All language subtitles for The.Real.Murders.on.Elm.Street.S01E04.720p.AMZN.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

In Cincinnati, we have
River Fest, and it's the biggest

event of the year.

They have music,
they have fireworks,

they have games for the kids.

I mean, a little bit of
everything for everybody.

But you're really waiting for
the big event to happen.

Where are you going to be to
watch the fireworks?

Based on being River Fest,
it would have been a skeleton

crew at the police department.

The night crew would work
six at night

till two in the morning.

And what we would say,
When you're on nights,

you sit around
and wait for death.

We start off the day
celebrating the end of

summer at a big party,
and we ended up

investigating a murder.

911, what's your emergency?

There was a 911 call that came
in to the police dispatch.

There was a foul odor coming
from a trash bin,

maybe a dead dog, dead cat,
dead possum.

The garbage bin was found in
the rear of the apartment

building on Elm Street.

The building is kind of like
an old brownstone.

It's probably been there
since the 1800s.

Officers noticed a bunch of
flies around the area.

They looked into the trash bin
and saw maggots.

Uniformed officers on scene,
just based on the smell,

would know that it was probably
a decomposing human

as opposed to a decomposing dog.

It's something that--
it's ingrained in your psyche.

There's no smell like it.

The officer looked in,
saw a blanket, took out

a knife, cut the blanket,
and moved the blanket away with

a knife and saw a human leg.

Officers put up crime scene
tape to cordon off the area.

A crime scene's a piece of
evidence, so they decided not

to pull the body out the scene.

They made arrangements to have
it towed up to

the coroner's office.

The body was wrapped
in two blankets, a sheet,

like a floral sheet, which had
some burn marks on it.

Whoever disposed of the body
tried to more than likely set

the body on fire.

The problem was that one of
the blankets was fire

retardant, so it never caught.

At this point, whoever did it
went through great lengths to

try to cover up the fact of
what he or she did.

Once the body was out,
the body was unwrapped

from the blanket.

He was a black male, about
six-foot to six-foot-three,

heavy set, probably
over 200 pounds.

He was wearing blue jeans,
no shoes, and only one sock.

He had no identification on
him, no cell phone, no jewelry

to speak of.

The only identifying mark were
a tattoo on his left forearm.

It said "stacks."

And the two Ses on the front
and the back were dollar signs.

And a chain around his neck
with a key.

It's September, right?
End of the summer.

It's hot.

A body will decompose at
a higher rate when it's hot,

as opposed to cold.

The coroner had determined
based on the maggots,

the decomposition of the body,
that it was probably there

at least from one to three days.

So time of death probably would
have been around August 31st

or September 1st.

The coroner had said he was
cut, he was beaten,

he was strangled.

There was defensive wounds.

His hands would have gone up
during the attack

to try to protect himself,

and he defended himself as
best he could.

The victim was big,
and he was fighting back,

and he went down hard.

So they had to do a lot of
damage to finally kill him.

He fought valiantly before
he finally succumbed.

This is probably one of
the more vicious attacks based

on the fact of everything
that was used.

Someone who would do something
like this would be a predator.

I was the Hamilton
County courts reporter for

the Cincinnati Inquirer.

So that involved covering all
of the crime that came

through the courthouse.

There was a lot of
violent crime.

Shootings, homicides.

The 2005 relationship between
the Cincinnati Police

Department and the city
wasn't that good.

Because in 2001,
Cincinnati police shot

an innocent young man.

The death of an unarmed
black man set off

days of rioting in Cincinnati.

The kind of thing that we saw
recently with George Floyd

happened then.

People were very distrustful.

Everyone was holding
back information.

They felt that they were
protecting their neighborhood

by not giving information
to the police.

Even if they managed to find
someone who had seen something,

it's gonna be
a very difficult task.

This was gonna be
an uphill battle.

There was an urgency in this
case to identify the victim.

Fingerprints were taken,

blood and tissue samples were
taken in order to get DNA.

We would then run John Doe
through the computer system,

but DNA came back
with nothing in file.

So that led us to believe that

the person
had never been arrested.

The biggest clue on who it was
would have been the tattoo.

We looked
at the tattoo "$tack$,"

and stacks is usually--
means a stack of cash.

So based on that,
it led us to the motive.

Maybe they got killed
for money.

What we do on a crime scene is
we'll go back the next day

and kind of do a recanvass to
see if there's anything

we might have missed.

We were able to come up with
a 911 caller who told us that

on September 2, 2005,
she saw several individuals

load something big into
the trash bin and rolling

the trash bin out to the curb.

She said it was suspicious to
her because this was the day

after trash had been picked up.

That's kind of like
the ding, ding, ding.

The bells go off, and this is
somebody we want to talk to.

One of the two people
was a woman,

someone who had really
long hair.

And this woman was with
a well-built man.

She did say that she saw
the maintenance man roll it

back from the curb
a couple days later.

And the odor in the trash bin
got more foul

as the days went on.

Based on her interview,
we were able to find the name

of the maintenance man.

He confirmed that he did roll
the container back to

the alleyway from the street
corner a couple of days after

it had been rolled out.

The fact that a body was found
in just everybody's like

run-of-the-mill trash bin,

people had to be very worried.

Some don't want to come forward

because they don't want to
rock the boat.

They didn't want to
become a victim.

I'm all right as long as
I mind my own business,

as long as I keep to myself.

But some people realize
it can be you.

And you have to come forward.
You have to do something.

And your conscience gets
to you.

How can I let this go on?

People knew there was
a monster out there

they were looking for.

A person who would do this
is a predator.

We knew at this point we had
a killer out there who had

killed at least one person,
then we didn't know if there

was other victims out there.

Word was spreading
among people.

What was happening?

And could they be next?

It was particularly
horrific

just to find a body that
someone had abandoned in

a trash can, and not to really
know what had happened,

and not to know who did it.

The people on Elm Street,
they were afraid.

Over the Rhine is
a great place to live.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It has so much
history and character,

but there's a lot of urban
myths that surround

this Elm Street area.

Just down the street is one of
Cincinnati's most historic

buildings, Cincinnati
Music Hall.

It is a big, grand building
with stained glass windows,

But it was built where
there are graves.

And ask anyone in Cincinnati,
and they'll tell you

that Music Hall is haunted.

There's always been rumors of
haunting in this area,

but this was more terrifying
than any

of these urban legends.

This time, there was
a real-life killer.

People in the neighborhood,
they just know that somebody

came in the community

and ended up dead.

And if it can happen to him,

it can happen to me.

And so they didn't want to
become a victim.

Detectives didn't know who
the victim was, so they had to

label him John Doe.

The biggest clue
was the tattoo.

So what we did is we would get
a hold of Crimestoppers,

and they would work with
their partners in the media

that hey, homicide
is looking for somebody

who had a tattoo of "$tack$."

Crimestoppers is used when
they really don't know who the

victim is, somebody might call
because they want to remain

anonymous, or somebody might
call just because they think

they know something.

Every now and then, somebody is
gonna speak up and say,

"No, no, I'm not gonna
allow this.

I've seen too much."

After a couple of days,
we got a call from a person by

the name of Eric Wallace.

He said he knew a person
who had a tattoo on

his left forearm.
It said "$tack$,"

and his name was Chris Amos.

I tried to reach Chris a few
times on his cell phone,

but he didn't answer.

I didn't think really much of
it because

that's a party weekend.

But they ran
a Crimestoppers thing.

They had found a body,
and they had no leads.

They had just been able to
identify that there were

tattoos saying "young $tack$."

And I'm sitting there thinking,
like, well,

I only know one person.

I just was praying and praying
and praying that it wasn't him.

Chris Amos Jr.'s dad,
Chris Amos Sr., said that

his son, Chris Amos Jr., lived
in Covington, Kentucky,

which is right over the river
from where the body had been

found, and that he lived in
an apartment there.

Mr. Amos provided us with
a photograph of his son.

And from the photograph,
it matched the height

and weight of the unidentified
body that we had.

And based on the dental
records, we were able to

identify the victim as
18-year-old Chris Amos Jr.

Chris Amos Jr.
was my best friend.

I was four or five years older,
but he's like a little brother

to me.
He liked to joke a lot.

He was a jokester.
He loved to tell funny stories.

Chris loved to rap.

He was as talented as anybody
I have ever been around in

the music realm.

He was very good at
what he did.

Chris was one of
my best friends.

♪ Baby, we can come through

♪ Baby, if you up,
you should come through ♪

We met in high school.
We used to call him "Stacks."

"You know Stacks over here?"
And I was like, "No."

It was like, "He be rappin',"
and Stacks was Chris.

So I introduced myself,
"Wassup man?"

And then it was a rap
from there.

We just kept going on,
battle rapping, and he was

definitely competitive.

Chris and his dad were so much
alike that they had

butted heads.

He wanted to live his own life
and not constantly be told how

to live his life.

Eventually, he wanted to
have his own apartment.

Chris was
a hard worker.

He finally moved
into his own place.

Trying to be grown,
he took the first step

in becoming the adult.

How could this have
happened?

He didn't have, like,
mortal enemies.

Chris's father
pulled up on me.

Later on, he told me that
Chris had got murdered.

Man, I bawled my eyes out
that-- me and his father

was crying together.
And I couldn't--

I couldn't bring myself to,
I don't know.

It was heart-wrenching, man.

The pain that
Mr. Amos felt, I mean, it's--

you can't describe it.
It goes so deep.

And sometimes that idea of
tough love,

sometimes it gets real tough.

Who would want to do this to--
what--

what did he do to somebody?

So with little to go on,
detectives retrieved the key

they found on Chris Amos' body.

We had that key.

And since we had an address now
for where Chris Jr. lived,

we went there with that key
and put it in a lock

and it opened up the door.

We didn't find any furniture
turned over.

We didn't find any blood.

We didn't find any
murder weapons.

So that would be a good
indication that Chris wasn't

killed at that location.

His cell phone was not
in his apartment.

So we knew that the cell phone
was missing.

We then got the search warrant
on his cell phone number to get

phone records and go back to
the date and time when

Chris was killed.

But cell phone records take
a while to get back.

He had "young" here,
and "$tack$" here.

He was 18, so called
himself "Stacks,"

you know, everybody put
the "Young" on it.

You were either a "Young,"
a "Lil", you know, Lil Wayne.

"Young Stacks" just comes from
having stacks of money.

Seemed like a pretty big clue.

Detectives believe that this is
the motive

that they've been looking for.

You still have that theory that
it was a robbery,

a set up robbery.

But it was kind of ironic that
he called himself that,

because he did not have
a lot of money.

He did anything
to get some extra money.

You know, you had to get
the money to pay the rent.

Chris didn't own a car,
and he didn't hang in those

areas where he was found.

Nobody knew why
he would be in Cincinnati.

All the information we were
getting from people who knew

him, he was a good kid,
he had several jobs.

Chris worked at a nursing home.

Me and my mom were able to help
Chris get a job at a very nice

nursing home in
Covington, Kentucky.

He was really good with
the elderly people.

He got along really well,

and every one of them
loved him.

Chris would volunteer on some
of his lunch breaks to go get

some of his favorite residents
and bring them down for lunch.

His co-workers were cool,

except for one of
his co-workers.

Mr. Amos did tell us a story
that Chris had some dispute

with another employee at
the nursing home.

This could be something as
callous as a co-worker who's so

pissed off at him for some
perceived slight at work that

they would do this to him.

That's not unusual
in a case like this.

And they fought.

And this person ended up
getting fired.

And he blamed Chris.

Certainly a tip like that
we would have to follow up on

because that certainly would be
a motive for a killing.

Chris worked at
the nursing home.

He had some dispute with
another employee at

the nursing home.

We've had cases in the past
where there's disputes at work

and led to a killing.

That certainly would be
a motive because the type of

injuries that Chris had on him
led us to believe that it was

probably somebody who he knew,

somebody who
he had a dispute with.

We were able to follow up
on that lead.

Detectives showed up at
his co-worker's door.

He admitted they did get in
a fight and that he didn't like

Chris, but he said
he didn't kill him.

We were able to determine that
he was out of town at

his aunt's house at the time of
the murder and he couldn't have

committed the murder.
So that's a dead end.

And we were very concerned that
this case may never get solved

because every lead that we had
at the point

was turning up nothing.

Chris's dad, Mr. Amos,
didn't know who could have

killed his son
or what happened.

It's important to him
to see justice done,

and it's important to him to
feel whole again.

He had to do something.
There's no way in the world

he could just sit still.

Mr. Amos knew of the distrust
that the Black community had

with police, and he was willing
to put feelers out

in the community to try to find
out who killed his son.

He wasn't thinking
about his own safety.

He wasn't thinking
about himself.

He was thinking about all
the things that he couldn't do

for his son anymore.
But he could do that.

He did come up with some leads.

I remember Mr. Amos saying
he found out that Chris was

hanging out with
the wrong crowd.

But Mr. Amos didn't know who
Chris was hanging with.

I mean, he had heard nicknames.

In a street culture like this,
nobody knows anyone's

real names.
Everyone has a nickname.

It's a way to stay anonymous.

Why would a kid like Chris,
who had such big dreams and had

never been in trouble,
be hanging around such

unsavory characters?

Chris was not that guy.

That was not his,
you know, M.O.

That was not his thing.

That was not what he was
known for.

But we got some information
that Chris was selling.

It's an easy way to make money.

He wasn't a street guy,
but he had to get the money to

pay the rent.

When you feel like your back is
against the wall,

you normally do something that
you wouldn't normally do.

You step out on a limb,
and sometimes

those limbs break.

And by the time you figure it
out, it's too late.

We didn't know who Chris was
hanging with that night.

Mr. Amos had given some
information about a rap studio

that Chris would also go to.

And it turned out that that
rap studio was on Elm Street.

Based on the fact that Chris
was found on Elm Street,

that was something that had to
be followed up on.

There were a few underground
recording studios.

We would go to the studio,
and then we would rap.

We got our phones, so we would
record, like, voice messages

over us rapping over beats.

Chris and Calvin were both
aspiring rappers.

Mr. Amos thought that maybe
there was some type

of confrontation.

Detectives knew that
this was a personal attack.

So that pointed them in
the directions of someone

who knew him.

A couple days later on,
I was riding down the street,

hanging out, and I pulled up
to my house.

And I seen two white men
in a suit.

And they walked up to me like,
"Hey, are you Calvin Powell?"

And I was like,
"No, my father's not here."

And they was like,
"Yeah, you the one

we looking for."
And I was like, "Uh, me?"

And he said,
"Man, we're from Homicide."

He said, Chris's father might
have implicated you.

I'm like, "Wow, for real,
for the murder?"

And they say, "Yeah."

I was taken aback because
I was like, man,

he blamed it on me.

I'm like, how did he tell them
that I did it?

Me, I was kind of like,
wow, his father, he really

not playing.
That was scary.

I told the detectives,
Chris and I got into a heated

text message conversation.

When I spoke to him that day,
he was at home.

And we had got into
a confrontation about

the people he was hanging with.

I warned him because Chris had
no idea how dangerous those

people were that
he was hanging with.

He took it as me trying to

go against him or test him.

And he said some things
he shouldn't have said.

I said some things
I shouldn't have said.

And we were going back
and forth with it.

That was the last time
I talked to him.

And two days before, that was
the last time I had seen him

ever again in life.

Mr. Amos must have caught wind
of the text messages or read

them because I was going
to the funeral.

But I went to shake his dad's
hand, and he was like,

"Where were you?"

I said, "I don't know."
I was like, "I was here."

And they were asking
me questions.

I was crying.

I found out they didn't want me
at the funeral because

they thought I did it.

I was hurt, man.
I was deeply hurt.

But I knew I didn't do it.
And then I started getting mad.

My feelings were hurt,
and I started getting angry.

Every time someone tells
the police the truth,

they say, you know how many
times I've heard that?

I said, "Hey, I didn't do it."
I knew I didn't do it.

That's crazy.

There was some type
of confrontation.

Maybe things escalated.

It's certainly something that
needs to be followed up on.

But y'all investigating me,
you are doing your job.

But are you, though?

They were wasting their time
looking at me, instead of

focusing on who actually
did it.

The people on Elm Street in
Cincinnati and the people in

Covington, Kentucky,
they were afraid.

They still didn't know
who did this.

Was this killer gonna
strike again?

I was definitely cautious.
It's like a Zodiac killer.

You just walking around
chilling, bam, somebody killed.

You don't really know when
it's gonna happen or what's

gonna happen or who's doing it.

So they were scared.

I was afraid to leave my house.

When you have traumatic
experiences, your body,

your brain reacts in
certain ways.

Well, my reaction was,
I ain't leaving the house.

Detectives didn't know what
else the killer was capable of.

There was no telling
what was next.

Based on the circumstances
that we thought at that time,

yeah, there was a good
indication that

he or she would kill again.

And the information that
Mr. Amos gave us was that there

could have been some dispute
or something between

Calvin and Chris.

That was something that had to
be followed up on based on

the fact that Chris's body was
found on Elm Street

and the studio was also
supposedly on Elm Street.

Yeah, I had a alibi.

They ruled me out because no
evidence led back to me.

We had ruled Calvin out
as a suspect.

He couldn't have
committed the murder.

I was hurt, man.
I was deeply hurt.

When you're hurt, it just turns
into a lot of anger sometimes.

I was young, and I was just mad
at that man.

And I still kind of am upset
about that, but I don't hold

any grudges or anything to him.

He was a father
who lost his son.

We were very concerned that
this case may never get solved.

Once we got the records back,
we went back and concentrated

on incoming and outgoing calls
between August 31st

and September 1st of 2005.

Around the time of death or
what we thought

the time of death was,

we were able to determine there
was at least 29 phone calls

that came in or out of
Chris's cell phone

after his time of death.

Somebody was still using
Chris's cell phone.

Detectives worked down the list
of calls that had been made,

and they pinpointed the name
Jenna Gundy.

Police called her in
for questioning.

She was upset, didn't know why
she was being called down here,

which is typical,
said she didn't know

who Chris was, didn't have
anything to do with it.

She had said that she had let
two of her friends

us her cell phone,

and she thought that maybe one
of her friends had known Chris

or someone named Chris.

Also, one of the calls that
piqued our interest was a call

to La Rosa's Pizzeria
in Cincinnati.

You have to give a name,
especially for delivery.

Maybe a pizza was delivered
to an address.

Hey, maybe that's
the crime scene.

And when police did check that,
the order had been placed under

Winnie Cartwright's name,
and Winnie Cartwright

was one of the friends

Jenna Gundy let her
use her phone.

Winnie Cartwright
came in for an interview.

Her demeanor was that
she didn't know why

she was coming in.

She said that she
and her boyfriend had lost

her cell phone,
and she bought this for $10.

She said she bought the phone
from a person by the name of
Teayha Webb.

So when she said "Teayha Webb,"
that rang a bell to us because

that was the other person
who used her cell phone.

We did a computer search on
Teayha, found out that

she came up on Elm Street.

Knowing that she lived on
Elm Street and Chris's body was

found on Elm Street,
we knew that was someone

we needed to talk to.
We went out to that location,

got in contact with her.

She was willing to come in
for an interview.

She was saying she didn't know
anything that was going on.

You know, why is she here?

But after a while,
she finally admitted that

she knew who Chris was.

The fact that she knew Chris
and lived right by where

his body had been found,
that was enough.

They went
and got a search warrant.

When we went in,
we noticed the place was

kind of disheveled.

We were able to go back
into the bedroom.

We found some sheets

that had the similar pattern on
the sheets that we found

Chris's body wrapped in.

And we also found a metal pipe
and at least two box cutters.

We also found some blood
spatter back in the back

bedroom where the box cutters
and the pole were also found.

Based on all the things that
we found, the box cutters,

knowing that Chris had been
cut, we assumed that could have

been one of the weapons
and a pipe found there,

knowing that Chris had blunt
force trauma-- it was nice to

know that we probably found
our crime scene.

Back in the office,
we said,

"What do you know about this?"

She said, something to
the effect of, "I'm not the one

"who killed him.

I'm not going down for this,
but I knew who did it."

On November 16, 2005, Teayha
Webb agreed to give a formal

statement on what she knew
about the murder of

Chris Amos Jr...

Teayha said that her boyfriend,
Donald Jones, wanted to rob

Chris because Donald Jones had
owed Chris money.

He also heard that Chris had
made a lot of money,

so they assumed
that he was flush with cash.

We also had some information,
too, that Chris might have had

a thing for Teayha.

So the plan was for Teayha to
get Chris to come down

to her apartment.

Teayha Webb was a honeypot.

Honeypot is a female who lures
men to be robbed

by their boyfriend.

So she admitted that she was
the honeypot to lure Chris down

to that location.

On September 1, 2005,
Donald Jones brought along

his friends, Tony Frye
and Keith Bond, to help out.

Police then set out to find
Tony Frye and Keith Bond.

It didn't take them long to
find Bond and Frye.

They were in the Justice Center
on another crime.

I made arrangements for them to
be transported over to CIS,

the criminal
investigation section.

They both said that they had
a part in it.

They said that they had Chris
tied up, and that they were

trying to find out
where Chris' stash was,

both drugs and money.

They said he was denying that
he had anything.

And Jones was taking
a cigarette and burning Chris's

arms, forearms with it to try
to get him to say where it was.

He was struggling.
He was fighting back.

They did this while
Teayha Webb's son

was in the next room,
Chris was pleading

for his life, and this
little boy heard everything.

When they were done,
they took everything Chris had.

And it wasn't that much.
He had $7 on him.

In fact, the most valuable
thing he had were

his Timberland boots.
So they took those.

Keith Bond also said that
he actually disguised himself

putting on a wig
so he wouldn't get noticed.

No one would know who he was
when he wheeled

the trash can out.

Bond and Frye admitted that they
were there, but they wanted to

minimize what they did.

But for us, for a confession
like that, all we need is for

them to admit that they were
on scene.

They all said that Donald Jones
was the main culprit.

Donald Jones had no qualms
about killing somebody, none.

When police picked up
32-year-old Donald Jones,

he claimed he didn't know
anything about the murder.

And he said he didn't even
know Webb.

But they had found a letter in
Webb's apartment with his name.

During the interview, one of
the things that we can do is

use evidence that we don't
necessarily have as a way to

elicit a certain response.

And we had said that we had
fingerprints on a trash bag.

Once we told him that,
he started to sob

and admitted that he did it.

No conscience.

It's almost medieval,
you know, what he did.

Execution style.
Holding somebody down.

I don't think he had a heart.

Whatever he had beating inside
of him, it couldn't have

been a heart.

Months later,
all four pled guilty.

Donald Jones
got a life sentence.

Frye was sentenced to ten years,

and Bond was sentenced
to 24 years.

Teayha Webb ended up getting
five years of probation for

tampering with evidence.

For Mr. Amos, it's hard to
mention his son's name,

because sometimes you mention
your child's name, things flash

through your
mind subconsciously.

Remember this
and that and that.

To mention that name,

that can basically
increase the grief.

He's not the same man that
he was before his son died.

It's a different person.

That name doesn't mean
the same now.

I cannot tell you how much
it still

just really hurts to this day
to realize that somebody had it

in their heart to kill him.

I just, I still can't figure
it out.

I really can't.
I loved him dearly.

I still love him to this day.

And what I miss about him most
was, for real,

was his smile, man.

He had a crazy little kinda
sideways smile.

I miss him, period, man.
He was my friend.

Miss everything about the guy,
you know what I'm saying?

It was just, that was just
my dude, man.

Amen.

May God rest your
soul, brother.

We'll see you on the other
side, man.

Love you and miss you.