witnessed the shooting. His first statement
described a shooting between Mike Johnson, whose street name was
Baby Don and the son of the candy store on
our new Baby Don, so they knew it was they
were looking for Baby Donn or Mike Johnson. And then
(06:10):
Christopher Duncan, the son of the candy store owner, said
that the other shooter was someone he really didn't know,
and he described in detail that he was a passenger
in this car and he knew the driver of the car,
and another witnessed the driver of the car, and the
word on the street was that the other shooter had
a street name of Harbor. It's unclear what the police
(06:32):
did to try to find Harbor, if anything, because later
in the trial, the lead investigator, Paul Larel said they
concluded that this person didn't exist. But what happened was
Michael Gainor lived around the corner from the candy store.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
He was young.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
He admits he was like a low level crack dealer
at the time. The police impounded a number of cars
around the candy store after the shooting and murder. Michael
wanted to get his car out of impound and so
he called the police station and according to him, Detective
Warrell told him to come down to the police station
(07:10):
the Roundhouse in order to get his car. He did,
and as soon as he got there, the police started
interrogating him. Warrell took him into a room and according
to Michael Gainor, he told him, look, we know you're
the other shooter, we know you're responsible for killing Marcus.
You've got to confess to this. And Michael said, what, No,
(07:32):
I wasn't even there. I'm here to get my car
and Warrell, according to Gaynor, put a plastic bag over
his head and clamped it tight, so Michael thought he
was going to suffocate. Each time he did this, Michael said, Okay,
I'll talk to you. Warrell would remove the bag, and
then Gaynor would say, I'll talk to you, but I'm
(07:54):
never going to tell you I did it, because I'm
not going to confess to something I didn't do. The
bag was over his head had at least ten times.
He never ever confessed. He's always maintained his innocence, but
that night he was arrested in charge with murder.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
What is disturbing certainly about this information that is now
being revealed years and years later, is that the information
that led to Gaynor's arrest was tainted in so many
different ways. There were certainly other witnesses who confirmed that
he wasn't there. Talk about some of the other witnesses,
(08:31):
and also the use of the children who were witnesses
to this event, how that was used by the prosecution
to achieve this conviction.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, there was another witness who was also the candy
store owner, and she called the roundhouse right after Gaynor
was arrested and told them, look, you have the wrong man.
You do not have the right person. I was in
the store. She knew Michael from the neighborhood, and she
said he wasn't even there. They also talked, like I said,
(09:03):
to the son of the candy store owner who said
the same thing. They also talked to the girlfriend at
the time of Michael Gainor. And her statement was alarming
to me at first when I read the statement, because
it said that Michael told her that he actually was
one of the shooters and he was in the store
(09:23):
and he had a gun and started firing back at
this other person. It really caught me aback because that
was the only statement that described that. I tracked this
woman down and Marine Mills and I asked her what
happened During the interrogation, she said she was new to
Philadelphia from Jamaica. She'd only been here a month. She
(09:46):
was scared out of her mind. The police said, you've
got to come down and talk to us.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
She did. All she wanted to do was leave.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
She was scared, she was petrified, and so they said, look,
you can leave if you sign this statement. She told
me she couldn't read English that well, she wasn't highly educated,
and she just wanted to leave, so she signed the statement.
I said, I had obtained the statement, and I said,
Amory said, okay, if I read you your statement to you,
and she said sure. I started to read her her statement,
(10:16):
and when I got especially when I got to the
part where it says that Michael told her he was
one of the shooters, she just gasped in horror and said,
I said none of that. I never said anything like that.
I didn't even read the statement. I just signed it
to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And the children who were witnesses, including Marcus's two brothers,
one of whom Malcolm was severely injured at the time,
and then Tony, who was witnessed to the murder, and
then there are a couple of other kids as well,
certainly experiencing the tremendous confusion and trauma of being in
(10:56):
the middle of a gunsight, and yet they were being
asked to look at people and identify potentially who the
shooters were with a police lineup. Tell us more about
that and how that came down.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, there were eight men that the police had in
the lineup. They took the children down to do the lineup,
and they asked them to identify the two men who
were responsible, who were in the store at the time.
These were young children, and they were traumatized. I mean
when I talked traumatized, I mean especially for Marcus's brother.
(11:36):
Tony put his fingers on the hole in Marcus's head
to try to stop the bleeding. Malcolm, the other brother,
was shocked. Another little boy was shot. This candy store
was extremely tiny. They were trapped in there. There was
nowhere to go. Take that and then put them in
the lineup, and some of the children picked out all
(11:56):
different numbers they you know, like the two men or
say Ike Johnson, Michael Gainer wore numbers two and six.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Some of them did pick out two and six.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I talked to another little girl or now she's an adult,
Shannon mccode, who was in the store, and she did
the lineup and she told me, she said, Barbara, I
was petrified. I couldn't I didn't know who to pick out.
She said, all the men looked alike to me. She said,
the police kept bringing two men forward and asked them
(12:27):
to step forward and turn left and right. So she
thought that the police were wink wink, telling her those
were the two shooters, because they would know. I talked
to these the now adult children, and they said looking back,
they could not. There was no way they could identify
these two men. They were in terror, they thought they
(12:47):
were going to get killed, and they watched Marcus on
the floor with blood seeping out of his head. In
today's courtroom, the defense would be able to call a
witness or an expert witness to describe, how like whether
it's it's accurate to count on a child's testimony to
identify two men when they were in the middle of
(13:08):
a candy store and everyone's getting shot up. There was
no expert witness that was called in this case. And
you can tell even by the testimony at the time
in nineteen ninety they were waffling, they were uncertain. But
that was the key factor that the prosecution used in
order to get a guilty verdict is the words of
(13:30):
these children and the identification from these children, right.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And what I think is so remarkable about your reporting
is that you actually track down the person known as
Harbor and he was allegedly involved in the nineteen eighty
eight shooting. Tell us about Harbor and how you were
able to track him down and what happened to this
(13:55):
man who might have in fact been the person who
pulled the trigger and was involved in this murder.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well, it took me a long time to find Harbor
identify him because no one in Philadelphia back then or
even now knew who Harbor was. All I knew was
that a man named Stanford was the driver of the car,
and he was He told police he was, and he
told me. I also talked to him that he was.
He met Harbor in prison when they were locked up
(14:23):
on separate charges in Rikers Island, and that's all I knew.
So what I had to do was I called as
many people and as I possibly could and get closer
and closer to people who may know Harbor or the
people who friends of friends who knew Harbor. Eventually, after
(14:44):
talking to i'd say two dozen people, I found a
woman who knew a woman who was actually visiting Harbor
at the time he was in Rikers prison, and that
person knew that Harber's name was Paul Ja Jacobs. Obviously,
that wasn't enough for me, So I heard from this
(15:06):
circle of people who knew of him and his family
that he had done a number of crimes and had
been killed in La County in nineteen ninety six. So
I had to confirm that, which took me a long time,
because Paul Jacobs kept going back to Jamaica getting deported
(15:27):
and then would come back under an alias. And so eventually,
after I'd say several weeks, I determined that I found him,
or found the person who was Paul Jacobs who was
killed under the name Peter J. Jacobs in LA And
then I found his death record, and the death record
(15:47):
matched up with the person I knew was his wife,
and I had her name, and I had her birth date,
and everything matched up, and then I found that he
was buried in New York. And so it took a
long time, but eventually all the pieces came together, and
then the candy store owner's daughter actually knew Harber's wife,
(16:10):
and Harbor's wife then subsequently, years later in twenty twenty one,
admitted to her that her husband at the time, Harbor,
was the one who was responsible for the shooting. And
I tracked down Harbor's stepson who also knew the same
and could describe in detail what his stepdad was like.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Right, And the wife of Harbor kept that as a
secret for so many years, and it was a dark
secret that weighed on her, but she I guess felt
at the time, and you were able to discover that
she was in an abusive relationship and was afraid to
speak up or come forward. I'd like to talk about
(16:54):
the Yates family, you know, as you know and you
and I talked, Rochelle Yates Waiting had told me that
she was planning to meet with Gainer and Johnson in
this effort to heal. And this is really quite unusual,
I think that, And as you write, it's kind of
(17:14):
unusual for parents of a child that was murdered to
come to meet with the people that were convicted of
the murder. So it was surprising to a lot of
folks talk about that. What was the initial reason for
doing this and then how it evolved into something quite
different was.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know, they're a remarkable family. But I think from
talking at length to Shelley, she was describing that, I mean,
her son had been murdered decades earlier, in nineteen eighty eight,
and she had never found peace. She'd become a minister herself,
she buried a minister, and she wanted she was living
(17:57):
in torment. She told me that she had this that
her only way out to find peace herself was to
meet these two men who had been locked up for
killing her son. She had no idea at the time
that one of them was not the killer. She had
no idea. She just wanted she was on this road
to forgiveness, to heal herself. And I think that's the
(18:21):
way she describes it to me. She tells it extremely eloquently.
It was for her, It was for her to find
like any kind, because she hadn't had peace in decades,
and that's what she was seeking. And when she met
Johnson and first she met Johnson first, and Johnson told
her he was so sorry.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
He apologized.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
He always admitted that he was one of the shooters,
and he said, I never meant that your son would die.
But he told her that Gainer was not the other shooter.
He wasn't even in the store. And because she wasn't
in the courtroom for part of the time because the
defense said she couldn't while the children testified, And she
(19:02):
was also like, you can only imagine, like you're at
a trial looking at two men who had supposedly killed
your son. So some of it didn't all the testimony
didn't sink in. So when she heard this it was
a shock to her. But she believed Johnson, and she
believed Gainer wholeheartedly, and she walked away thinking that not
(19:27):
everything she'd been told was a lie, and that she
was on this mission to try to free Gainer and
she will not let up until Gainer is freed.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Just jumping back to the detective that was the lead
detective oral. He has been accused of many things, many
improprieties regarding arrests, and some of those arrests have been overturned.
What's happening with him now.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Well, he's retired.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
He has been attached to, like you said, some of
these cases where that confessions were coerced or allegations of
fabricated statements or physical violence threats against witnesses.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
But he is retired.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
The DA's office, I believe, is looking at more cases
that he's attached to. That little girl that was killed
a week before Marcus was killed, Barbara Jane Horn. The
men convicted of that murder, Walter Ogrod, he has since
been released from prison, and morel and a longtime colleague
of his, and Martin Devlin, they were the lead investigators
(20:34):
on that case. So I think there are a lot
of cases that now are being looked at from the
nineteen eighties. I mean, there were no cameras in the
roundhouse when people were being interrogated, and it was easier
to coerce confessions or do lots of other things that
shouldn't have been done where today that shouldn't and probably
(20:56):
couldn't happen.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
What are some of the legal avenues of villain for
Michael Gainor to challenge his conviction in light of this
new evidence.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Well, I talked to some experts, and what would have
to happen is there's an investigative file that would have
been put together at the time that Michael Gainor was arrested.
They call it the H file or the investigative file.
And what would have to happen is the district attorney's
office or another attorney lawyer would have to get hold
(21:28):
of this H file and go through this file and
see what the police knew at the time.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Did they really try to look for Harbard, did they
dismiss Harbard?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Was there evidence in that file that shows that they
would have reason to believe that Michael Gaynor was innocent
or was not even in the store, Or if that
evidence or if those tips were not turned over to
the defense, then the District attorney's office can I mean,
(21:59):
if they are looking at it, they can say I
think this information should go to an attorney, Michael Gainor's attorney,
and then that attorney could file a petition with the court,
and a judge could decide whether to vacate that sentence,
and then the District attorney's office could decide whether to
file charges again, which if all this plays out, they
(22:22):
probably would choose not to do, and then Michael Gainor
would be freed.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
So there are several steps that have to happen, but.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
The key is that what the police knew at the time,
what the prosecutor knew at the time, and how much,
if anything, they turned over to the defense.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Reading your six part series, it's so detailed, thorough and impactful,
but just even the way that you wrote it, it
was as though I felt as though I was there.
You were so descriptive. I particularly note the first section
when you describe exactly what happened based on getting together
(23:02):
all the different eyewitness reports of what happened, you really
really paint a picture that is so so vivid. You've
spent so much time doing the six part series, and
I wonder if you can just reflect on what your
own personal reaction has been to covering the story and
coming up with the final result that is now published
(23:25):
in the Inquiry.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Well, from the jump, I became obsessed with this story.
I think that Michael Gainor was he's extremely believable, not bitter.
And then you have Shelley who is in this fight
to free him.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
And I knew that in order.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
To discover and tell the readers what really happened, I
had to get every piece of paper.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I had to track down every single person.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I read like thousands of pages of testimony, and I
put all the statements in order because some of the
people gave multiple statements, and I had to see the
discrepancy in that there were roadblocks. I mean, a lot
of the people involved in this story are dead. The
candy store owner is dead, her son is debt, the
(24:14):
one who had the statement that kept changing Harbor's debt,
his wife is dead. And so I had to rely
on the written word from way back then and make
sure that I had every piece of paper that I
could possibly find. And not only that, I wanted to
track down every single person who was in the store
(24:36):
or knew of Harbor or knew of Michael Gainer and
weave all the pieces together. I mean, some of the
readers may not have even been alive in nineteen eighty eight,
so I also had to describe what was going on
in nineteen eighty eight and the neighborhood, what it was
like then, what it's like now, and all the changes
that have happened. And get a clearer picture of of
(25:00):
what the police department was like back then, and the
pressure on the homicide detectives to close this case. So
it was just putting all the pieces together. But I
lived this story. As you know, there are some stories
that stay with you morning, noon and night and you
can't get out of your head, and you wake up
at two am thinking, oh, I need to go there, I.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Need to find this. This story for me was that well.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
It is an incredible achievement. This six part series one
that everyone should read because it's not only a story
about forgiveness and justice, but about the extraordinary resilience of
individuals through tremendous hardship, the resilience of the Yates family,
(25:43):
the resilience of Michael Gainer, the fact that he's been
in prison for all these years, over thirty years and
isn't bitter and certainly there is some hope that he
may be released based on this new information and this investigation.
Words before we.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Close, thank you so much for having me on and
listening to this story and giving it a platform. I
think it's real important for both the Yates family and
for Michael Gaynor to see closure and to see a
result that might be pleasing to everyone. To the Yates
family and to Michael Gainor.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Thank you so much. Barbara Laker, who is an investigative
reporter who's written a six part series about the murder
of five year old Marcus Yates, who was tragically killed
during a shootout in a Southwest Philadelphia candy store in
nineteen eighty eight. Two men Gaynor, Michael Gaynor and Ike
Johnson were arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life
(26:43):
without parole. Decades later, we now see that Michael Gainnor
may well have not been, in fact one of the
individuals who was responsible for Marcus's death. And this is
a story of finding justice and also finding peace and forgiveness.
And I thank you were doing this extraordinary series. Thank you, Barbara,
(27:04):
thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
We end with an excerpt from a video companion piece
to the six part series, first Rochelle Yate's Whittington and
then Michael Gaynor's mother to lauries Edmund. I believe Michael
Gaynor is innocent, and I will stand in front of
the world to tell them that this man should be released.
(27:30):
He always have a hope, that he.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Always have a hope, and that hope, you know, he
have it in mind that he's going to be out
one day. He keep on saying, Mom, don't cry, don't cry,
don't cry.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I'm gonna be out.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I'm just longing for the day. Maybe I want him
to be out with my eye because I'm eighty seven
years old and tomorrow's gone. Promise to me, you know,
so I would like, I would like. I don't listen
to Mike before I past.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I've You can listen to all of today's interviews by
going to our station website and typing in keyword Community.
You can also listen on the iHeartRadio app Hey Words
Philadelphia Community Podcast. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
Lorraine Ballard. I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrel and I stand for
service to our community and media that empowers. What will
(28:25):
you stand for You've been listening to insight and thank
you
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