Original subtitles

Kalvon: That night at the party,

she left the house, never came back.

[ Siren wails ] Female Reporter: NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins was shot and killed...

Male Reporter: ...when someone opened fire on a crowd

after a birthday party.

Shockingly, no one stepped forward

to identify who shot and killed NeKeisha.

It said "Live" on my page, so I pushed it.

If I would not do this for Keisha,

I would be less than a man.

It moved a community. It absolutely did.

Kalvon, to me, seemed like

he was not going to stop until he got an answer.

I´m gonna get justice.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

Kalvon: We were a very happy family.

It was just us, just the five of us.

That´s all we needed.

It was me, Janice, Little Kal, Kenyatta, and Keisha.

Keisha always pulled practical jokes on you,

but she also was smart.

That was my heart.

The kind of father I think I was,

I just wanted to protect my family.

That´s the only thing I wanted to do.

♫♫

♫♫

The night of the party, Kalvon and I were watching TV.

♫♫

Kalvon: NeKeisha came out her room dressed.

I said, "Where do you think you going?"

´Cause I´m seeing the time.

I´m like, "Where do you think you´re going?"

She´s like, "I´m going to Paw-Paw house."

I said, "I know you lying."

♫♫

And she´s like, "Yes, I am, Dad.

I´m not lying to you."

But I felt it.

I felt it.

♫♫

I don´t think she told us about the party

because she probably knew her father wouldn´t want her to go.

Kalvon is very protective,

so it´s easier to get permission to go to a friend´s house

than it is to get permission to go to a party.

♫♫

Kalvon: She said, "I love you." I said, "I love you, too."

But something in my heart,

when she was going down them stairs,

like, "She´s lying.

You shouldn´t let her go nowhere."

She left the house and never came back.

♫♫

The party that we attended was a birthday party.

Someone posted about it on social media.

That´s probably how a lot of people ended up there.

A lot of high schoolers and classmates,

people older than me, obviously.

I was only like 13 at the time.

Michigan City´s quite a small town,

so everybody knows everybody.

So you knew everybody who was there.

When I arrived, everybody was having fun.

It was, like, a stoplight party,

is what the theme of it was.

So red lights, red-colored clothing,

yellow-colored clothing.

It seemed super cool. It was a great environment.

♫♫

It wasn´t until people arrived later

that the vibe started to diminish.

Like, everybody knew of these people

or knew these people personally, so they know that

normally trouble follows wherever they go.

There was a lot less people dancing and having a good time,

and everybody´s just, like, looking over their shoulders.

There was an altercation between a couple of girls.

They started to argue.

And then the guys who walked in and gave everybody bad vibes,

they also started to argue.

There´s a ton of conflict that´s happening.

It´s creating a lot of chaos,

and no one wanted to be responsible for the chaos,

so they make everyone leave.

Making us leave and disperse created a bigger chaos

because now there´s a mob of people walking around.

[ Cellphone rings ]

Kalvon: The phone ring. It was Keisha.

And she´s like, "Mom, can you come pick me up?"

I´m like, "Where you at?"

She´s like, "I came to this party.

I don´t want to be here. Can you come pick me up?"

So, Janice left.

♫♫

Kenyatta: The next thing I remember is

like eight or nine gunshots going off.

[ Gun firing, screaming ]

You just hear people screaming at the top of their lungs.

Something told me to walk towards the screams.

I recognized the girl who was screaming.

It was my cousin, and she was just screaming

at the top of her lungs.

"They shot her. They shot her in her head."

[ Screaming continues ]

And as I continued to walk is when I see my sister.

She was laying on the ground.

And that´s when I realized that she --

she was the one who had been shot.

She was still breathing,

but it was, like, she was gasping for air.

And I just knelt down right beside her.

And I held her hand, I held her head.

♫♫

[ Siren wailing ]

Ashley: Officers were dispatched

to the area of Krueger Memorial Hall,

where they was told that shots were being fired

and that there was possible injuries.

When officers arrived, they came to the scene

and noticed that there was a juvenile female on the ground.

Also, they were told that it´s possible

another victim that was on his way to the hospital.

Janice: When I got there, there was an ambulance.

By the ambulance, on the ground, there was just a white sheet.

And I knew that she was under that white sheet,

so I just went there, and I moved the sheet,

and I just stared at her, and I cried, and I shook my head

´cause I´m like, "See, I told you anything can happen."

And she was -- she was on the ground.

♫♫

Then I had to get myself together so I could call Kalvon

and tell him that she had been shot.

And who wants to make that call?

Like, that´s the worst call to have to make ever.

Kalvon: I´m sitting down, my phone ring, and it was Janice.

I picked it up. She said, "Keisha dead."

♫♫

So...

This girl just left this house.

I was like, "This is all on me,"

I said, "Because I should have stopped her,

and I knew she was lying."

♫♫

♫♫

NeKeisha used to bake.

She would bake for holidays.

She would see me baking.

And then she wanted to learn to bake.

And then she just started baking cakes on her own.

When NeKeisha was born, Kalvon adored her.

He was scared to hold her.

She was tiny, so he was like,

"No, I don´t want to hold her.

I might break her." He just kept saying that.

"I might break her. I don´t want to do it."

But he was very cute.

Kalvon: That was my heart.

That was our baby.

Keisha was the main one.

Like, if she was to go spend the night at somebody house,

the house would be quiet with me, Janice,

Little Kal, and Yatt.

But when Keisha come home,

it was stir crazy.

Like, Keisha was fun. Like, she was silly.

My relationship with my sister was, like, we were inseparable.

She was an amazing friend.

She had a loving spirit, very empathetic.

♫♫

Janice: She was my best friend ´cause she was my first born

and she was my only daughter.

We did everything together. We were very close.

♫♫

When I bake, I think of holidays

and how she would take cakes to other people´s families

like her friends´ families.

So I think of that.

I enjoy baking and getting that good memory.

So baking, it gives me a little peace.

♫♫

Female Reporter: NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins

was shot and killed during a party in Michigan City.

Ashley: Whenever a offense is committed,

especially in this magnitude,

the first thing that police officers would do

is try to get as much information as possible.

It´s pretty much information gathering.

So you want to try to get as much trace evidence

like a hair, fingerprints, shell casings,

anything that can directly link you to the perpetrator.

[ Police radio chatter ]

It´s my understanding that there was some feuding going on

between some of the guys that were there.

A rivalry between two groups of teenagers

from opposite sides of town.

What contributes to the violence that plays out in Michigan City?

It´s the accessibility of firearms, for one.

When it´s among young people,

it´s the fact that circumstances combine youth and immaturity

and an undeveloped mind with a deadly weapon.

Gang members are not going to talk to the police.

Of course, that´s an issue.

Male Reporter: Dozens of people, perhaps more than a hundred,

were here and probably witnessed the shooting.

Ashley: There was, I would say,

anywhere from 100 to 150 high-school-aged children there.

I spoke to several people.

Everything was sort of convoluted.

The stories were all over the place based on

where they actually were when the shots rang out.

One thing kept coming up.

Cameron Kent, he was one of the party goers.

There was witnesses that came forward

and said that they actually did witness him shoot.

When the party let out, he actually walked down the hill

where multiple other party goers were.

He pulled out a gun, and he shot into the air.

[ Gun firing, screaming ]

Cameron Kent had been accused by one of those injured

who believed Cameron Kent had been responsible for his injury.

Ashley: Cameron Kent,

he´s a person of interest for us at this point,

and so we talked to him extensively,

and eventually he gave up where his gun was.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

Cameron was the only person identified as

shooting a gun that evening.

So he was ultimately charged with NeKeisha´s death.

Kalvon: Cameron used to come to our house all the time

and play with Keisha and Yatt and little Kal.

Janice: That night when she was murdered,

Cameron came to me and he hugged me and he said he was sorry.

And I didn´t think anything of it

because I knew that she and he were friends.

And then when they said that he was arrested,

I´m like, "No way.

I mean, it couldn´t have been him."

♫♫

Espar: It wasn´t for a period of perhaps two-and-a-half months

when the ballistics report came back

and a comparison of the firearm that was recovered

was compared to the bullet

that was recovered from NeKeisha´s body

and found not to be a match,

that the weapon that the young man had that night

could not have been the weapon

that claimed the life of NeKeisha.

And those charges were dismissed.

♫♫

So that was a pivotal turning point, obviously,

in the investigation

because now you´re looking for another shooter.

[ Gun firing, screaming ]

You wanna cut through here? Janice: Yeah, we can.

Y´all go ahead ´cause I don´t know where I´m going.

Right where that purple flower is.

When Cameron was released, I told the police,

"Y´all need to find who did this."

Oh, that one should go in the back.

Huh? That big one.

Kalvon: I just wanted to know who killed my baby

and what was going on.

♫♫

A parent is not supposed to bury their child.

A child is supposed to bury their parents.

♫♫

She ain´t even get to live.

4 days before her 18th birthday,

she get a casket for her birthday.

What a present.

♫♫

♫♫

We´re two-and-a-half months into an investigation

that had its only lead turn out to be a dead end

and wrong, flat-out wrong.

Law enforcement had to return to the public.

But there is a reluctance from the community

to get involved in police investigations

when violence is the crime.

They could be scared of retaliation.

The kids were unwilling to come forward

because, you know, in the Black community,

they don´t believe in snitching.

Kalvon: The kids´ parents told them to stay out of it.

That´s what they did, so they´re saying nobody would talk.

And when others aren´t stepping forward, as far as they know,

maybe there´s a little bit of, why should I?

The decision, I think, was made that

until more evidence is developed and more evidence comes forward,

the case will remain under investigation

and leads will be followed as they´re developed.

But, unfortunately, those leads were not forthcoming.

Those leads dried up.

At that time, law enforcement was back to square one.

♫♫

[ Cellphone rings ]

♫♫

Kalvon: Years after, we was lost, super lost.

I was angry and couldn´t grieve.

Kenyatta: This should have brought us closer, if anything,

so that we could have each other to rely on.

But it´s like it pushed us apart.

♫♫

My family used to be like this,

and when she got killed, it just went like that.

Just all separate, everything.

So family was dead.

Wasn´t no such thing as family no more.

It ruined us.

Kalvon was very depressed, so he didn´t really talk.

He didn´t really come out of his room.

I just wanted to just lay there and wallow in my sorrow.

I just wanted to sleep.

All I thought about was Keisha.

Kenyatta: My dad felt like all hope was lost.

Instead of accepting and forgiving

what had already happened,

he dwelled so much on the past.

´Cause in his mind, in his heart, he failed us,

he failed NeKeisha, he couldn´t protect her.

He couldn´t save her from what he had felt all along,

you know, "This is what I was trying to stop.

That´s why I was so tough.

That´s why I was so, you know, strict.

Because this very thing is what I was trying to stop."

And he wasn´t able to stop it.

♫♫

Kenyatta: But he still had other kids.

I felt a ton of resentment, actually.

But seeing my mom being this fortress, this rock,

a woman of strength,

showed me that I need to make sure that

I am being a man of strength

in being a support system for my family.

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫

Stebbins: I was in my senior year in college

with my first degree.

All of a sudden, somebody makes a slam page on Facebook.

So, a slam page is like an anonymous page

where people are writing things about different people,

but you don´t know who´s putting them up there.

[ Cellphone chimes ]

Kalvon: I just heard "ding,"

then I heard "ding," then I heard "ding."

I´m like, "The hell? Who´s texting me?"

I´m looking at the phone, I´m like, "Keisha?"

So I start reading.

And they was talking about her death.

♫♫

Man: And what were the messages saying?

Um, they was like, "Y´all need to quit playing.

Y´all know who killed Keisha," and all that stuff.

I was like, "Well, hold up. What?"

♫♫

That´s when they started dropping, like, names

and, "These clothes were worn,

I know this gun was there,"

kind of giving, like, "hints" of who killed Keisha.

♫♫

Kalvon: But they was trying to erase it.

But before they erased it, someone screenshotted them

and sent it to me.

♫♫

Well, I get up immediately,

and I go to the police station, and I showed them.

I said, "Look at this."

And they had no care in the world.

Whatever information he´s getting, you know,

that is going to be third-party information.

It´s going to be hearsay.

The police have to find a source and see what they witness

at the time that the incident occurs.

Kalvon: The next day, I went back in the police station.

I said, "You´re not going to help?"

He said, "What did we tell you?"

I said, "Last warning.

And I´m gonna ask one more time.

You´re not going to help?"

I didn´t know how to do Facebook Live at all,

because I haven´t been on Facebook in so long.

Like, I was depressed.

So, it said "Live" on my page, so I pushed it,

and it said "Three, two, one."

I said, "In Hollywood, that mean action."

[ Voice breaking ] I´m going live out here

at the Michigan City Police Department

trying to get help for my daughter.

These people won´t help me, man.

These people right here.

I go in here,

they talking about my daughter´s murder online,

and these police still won´t help me.

They ran me out of the police station last night,

told me they can´t do nothing for me, man.

They killed my daughter

four days before her [bleep] birthday, man.

I had to bury her before her 18th birthday.

And these police will not help me.

I got all the screenshots,

and they still don´t want to do nothing about it.

I´m not talking to Detective [Bleep] no more, at all.

´Cause he do not help.

Somebody gonna help me.

I learned about the Facebook Live from a classmate.

I was in school when this was going on.

And somebody was like,

"Yeah, your dad´s on Facebook right now."

I´m like, "What are you talking about?"

I´m gonna stand out here every single day.

I don´t care.

Kenyatta: That was not the same person that I knew

a couple weeks ago.

Somebody gonna help me.

They talking about my daughter´s murder online, man.

Live, direct, and they think it´s a joke.

For him to, like, one minute just be in his room,

it´s super dark in there,

to, like, now marching, being outside, speaking more,

actually showing emotional, like, energy,

it was amazing.

This is crazy, man.

And I´m gonna keep my camera rolling.

Janice: I was excited that he found the strength

to get up and fight.

It´s ridiculous.

Brother can´t sleep.

I can´t even work.

This is [bleep]

But I was scared because,

"Okay, you are messing with the police."

But I´m like, "Okay, well, maybe this is gonna go somewhere."

Man: We´re here for you, brother. [ Car horn honks ]

Alright, bro. Appreciate you, man.

♫♫

It went from me going to the police station

all the time by myself

to 85,000 people watching it live.

They was hitting our phones from Dubai and everywhere.

Over 150 kids see my daughter get killed,

and their punk-ass parents take them down there

and tell them not to say nothing.

But what if it was your [bleep] kid?

I had to bury my daughter on her 18th [bleep] birthday.

Somebody gonna help me.

People are, like, actually responding,

they´re wanting to help and everything else,

and I´m like, "This has to do something, right?"

♫♫

I couldn´t even cry when I seen my daughter

with that hole in her head.

I couldn´t even cry when I seen my goddamn daughter

laying in the [bleep] casket.

I ain´t cried for a long time.

But yesterday, all that [bleep] on Facebook,

now, that [bleep] made me cry, man.

That done opened up the [bleep] wound again.

While I´m ranting and raving and going off,

and the next thing I know,

the whole front of the police department

was filled with people.

I got people out here supporting me. [ Car horn honking ]

It moved a community. It absolutely did.

And it was a remarkable thing

to see groups assembling outside the police station

in an effort to call out for justice,

for a more thorough investigation,

to breathe life into a case that had gone cold.

Y´all just don´t know the pain this [bleep] is.

Can´t sleep at nighttime.

When you finally close your [bleep] eyes,

you see your daughter laying on the ground

and they covering her up.

And she´s screaming, "Dad, help!"

Help with what?

How can I help? So I know how I´mma help.

I´mma come down here and try to get justice.

Matter of fact, I´m sorry, I´m gonna get justice.

There´s no way they´re gonna sweep this under the rug.

There´s no way they´re gonna be able to.

Too many people are asking too many questions now.

Well, here y´all go.

Somebody with South Bend News said they on they way [scoffs]

and I´mma tell it all.

In 2016, I was fresh out of college.

I was at my first reporting job.

I remember seeing Kalvon´s Facebook Live.

There was so much raw emotion there

and grief and sorrow and anger.

And I wanted to talk to him.

My news director at the time said,

"If you really want to do this, go an hour away

and just get back in time to get it on air."

Every day, you and I click through our Twitter feeds,

scroll on Facebook, or post photos on Instagram.

In some cases, social media is giving victims a voice.

NeKeisha died at Krueger Memorial Park in Michigan City.

Five years of no answers,

her dad always wondering who killed his daughter.

They was like, "There´s nothing we can do,"

so I went outside and found out how to go live on Facebook.

Schultz: That video went viral.

It´s online. They talking about it.

Kalvon, to me, seemed like he was not going to stop

until they got an answer.

And I don´t think he can think of anything else

besides NeKeisha

and besides what was happening with her case.

I´m a proud father,

and if I would not do this for Keisha,

I would be less than a man.

Only thing I want is some help.

Period. Point blank. Help me.

[ Voice breaking ] That´s all I ask,

is for some [bleep] help.

I want some help.

Social media proved to be a very valuable tool.

Good morning, Facebook.

I´m at it again.

I got people coming from the La Porte

and everywhere else helping.

Well, my daughter got killed.

This is going out to my daughter´s killer.

While y´all out there playing checkers,

I´m playing chess.

Sooner or later, I´mma get my justice,

and that´s gonna be checkmate.

It led to the chief at the time

to task new detectives with the case.

This is why we´re having this rally today,

because we need eyewitnesses.

We need people to come forward and say, "I was there."

You may have been young back then, and I get it.

You´re a little older now, a little stronger now.

Do you think you can give Detective Ashley,

Detective Painter, some information about what happened?

Jillian Ashley and Anna Painter,

they did what needed to be done --

not pick up where the investigation left off,

but started over.

Ashley: I´ve never done that before, where I actually took a case

and just said, "Let´s start over."

And along with Detective Painter,

we decided to just pull out case files.

What I pulled out from this case file --

all of the evidence that was actually collected in 2011.

So, this right here, and I can feel the weight of it,

and this is the automatic pistol.

And it says here

"A small, multicolored, black, brown semi-automatic pistol."

And then it compared its serial number on it.

And it said, "Collected from Cameron Kent."

Can you see that?

Our thought process was starting afresh.

For us, it was taking each person´s statement,

and I think it was like over 140,

and just re-listening to them.

This is a bunch of interviews of all of the ones who were

interviewed back in 2011.

We tried to re-interview just about everybody

that was actually on scene.

At the time of the investigation in 2011,

there was two witnesses,

Skyiesha Pender and Michael Cooper.

Michael Cooper pinpointed who the shooter was.

♫♫

Michael Cooper came forward to say,

"I have information about her death,

about who was responsible.

It was a young man whose name is Charles Gerron.

He had a gun that night.

I saw him shoot into the crowd.

And he is the one that´s responsible for

NeKeisha´s death."

Ashley: But Michael Cooper´s statement

was not corroborated at the time.

Charles Gerron was not somebody that was unknown to police.

There was previous law enforcement encounters with him,

even at the young age of 16.

And Skyiesha Pender was at the party.

She heard the shots being fired,

but then she didn´t give any more real information

that could be useful.

♫♫

In 2016, Skyiesha Pender

gave that same statement who she was with,

but then trying to get her to talk from there

was a little challenging at first,

but when she began to actually talk,

she gave a very, very useful statement.

In 2011, she was in a relationship

with Charles Gerron.

She said that she was at the party

and that he showed up at the party,

and that after the party broke up,

50 to 75, 100 kids left

and poured out into the parking lot

and into the street and down the street.

And she said she heard the sound

of what she thought were firecrackers

at a distance, down the hill,

followed by three loud, close sounds of gunfire

that she looked directly at and saw Charles Gerron

shooting into the crowd down the hill,

and then turn and run the other direction.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

She recalled him calling her afterwards.

She remembered just telling him it was over.

And at that moment,

the investigation had what it didn´t have before,

which was a corroborating witness

to another witness´ testimony.

♫♫

Ashley: So, after Skyiesha gave us a statement,

we had enough to get an arrest warrant for Charles.

Although we lacked the kind of evidence that we desire,

that being some other physical evidence in the case --

get the gun,

something physical to tie him to the crime --

we didn´t have that,

but I knew we had great testimonial evidence.

We had two people whose statements are being provided

independent of each other.

And for that reason,

charges were filed for the crime of murder.

♫♫

Hey, you guys, Jessi Schultz here with WSBT.

I´m in Michigan City today.

I´m actually right in front of the police station

because an arrest has finally been made

in the NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins case.

I couldn´t believe that they found someone,

and that it only took a month after his Facebook Live.

I´d like to thank every seven --

all y´all, the 17,000-plus viewers

that shared this story to get some help for us.

So, I spoke with NeKeisha´s parents today,

who told me that they just have had a weight

lifted off of their shoulders.

Her father actually told me that last night was the first night

that he´s had a full night of sleep in five years.

For them to say that they made an arrest today...

Best Christmas present you could ever expect.

Charles and them, they used to shoot

over out here all the time.

They were bad.

They used to run around and

shoot and terrorize the community.

Like, people in the community were scared of them.

That´s probably why they were reluctant to come forward.

Ashley: Just because you have an arrest,

that does not mean a conviction.

So an arrest itself is great.

But now you want to see it

actually go through the court system,

and how does that turn out?

♫♫

Espar: When the two detectives went out to where

Michael Cooper was now living and working

and let him know that the case had been charged,

they were not prepared for the conversation that followed.

Ashley: He was really reserved.

He said, "I don´t remember a lot."

That´s just a way of saying, "I don´t want to be involved."

Espar: Michael recanted his previous statement,

denied that that truly happened.

He said that, "I made it up.

I told the investigators what they wanted to hear.

I told you what happened five-and-a-half years ago.

You didn´t think what I had to say was strong enough.

Don´t bother me now. I´ve moved on."

And so the detectives came back

to the two assigned prosecutors in the case

to say, "We´ve got a problem."

The loss of a corroborating witness

was devastating at the time to my deputies.

It was, in their mind,

a case that couldn´t be proven at trial.

That one witness, uncorroborated by any other witness,

who didn´t share her truth for five-and-a-half years,

just wasn´t going to be enough.

And I understood that.

That´s where this turn of events had taken us,

essentially back to the beginning.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

We´re then forced to engage in a conversation

that the defense were looking for

and talking about a crime far less serious

than the crime of murder.

♫♫

Do we strike the plea agreement?

Do we dismiss the case and wait for more evidence to develop,

other witnesses to come forward?

Perhaps we´ll recover the gun

that in five-and-a-half years had never been found.

The decision was made for a plea to criminal recklessness.

It was the crime that they thought they could prove.

Ashley: Kalvon told me,

and said, "They´re trying to do a plea deal."

And that was really shocking to me

because once I presented that case,

I felt we had enough to be able to prosecute successfully.

As an investigator, we never really want anything pled out,

because we understand that that means

that the suspect is not going to get

what we believe the suspect deserves.

I´m sure that the family felt the same way.

[ Exhales sharply ]

They talk about some [bleep] justice.

They play with us for five-and-a-half years.

It´s like my baby´s life ain´t worth [bleep]

This [bleep] ain´t over till I say it´s over, man.

♫♫

Schultz: Justice -- It´s written on the walls

of the La Porte County Courthouse in Michigan City.

But it´s something that NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins´ dad

is scared his daughter will never get.

My daughter ain´t fittin´ to die in vain,

and she ain´t fittin´ to be no statistic,

I guarantee you that.

Schultz: Hawkins and his family

thought their agony was almost over,

but Gerron entered a guilty plea

to a lesser charge of criminal recklessness this week.

Hawkins says his fight for justice,

the fight he thought would finally come to an end,

is now far from over.

There´s no reason why my daughter´s murder

should be unsolved,

and 100 to 150 people seen her get killed.

Kalvon and family and support within the community

called for the court to reject the plea agreement

and to let us take our chances at trial.

The judge did not accept the plea agreement,

and as was my decision, we did not dismiss the case

and await more evidence.

It was going to be a tall order to convince a jury

with only one witness.

But it could be enough.

♫♫

Espar: The most pressing need to prove this case

was to meet with Michael Cooper,

the other strong witness who had given the statement in 2011.

So we subpoenaed him to produce himself for an interview.

So Michael was ordered to show up in Indiana,

and he didn´t.

How we got him to come around was unconventional,

but it was necessary.

We was able to detain him on something really minor

and bring him back to Indiana.

Once he was actually in Indiana, we went to speak with him.

♫♫

Espar: When I sat down with him,

I said, "I´ve seen your statement.

I know what you said five-and-a-half years ago.

I think I know what you must be thinking --

That you told what you knew, nobody listened,

nobody believed you,

because nobody did anything about it.

But we´re here and we believe you.

And we´d like to have that conversation with you."

In that process, he decided, "I´ll do it."

He´ll talk.

Espar: He told us about what he saw that night

and what he knew about the death of NeKeisha and who killed her.

But the case still needed physical evidence

that may tie Charles Gerron to the crime.

♫♫

We never had the strongest of cases.

One of the problems in the case

was that the shooter was identified

as wearing a plaid or checkered shirt,

but the defendant didn´t have that clothing on

that July evening in 2011

when he was being interviewed by law enforcement.

Ashley: His initial interview in 2011,

I remember him coming in a bright green outfit.

Really noticeably green.

We learned of some very good evidence

in the preparations for trial.

I´ll never forget it. This was Friday before a Monday trial.

♫♫

As we were preparing the case for trial

and I´m meeting with, for the first time, Skyiesha,

just as a sort of desperate hope,

not with any real expectation,

I asked her if she took any pictures that night

on her phone, and she told me she didn´t.

And one of the facts that I knew of the case

was at the birthday party was this booth

that had been set up for the kids

to have their pictures taken.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

I asked her if she had taken any photographs with Charles

in the booth, and she said, yes, that she had.

"Do you have those pictures?"

And she said, "No, I threw it out that night."

"I went down to where NeKeisha was dying,

and I knew that it was Charles Gerron who did this."

And she said, "I threw the pictures down.

I just threw them down."

And then I remembered

seeing in my review of the crime scene photographs...

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

...an envelope

that just a fraction of the photograph could be seen.

♫♫

And so I quickly called the lead investigator.

I asked her to meet me at the police station,

at the evidence room.

We pulled out what was in the evidence bag,

an envelope with photographs in there.

And the defendant was there.

He had plaid, black-and-white or gray clothing.

And in that moment in time, the physical evidence

corroborating the testimony of those two key witnesses

was added to the evidence of the trial or of the case.

You can call it a smoking gun

in a case where there was no gun found

because it was just that powerful.

♫♫

It was clear, it was strong,

and it was proof beyond a reasonable doubt

that Charles Gerron killed NeKeisha Hawkins.

♫♫

Schultz: The courtroom was packed on both sides,

both with the Gerron family and the Hodges-Hawkins family.

You could feel the tension in the air.

♫♫

I didn´t miss a day of the trial, not one day.

I was there early every day that we had trial.

The courtroom was emotional.

The Hodges-Hawkins family

had to relive the worst day of their lives

every single day of that trial.

That was the roughest thing ever in life.

We cried in court.

It was hard, but it was therapeutic.

Schultz: I can tell you that Charles Gerron was stone cold.

He didn´t show much emotion.

He showed not an ounce, not one centimeter, of remorse.

He laughed about it in court.

John Espar tried really hard to prove that, you know,

Gerron had a gun beforehand.

He had a gun before the party.

And he brought witnesses up to say,

"Were you there prior to that

when you saw Charles Gerron with a gun?"

And they said yes.

♫♫

Prosecutors will try to convince them

that Gerron knowingly fired the gun that killed NeKeisha.

Charles Gerron´s attorney was really trying to prove

that the witness testimony was not credible.

♫♫

Skyiesha Pender dated Gerron in 2011.

She says the night Hawkins died, she saw Gerron with a gun,

and then later on that night, she saw Gerron shoot that gun

into a crowd of people.

Espar: The defense that they put forward was to argue

that in our system of justice,

this quantity of evidence or this quality of evidence

is not enough

to convict the person beyond a reasonable doubt.

Kalvon and Janice were scared that they weren´t going to get

the verdict that they had been fighting for.

♫♫

When I heard all the evidence and the jury went to deliberate,

I honestly wasn´t sure.

I thought it could go one way or the other

if it was guilty or not guilty,

because they both presented a pretty valid case.

Espar: That´s probably the most anxious time for a prosecutor,

is waiting for the jury to come back

when you´ve done everything you can do

and now it´s in somebody else´s hands.

So you´re waiting.

♫♫

♫♫

And they said he was guilty.

And my knees buckled.

I was like [exhales deeply]

On my birthday.

A jury has found Charles Gerron guilty of murder

for the shooting death of NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins.

I did see members of the NeKeisha Hodges-Hawkins family

dip their heads and silently begin to sob.

Charles Gerron seemed calm through it all.

Kalvon: I did this for you, baby girl.

This is the best birthday present ever.

She watched over me the whole time,

through everything.

She can sleep, and I can sleep.

Happy birthday to me.

♫♫

Espar: They´re never going to get their daughter back.

The most we could do for them in that moment of time happened --

finally had happened.

They were finally at a place where they might begin to heal

from the unthinkable loss that they have suffered.

I love you. I love you.

I´m going live out here

at the Michigan City Police Department.

When Kalvon utilized Facebook Live to his advantage,

it was a relatively newer thing to do.

I don´t think he even knew what he was doing

or the power that he was harnessing

when he pressed "Live."

And it worked.

Six years of fighting,

and it came to an end.

[ Cellphone chimes ]

Keisha can sleep.

Now I can sleep.

♫♫

Kenyatta: Justice was served, and I was happy.

Happy that my family could now heal.

♫♫

Justice being served

helped me forgive myself for knowing that

there was nothing I could have possibly done.

Now I don´t have to put on a front anymore.

I can actually try to work through my sadness

and my depression.

I´m never going to get my childhood back

and those lessons,

but now I can actually process

in a very healthy manner.

♫♫

Janice: That night, I sat at the end of the street,

and I watched them clean the blood off of the street.

I watched them do everything that they needed to do

pertaining to her.

And I made peace with the fact that she was gone.

So I´ve had that sense of peace since she´s been gone,

because I know that, one day, I´ll see her again.

I do not believe that Kalvon has found the peace that I have,

because it´s hard for him to make peace

with the fact that she´s gone.

When you lose a kid, there is no such thing as closure.

It´s just dealing with it day by day.

Sometimes we talk about Keisha.

Just all the silly stuff that she used to do.

That´s how we remember.

We can be doing something in here,

and one of us will bust out laughing,

like, "Man, that girl was crazy."

And we´ll just laugh. We´ll laugh about it.

We might end up crying, but we laugh.

I miss the laughter. She was so goofy.

It´s very sad not being able to see what she would have become.

Kalvon: Could you imagine her as a relationship counselor?

Every client she had probably would have broke up.

[ Laughs ]

That would have been hilarious, but...

[ Laughs ]

Remember when she used to play basketball?

She was on the court, and she had nice shoes.

She played. She did have nice shoes.

She could play volleyball, though.

She was amazing at volleyball.

Shortest person in the world could play volleyball.

I don´t think he sees the magnitude of what he´s done,

but that´s ´cause he´s in his head all the time.

The moment he gets out of his head,

he can just see how amazing he is.

I was trying to give you the thumbs up.

Kenyatta: He took his circumstances

and literally changed them.

If that´s not inspiration, I truly don´t know what is.

[ Laughter ]

♫♫

♫♫

♫♫