Original subtitles

- Man, that's a lot of blood.

[camera clicks]

[sobbing]

- Tonight on "the first 48: Critical minutes"...

- He had nothing to do with it.

He was a innocent bystander.

- We look back at three cases

Where the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

- A car ride with friends turns deadly.

- So the guy that ends up dying--

- That's why we're here, man. Your brother's in some trouble.

- Then a man tries to help a friend

And pays with his life.

- And a wounded man flags down help,

But dies before he can name his attacker.

- See the blood on his shirt?

- Wow.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Narrator: Tulsa, oklahoma,

10:10 p.M.

A residential street on the northside.

[phone ringing]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[sirens wail]

- What happened here?

♪ ♪

Passenger's dead, right?

Narrator: The oldest of eight children,

Daniel carter was just 17 years old.

He was a bright high school student

Known for his playful smile and passion for basketball.

- He had one bullet wound in the chest.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The second victim is only 16.

She was shot in the chest.

Narrator: The driver

And another passenger were uninjured.

They've been taken to homicide.

- The driver told us, one of the passenger's is missing.

There's supposed to be five in the car.

Narrator: A fifth passenger fled the scene.

♪ ♪

- Well, the first thing you do to try to make sense of a scene

Where you have multiple victims is to try to determine

The relationship of everybody and what's the motive.

Why did this happen? Who was motivated enough

To do this to this many people?

Was it road rage, a vendetta, did somebody

In this particular vehicle have a beef

With somebody else, and why would one person

Be motivated to cause an injury

Or harm to this many people?

♪ ♪

[keys rattle]

♪ ♪

- What went on tonight? What happened?

Narrator: D'jordan bean was the driver of the car.

♪ ♪

- We were riding around.

That's when I get the phone call--

Narrator: He says he picked up a fifth passenger

At a nearby apartment complex.

- I make a left out the gate.

We in the car laughing and cracking jokes and stuff

Till we get to the stop sign.

♪ ♪

And that's where everything happened.

♪ ♪

- So is there another car at the stop sign?

- Yeah. It's the car in front of me...

- Ok. - At the stop sign.

Everybody like, "dang, what's the hold up?"

Tap the horn a couple times.

Just a, boom, boom, boom, boom.

♪ ♪

And he just came out the car.

♪ ♪

And I'm like, "oh, [bleep]. He got a gun."

Everybody in the car was, like, screaming and all of this.

And he just starts firing shots.

♪ ♪

I don't know if he caught road rage

And I just made it even worser by blowing at him, but--

- You ever seen these guys before?

- Describe these guys.

- Driver was black, like, 6'1"

Wearing a red or a bright colored shirt.

- Daniel have a beef with anybody?

- None whatsoever.

♪ ♪

- Anything else you can add

To help us find out who these guys were?

- Where is the fifth guy?

- [sniffles] I don't know.

[sobbing]

- Don't do that to yourself.

You can't be responsible

For what those guys did tonight, ok?

- Hang tight for just a minute.

- [sobbing]

Narrator: Sergeant walker turns to the uninjured

Passenger that remained on the scene.

- How are you?

- [distorted voice]

- Tell me what happened.

♪ ♪

- Guy gets murdered in the car you're in,

And you can't wake up for that and tell me what happened?

♪ ♪

- Why don't you stop being stupid

And start telling the truth.

The guy that was in the car is dead,

And the other girl, she's in the hospital

With a collapsed lung, and she may die.

So the only person who can tell me the--

Verify his story, is you.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Good god.

You win.

I quit. Tap out.

- What does he say? - I don't know what he says.

He says he got picked up,

And that's about all he'll say.

Maybe the girl will tell us the truth.

- She's in critical condition.

- We got two kids shot over road rage.

I mean, how stupid is that?

- We don't get murders here in this town

Where we just don't have anything to go on,

And that's what we've got, really, is a car description

And nothing.

♪ ♪

If there's not a lie to the shooting,

Then the who is really hard for us to get to.

♪ ♪

- We need to find the fifth guy.

He's given us a location of where to go.

We'll start looking for him.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The next day...

Narrator: Patrol spots the fifth passenger

Near his apartment...

Narrator: And he agrees to talk at homicide.

♪ ♪

- You know why you're here? - [distorted voice] no.

- No? It's about last night.

- Do you not think that it was probably best

For you to stay there and talk to us last night?

- You were a witness to a murder.

- Because you're gonna tell us what the hell happened.

- You better just be on the straight and narrow.

All right? You understand that?

- What?

- Yeah, [bleep].

Well, you're on the radar now, aren't you?

♪ ♪

- Make him stay in here 'cause I can't stay in here.

♪ ♪

- You didn't cause what took place last night, right?

♪ ♪

- What can you tell us about what you saw?

♪ ♪

- What did he look like?

♪ ♪

- I don't think he's telling us everything

And we're running out of options.

♪ ♪

- There's five individuals in this car.

Two of them aren't telling the story.

Somebody has got to pipe up and tell us the truth.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The team turns to the media.

- Then you have a 17-year-old kid dead

And a 16-year-old fighting for her life.

That's--for a horn honking?

That's absurd.

♪ ♪

And there's a family that's grieving.

There's only one shooter.

Black male, six foot, 180.

Somebody out there saw something that's gonna help us.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Over the next few days...

[phone rings] - homicide, brown.

Narrator: Tulsa homicide is flooded with tips.

- So what's going on?

Ok.

Thank you very much.

♪ ♪

She's talking about showtime, marcus boyd.

Everybody's hearing the same thing.

♪ ♪

Narrator: 27-year-old marcus "showtime" boyd

Has prior convictions for unlawful possession of drugs

And possession of a firearm.

- He's a certified gang member.

- We got a little bit of a history with marcus.

Gang affiliation,

Some drug activity.

We're gonna go out and round up the witnesses and victims

That were in the car at the time of the shooting

And see if they have heard anything

Or if they can identify boyd as a possible suspect.

♪ ♪

Narrator: That afternoon,

Detectives bring the driver back to homicide.

♪ ♪

- Ok, a couple days after daniel gets shot,

People are coming up to you guys and telling you what?

♪ ♪

- I heard that a guy named showtime did it.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- They just told me that he had some beef.

♪ ♪

I didn't ask what it was over or nothing.

♪ ♪

Narrator: D'jordan claims that marcus "showtime" boyd

Had an ongoing beef with the fifth passenger.

- But I guess him and showtime got into it that night.

He was like, "I need a ride."

I guess he knew he was in danger or something.

♪ ♪

- How does showtime know that he's in your car?

♪ ♪

- I don't know, unless somebody was watching

And called showtime like,

"oh, he just got into this red cadillac suv."

♪ ♪

Narrator: Later that day,

Baumann hears from another tipster.

- Oh, wow. Ok.

Narrator: And gets new info on the suspect.

- Bye, bye.

She says, prior to the murder, the fifth occupant

Of the vehicle had shot at boyd's mama's house.

Narrator: The caller said a few days before the murder,

The fifth passenger was involved

In a gang-related shooting

Targeting a house where boyd's family was staying.

- So there's your motive for boyd to shoot him.

- So this wasn't road rage after all.

Showtime was after that fifth guy,

And the other two got stuck in the middle.

- Gang violence affect people that are not in a gang,

Because you could be at a store, gas station,

In your own front yard, and just because of somebody

That you had no affiliation with at all

Is in close proximity as you,

You find yourself being victimized as well.

These people are reckless

In the way that they deal with each other,

In the way that they retaliate each other for whatever reason,

And a lot of times, more often than not,

People get caught in the cross fire.

And a lot of people lose their life as a result of that.

♪ ♪

- This is a who's who of the bloods.

♪ ♪

The female victim who was in the backseat,

She's been released from the hospital, which is amazing.

Hopefully, she saw him get out of the car

And shoot that night.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Four weeks into the investigation,

The surviving gunshot victim comes in to view a lineup.

♪ ♪

- If I show you a pile of photographs,

Then you can look at them and say which one

You think it might be.

♪ ♪

- [distorted voice] - that's him?

♪ ♪

- And tell me his part in that car that night.

♪ ♪

- Ok. Thank you. I appreciate it.

♪ ♪

This guy, he's been armed and dangerous.

I think we've got enough now to move forward

To get the warrant.

♪ ♪

- We had a call.

I guess he'd been drinking a little bit,

And he had a collision on 169, just hit another car.

He immediately said, "I'm marcus boyd

And I'm wanted for homicide."

- Just can't stay away from the cops.

♪ ♪

- Good morning, how are you?

- Man, life is a living hell.

- Life feels like a living hell.

- Hell yeah.

♪ ♪

Y'all got the wrong suspect.

- You know your name's out on the street

As doing this. - Yeah--I don't even know him.

- Him, who?

- The little boy who got killed or whatever.

- The word on the street is,

Is that you had a beef with somebody in the car.

- I feel somebody is trying to set me up.

♪ ♪

I wasn't there.

♪ ♪

- If it's not you, who?

- But listen, I don't know who the [bleep]--

- Did you kill him? - I promise you,

I did not do that.

- You sit there and wait for them to honk,

And jump out of the car

And load that car up full of bullets.

- Now, come on, man. No, I did not.

♪ ♪

My name was brought up in the streets.

They saying I did something I didn't do.

- Well, I think I would've picked up the phone and said,

"hey, this is a misunderstanding.

I need to come down and talk to you."

- No, no, no 'cause it happened so fast.

You got to get your mind-- you not about to come

Right straight down here when somebody tells you for murder.

- That's fine. I get what you're saying.

- Mm. - This is crazy.

This is crazy.

I swear to god.

- Ok, who has a white lincoln then?

- You tell me.

- Well, you were in one tonight though.

- I want a lawyer. I want a lawyer.

- Ok. All right. - I want a lawyer.

Straight up. - Ok. Good deal.

♪ ♪

- We're done. He's getting frustrated

'cause he can't come up with anything else.

♪ ♪

He's arrested for first-degree murder.

At least he's off the street.

♪ ♪

- He was intending on shooting

At somebody inside that vehicle.

It's just the two people that he shot

Were not the intended target.

♪ ♪

They were rolling around with a guy that has done some dirt,

And that dirt comes to him that night,

So the unfortunate part is they get caught

In the crosshairs of this mr. Boyd.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

[phone rings]

♪ ♪

- It's 2:30 in the morning.

Got a male stabbed out in west tulsa.

Really, that's all I have right now as we roll out there.

We'll have to see what's going on.

♪ ♪

Wow.

♪ ♪

- Who is he? - He's wesley wescott.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The victim, 29-year-old wesley wescott,

Was an avid outdoorsman

Who loved fishing, camping, and deer hunting.

He leaves behind a large family

Including a 6-year-old daughter.

- Man, that's a lot of blood.

[camera clicking]

♪ ♪

This attack looks real vicious.

♪ ♪

[camera clicks]

- The caller's cali copeland.

She's downtown at this time.

This house and that back house are vacant.

Narrator: In the back house,

Investigators found a small bag of methamphetamine.

- What makes the world of drug dealing

Or the world of drug addiction so dangerous,

Just people acting erratically 'cause they're on drugs.

And what makes it even more dangerous

Is things they would do to feed that addiction.

It's borrowing money, stealing money,

Stealing drugs.

And sadly to say, more times than we can count

To feed that addiction, they put their loved ones

And the people around them in harm's way as well.

- We're gonna go interview the female witness

That was here, cali, and see if we can't

Tie this together a little bit better.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Ritter and detective ronnie leatherman

Need wes' friend, cali,

To tell them how wes ended up dead.

♪ ♪

- Hey. You all right? - Mm-hmm.

- How do you end up over at that residence tonight?

♪ ♪

- I was riding with terry.

- Terry... - Hansen.

He had called wanting to know if I could deal him some dope.

- When you say dope, we're talking meth, right?

- Yeah.

Narrator: Cali says, earlier that night,

She took her friend, terry,

To buy meth from a dealer she knows.

- What was the amount you were getting?

- $300 worth.

Terry handed me the money. I got out.

I got in the other vehicle. I traded out.

I got back in the van with terry,

And I handed it to him, and that was it.

Narrator: She says they went back to terry's apartment

Where he and his brother, patrick,

Tried to smoke the meth.

♪ ♪

- Then they realized that the dope ain't

What they wanted it to be.

♪ ♪

They said it was fake.

♪ ♪

And I got ahold of the guy that did sell it to him.

♪ ♪

- And you say, "hey, their dope's bad" or what?

- Uh, yeah. He said, "no, it's not. No, it's not."

And I said, "well, this guy says it is."

Narrator: She says she, terry, and patrick

Went to meet the dealer on 55th street

At a vacant house her grandmother owns.

- I had called wes, and I told him to meet me

At the house on 55th 'cause I was scared

That they was gonna do something to me.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Cali says the victim, wes,

Agreed to come get her.

- Wes pulled up as soon as we got there.

I get in the car with wes,

And I'm telling wes what's going on.

- Does wes know terry? - No.

♪ ♪

Terry was asking me, "well, where's he at?

Where's he at?" I don't know where he's at.

I tried calling him from my phone.

Narrator: Cali says the dealer never showed up.

♪ ♪

- Terry says, "well, do you know

Where I could find this guy?"

Narrator: She says wes tried to calm terry down

By offering to help them look for the dealer.

♪ ♪

- I feel like we're missing something here.

♪ ♪

You've taken him over to the house

To meet this guy that supposedly ripped him off

On the dope deal, and he's not there.

You've got a guy in the car that's agreeing

To help terry out... - Mm-hmm.

- So what's he so agitated about?

- I don't know.

♪ ♪

I said, "I'm gonna run to the restroom real quick."

I went inside the back house to use the restroom,

And then I came back outside.

The van is gone,

And wes is bloody. I mean--

♪ ♪

Narrator: Detectives justin ritter and ronnie leatherman

Look up their potential suspects,

Terry hansen and his brother, patrick.

- Terry hansen.

♪ ♪

That's him.

♪ ♪

I've got enough with what cali said

To definitely look at them as persons of interest

And bring them in to talk to.

If she saw the murder, I need her to tell me that,

So I can get the guy that did this off the streets.

♪ ♪

All right.

- Terry.

Patrick.

But he always has glasses on.

♪ ♪

- [groans]

Some of this just isn't adding up right.

It doesn't make sense that terry

And wescott would be--

- Exactly.

- Can y'all not talk to terry?

- Well, it'd be nice, but right now,

We're talking to you.

♪ ♪

- I got to tell you,

I worked narcotics for a long time,

And I never knew anybody who had a return policy,

You don't like my stuff, come on back.

♪ ♪

It's early in the morning. Let's cut out all the bs,

And let's hear what really happened.

Because from where I'm sitting, to me it looks like

A little bit like you have maybe even set something up

And are a part of this.

♪ ♪

Is it possible that you and wes were trying to rip off

Terry for his dope?

- No. - And another thing--

- Wes had nothing to do with it until I called him

And asked him to please come get me.

- So did you just rip terry off?

♪ ♪

- I didn't rip terry off.

- There's more to this.

It just doesn't make sense why wes shows up.

♪ ♪

Honestly, why did you call wes over there?

- To go get me. To get me away from them.

♪ ♪

- Just tell us what really happened.

- I'm telling you what happened.

- If wes is really this close to you--

- He is.

- Then let's hear what happened.

♪ ♪

- I really wish I did know what happened.

I, honest to god, do.

I really do.

♪ ♪

My friend got killed just because,

Pretty much, I asked him to come and help me.

♪ ♪

- It looks like that wes may have just gone over there

To help her and was truly innocent in this deal.

And he ends up getting stabbed to death.

With meth being involved, anything's possible.

I just know that right now, we need to find terry

And patrick and see what they've got to say.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Terry hansen is 38 years old.

- Assault, forgery, fraud activity,

Damage to property, assault with a deadly weapon.

Narrator: His 31-year-old brother, patrick,

Has convictions for fraud and stolen property.

♪ ♪

- Finding the people that are addicted to methamphetamine

Is a challenge because they don't want to be found.

♪ ♪

- Patrick.

♪ ♪

We're early in this deal.

I don't know for sure that you were involved in anything.

Man, tonight, at what point do you run into this cali girl?

Narrator: He says he, terry, and cali drove to the house

Where cali had arranged to meet the dealer.

Narrator: He says terry asked cali

To help him look for the dealer.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Narrator: Patrick says terry suddenly attacked the victim.

♪ ♪

- So terry believed that cali and the dude that pulls up

Ripped him off for the dope? - Yeah.

♪ ♪

- Why were you wanting out of the van?

Narrator: He says terry dropped him off

On the side of the highway and drove away.

- What did he tell you really happened?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Where do you meet him at to give him the medicine?

Or did you?

- Where's your brother at right now?

♪ ♪

- So he thinks that cali knows this dope's bad,

And buys bad dope from this guy,

And then ends up calling the guy that ends up dying--

- Yeah.

- Mm-mm. That's why we're here, man.

- You know, when you have somebody that has an addiction,

You have to understand that they are

A prisoner to that addiction.

But it does not alleviate the fact the person has people

That love them and care about them

And want the best for them.

Having a drug addiction affects so much more

Than just the person that's addicted.

It affects the family members. It affects friends.

Whatever relationships you have, it affects all that.

It's just a ripple effect.

♪ ♪

- As far as the evidence is showing,

Terry stabbed a guy in the neck

For pretty much no reason,

And so I would consider him definitely dangerous.

♪ ♪

This is a lot of built up stuff that's gone on over your life.

- I know.

♪ ♪

What happened, man?

♪ ♪

I know you just felt like they were messing with you and--

♪ ♪

- At what point did you stab the tires?

- Then what happens?

- Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Do you know where you stabbed him?

- I feel like somewhere around this area.

There somewhere. I don't know exactly where.

♪ ♪

- And where's cali this whole time?

- She's inside the house.

- What do you do after you poke him?

♪ ♪

- For stabbing a guy?

♪ ♪

- It was really kind of odd that he just comes out with

What I think is the truth--

Version of events right off the bat.

I'm kind of surprised, to tell you the truth.

Usually, they're not that easy.

Narrator: In less than 12 hours,

Detective justin ritter has closed his case.

♪ ♪

- I love you. - I love you, too, man.

- This is a wild case.

It's a bad deal for wes

'cause his efforts and focus was on helping cali.

Unfortunately, terry in the meth-induced state

That he was in, perceived statements

That wes was making as threats that were not threats at all.

♪ ♪

It's crazy that he truly wasn't involved in this deal

And got killed over it.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Narrator: Harris county, texas,

1:30 a.M.

An ambulance heading down veterans memorial drive

Is flagged down by a man on the roadside.

♪ ♪

He says he's been stabbed.

♪ ♪

They try to save him, but he dies.

♪ ♪

- When ems pulled up, they said they didn't see

Any vehicle traffic, so it's probably

Kind of quiet at that hour.

Narrator: The victim was stabbed once in the chest.

- At this point, we don't know who the guy is.

We just know he's a older, white male.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Then clopton gets a possible lead from patrol.

- While patrol was looking around,

A witness approached them and said he saw

Some people standing in the road talking prior to this.

Narrator: The witness drove past

And saw the victim talking to a man and a woman.

♪ ♪

Investigators find no evidence to explain what the victim

Was doing there at one in the morning.

- There's nothing really open.

Is there? - No.

- It's frustrating to start an investigation with nothing.

One of the key parts of your homicide investigation

Is knowing who you're investigating,

Because you want to know the lifestyle.

You want to know who they are.

You want to know all the people closest to them,

So that in itself becomes an investigation.

It doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen.

♪ ♪

- There's a camera right there and another one there.

- We got a lot of camera angles here, so...

♪ ♪

We even got the sign, 24 hours. I hope that's true.

Narrator: And back across the street...

- They have three cameras on this building.

Narrator: Clopton finds more cameras at a taqueria

Near where the body was found.

- I hope this guy's prints are in the system.

Otherwise, I don't see how we're gonna id him.

Narrator: Meanwhile, all clopton can do

Is wait for the businesses to open.

♪ ♪

Then...

- Ok.

- Ok.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The victim is 55-year-old melfred elkins.

♪ ♪

Clopton heads to the taqueria

Next to where elkins was found.

- He's gonna show us his video cameras

To see what angles we have on there.

Narrator: With no eyewitnesses to the stabbing,

The surveillance video could make

Or break the investigation.

♪ ♪

Narrator: The video shows elkins with a man and a woman

Shortly before the stabbing.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- See the blood on his shirt?

- Uh-huh. Wow.

Narrator: Elkins staggers to the street for help

And collapses.

♪ ♪

- You can see the girl runs in the direction of the car wash.

♪ ♪

And then after the stabbing, the killer runs that way too.

♪ ♪

- That's our victim.

- That's when they started following him?

- Yeah.

- The male, the female, and the victim.

Narrator: Elkins and the couple head in the direction

Of the taqueria where moments later,

Its cameras captured the stabbing.

♪ ♪

Afterwards, the suspects run back toward the car wash.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[phone rings]

- This is sergeant clopton.

Ok.

Narrator: Clopton gets a tip.

The caller leads him to the name of a potential witness.

- Thanks.

♪ ♪

It's looking up, man.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Clopton asks the witness about elkins murder

And gets a break.

♪ ♪

The witness reports that elkins was going

To meet a woman named sharda gatson.

♪ ♪

- Sharda gatson.

♪ ♪

Narrator: 19-year-old sharda gatson

Has no history of violence.

- She was the girl in the video.

Try to find her and talk with her.

♪ ♪

Narrator: After weeks of searching,

Police find sharda at a friend's house

In omaha, nebraska, and bring her to headquarters.

- It's real good news because she essentially

Holds the key to the closure of the case.

All right. Just kind of tell me what you know.

Narrator: Sharda claims she was beaten and robbed

By a man she met a week before elkins' murder.

He was like, "where you at? Where you at? Where you at?"

I tell him, "you give me back half my money that you took

From me, and there's not gonna be no problems."

Narrator: She agreed to meet the man at the car wash.

♪ ♪

Narrator: She says the victim was waiting

For her at the car wash.

Narrator: Sharda says the man who robbed her

Sent elkins because he was suspicious of her.

- The white guy was getting scared.

He was, like, walking and he was, like,

"ok, I'm not in this. I was just told

To come get you and, you know, that's all."

Narrator: She says she brought a friend along for protection.

- Who is this we're speaking of?

And then, like, russell just got mad or something.

- Were any words exchanged?

- It was kind of a little conversation at first.

At first, it looked like a fight,

And then I heard the guy scream, "help!"

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

I don't know what made him want to hurt him.

♪ ♪

He had nothing to do with it.

♪ ♪

He was a innocent bystander.

♪ ♪

- It seems our victim was friends

With the man who allegedly robbed sharda.

Melfred got caught in the middle of that dispute

And got killed for no reason.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Five days later,

The gulf coast task force finds green

At his mother's house and brings him to homicide.

♪ ♪

- What I want to talk to you about, russell,

Is this gentleman got stabbed close to a car wash.

♪ ♪

You know what I'm talking about?

- Ok.

Let me explain a couple things to you, man.

We know that you were there.

♪ ♪

You're on video at the car wash.

♪ ♪

- Yes, sir.

I see you with the girl

And the guy that got stabbed.

What transpired over there that you had to pull your knife out?

Narrator: He claims the victim said he had a gun.

- You say "he got stabbed" like somebody else stabbed him.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- That's enough for me,

That he's admitting, "I was there.

"I brought the knife. I pulled the knife.

I stabbed him." the victim is dead.

What else can you say?

♪ ♪

- As an investigator, when you realize

Somebody's been killed just because

They were at the wrong place or wrong time,

They were going on living their life,

But because of somebody's carelessness

Or because of somebody's viciousness,

They've lost their life.

And you feel a lot of empathy for them

As well as their families.

♪ ♪