Original subtitles

[sinister music playing]

[man 1] Preacher wanted his body dismembered.

[saw whirring]

[man 1] They used an electric saw...

and they used a hand saw.

And they took his head and his arms

and were put in the refrigerator overnight.

The following day,

they took the body parts to the roof.

[man 2] They got the head, pulled it out...

[thudding]

[man 2] ...and then they started playing soccer with it.

[theme music playing]

Welcome to Very Scary People.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

In the late 1980s,

a violent and sinister crime boss

known as Preacher

rules the streets of New York City.

He demands total submission from his enemies,

absolute loyalty from his crew,

and anyone crossing him is sentenced to death.

As Preacher's body count soars,

his notoriety grows,

and the NYPD races to catch him

and end the bloodshed.

Preacher is known by another name.

One that comes from the trail of shocking violence

he leaves in his wake.

This is the story of the Black Hand of Death.

[suspenseful music playing]

[woman] Twelve-year-old Donnell Porter

was on his way to school.

[telephone ringing]

[woman] The family got a call saying

they had Donnell.

And they demand

$400,000 or $500,000

if they wanted Donnell back.

They let them know, "I can't come up with that."

So the family was told to go to this restaurant.

And in the can...

was Donnell's finger.

There's an audio tape.

"Come get me.

They cut my finger off, Mommy. Come and help me."

They couldn't come up with the money.

So later...

a homeless man found Donnell's body

wrapped in black garbage bags like trash.

[dramatic music playing]

That was just a heinous crime that kind of

was one of the defining crimes of the era.

People didn't know who did it.

But they had an inkling that it was Preacher and his crew.

[man 1] Preacher was one of those individuals

that everybody knew his name,

but nobody could tell you what he looked like.

[man 2] He was like a ghost.

Sometimes they'd see him, sometimes they wouldn't.

He just freaked everybody out.

[man 3] There's a myth that he's 6'5" and he's not.

His aura is seven foot.

But he's the worst person I ever met

because he pretended to be

the nicest person I ever met.

How many people he killed, tortured, chopped up,

just the sheer numbers are amazing.

[man 4] When you look in Preacher's eyes,

you just see space.

And I'm thinking to myself,

he has no soul.

It makes you think, what happened to you

in your younger years

to make you go down this path?

[Donnie] Preacher's real name is Clarence Heatley.

And he was born in Harlem in 1953.

[honking]

[man speaking]

[Thomas] School records are kind of shoddy.

But I don't think he has formal education past middle school.

He decides that

he's going to engage

in juvenile delinquency.

Breaking and entering,

holding up people, robbing people,

possession of firearms.

And this is pretty much what happened

until it landed him in detention

where he spent a significant amount of time.

[clapper operator] Billy, take one. Marker.

[Donnie] Billy is one of Heatley's associates

who agreed to speak about him

as long as he could remain anonymous.

[Billy] I know he had went to Warwick Boys Home

in Warwick, New York.

The only thing I ever heard him say was,

bad things happened to him there.

[interviewer speaking]

[Billy] That's exactly what he meant

when he said bad things happened to him there.

[Kevin] These type of institutions

are a bedrock for

the learning of more criminality,

because there are a lot of assaults,

a lot of sexual assaults,

a lot of brutality.

[Donnie] After several years behind bars,

17-year-old Clarence Heatley returns to Harlem.

The neighborhood he left behind

has been overwhelmed

by drug dealers peddling everything

from heroin and LSD to cocaine.

You had obviously common folks who lived there

and went about life

in a normal kind of fashion.

But Harlem also had a number of runners.

You had pimps.

You had people who sold heroin

and different narcotics, cocaine.

Harlem was a culmination of all those kind of things.

In the mid-'70s,

Clarence Heatley

commits this holdup of this store.

He's sentenced to six to twelve years.

[Kevin] And he's sent upstate to Dannemora Prison.

This particular prison

is the largest maximum security prison

in the state.

[Thomas] In the '70s,

it was prevalent for sexual predators in prison.

And the word is that Preacher was one of them.

[Kevin] He actually engaged

in these behaviors

in this very facility.

[Donnie] But terrorizing his fellow inmates

isn't the only thing Heatley does

during his time in prison.

Those years were spent developing a plan.

[Kevin] At that prison,

they had one of the best prison libraries.

He learns

through the reading list

how to become better

at power and control.

At controlling men.

He was reading John Gotti.

In his book, he talks about fame and fortune.

Sun Tzu, in The Art of War,

talks about organization

and power and control.

[Gregg] He had decided while in prison

to form an organization

which almost mimicked the Italian mob in some way.

But he was gonna export that to the streets of Harlem.

[Raymond speaking]

[Thomas] In prison,

he got the name Preacher

for his ability to manipulate people

with words,

similar to what he felt like preachers did.

He's ministering in prison.

His ministry?

Criminality.

His congregation?

The crew.

Amen.

He walked in the prison as Heatley and...

came out as the Preacher six years later.

[Donnie] Back on the streets,

30-year-old Preacher finds Harlem

teeming with dealers selling cocaine

and other illegal drugs

on every street corner.

The streets were crowded.

You had every avenue, every crew out, everybody just making money.

[Gregg] Preacher chose an unusual path

instead of selling drugs,

although on some level,

they did engage in selling drugs.

A primary part of his focus was on

extorting these drug dealers.

[Thomas] You got this guy, Clarence Heatley,

who's learned from the mafia, from the '70s hustlers,

and he's also an expert manipulator,

and he's prone to violence.

You can kind of see where he could say,

"I'm not gonna really sell drugs. I'm just gonna

oppress drug dealers."

He basically was taxing drug dealers.

But if you're just gonna tax people,

you do have to have a reputation

that causes them to decide to pay their tax.

It doesn't make any sense unless they're terrified that they could be killed.

People didn't say no

because they will wind up dead,

or one of their family members dead.

[Donnie] To build his crew of killers and enforcers,

Preacher carefully chooses

about a dozen young men

who have grown up in the inner city.

Preacher targeted people who were younger,

people who had

something missing in their lives,

whether it was a weakness

or a desire for one thing or another.

It really was a very powerful organization

for people who probably had

very little power in their personal life.

[Thomas] He was like a father figure to these younger guys,

that he was probably

providing everything from insight

to financial stability to protection.

[David] If a young guy was

having problems with someone in the neighborhood,

Preacher would take care of it.

And these young guys

liked that.

[Billy] Preacher would give you advice on your relationships.

He'd give you advice on

saving your money,

how you dress,

you know, how you spoke.

He was like dad to some of the guys that didn't have fathers.

Yeah, I was working off and on

when I could find work as a carpenter.

And that's exactly how I met Preacher.

He said, "But how long you been working here?"

I said, "I don't know, it's almost two months."

He tells me, "Listen,

you got a choice.

You're either with me or against me.

You're part of this family or you're killed.

You know what I'm saying?"

I said, "Well, what's the problem?

I don't know nothing."

He tells me, "You want to leave this room?

You're a part of this family."

So I decide...

I can't win.

You know what I mean?

So I tell him, "Okay, what you want me to do?"

So he says, "Okay,

take him to Davidson Avenue.

We want somebody

on Davidson Avenue to move off of the block.

We spoke to him once and he didn't move.

So if he don't move...

leave him there.

In other words,

leave him on the block dead."

So when I get to the corner,

I say, "Yo, listen,

people around the corner is complaining.

They said they want you off the block."

He put his hand in my face and he shoved me.

And he shoved me backwards.

So I shoved the gun in his chest

and I emptied the clip.

Preacher asked, "How'd he do?"

He said, "The kid's a monster."

Preacher looked at me.

He got up and kissed me on both cheeks.

He said, "Welcome to the family."

[interviewer speaking]

[Billy] That was the very first time.

He treated me like I was,

I was somebody. I was part of the family.

But in hindsight...

I was a well-trained pit bull.

That's what he did to me.

[voice shaking] Turned me into a monster.

Can we cut for a minute, please?

[cries]

[Donnie] Preacher brings one young man

after another into his flock,

using charm

and a promise of big money.

Then he builds his own twisted church,

a place where his violent disciples can call home.

[Billy] It was a dilapidated building

until Preacher got his hands on it.

Started renovating it

one apartment at a time.

The crew lived in six of the apartments,

so the building was secure.

We even hung concertina wire around the back of it.

You couldn't get in and you couldn't get out,

unless we allowed it.

[David] Preacher used an apartment upstairs

as his headquarters.

I called that the war room.

One day, they were going in there,

and before they closed the door,

Preacher turned around and said,

"Popcorn, come on in here, man."

I was cooking fish.

I took the apron off,

went into the room with them.

Somebody was talking.

And he was saying

how much Preacher is a beautiful guy.

"He's a real nice guy.

This guy is the greatest guy I know.

And if this guy asks me to kill my mama,

I'm gonna kill my mother."

[Billy] I can clearly see Preacher as a cult leader.

I've never seen anyone manipulate

people in the way he did.

That crew was more of a cult

than a crew...

because of the love they had for him.

You couldn't disagree with him.

You couldn't not do what he asked you to do.

And you couldn't say no to him.

[Gregg] The organization was relatively disciplined.

I think discipline is one of the words I would use

to describe the way he ran things.

Preacher ran his crew somewhat like military.

Guys even had rank.

[Thomas] Preacher basically called the shots.

John Cuff, one of his main lieutenants,

was a former police officer.

Anthony "Malik" Boatwright

was an enforcer.

[Gregg] Yeah, Malik was sort of a murder machine.

He was able to train some of the other janitors

in hand-to-hand combat

or martial arts.

[Thomas] The janitors were the clean-up crew.

Their job were to kill people. They would

torture them, dismember them, and clean it up.

These janitors belonged to him.

They tattooed themselves

with dad, for example,

or janitor, the bucket, the mop.

All of these things are signs

of membership

and belonging.

A demonstration

of their loyalty to the Preacher

all the way to the end.

[Billy] We had rules.

Nobody sleeps with another member's girlfriend.

No stealing money.

No getting high other than marijuana.

No infighting among crew members.

You know, once you joined the crew, it was for life.

The only way out was a cell or a casket.

And if there was a problem,

he would basically bring them to the basement.

And it would be almost like a trial,

where it would be a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down

on whether you would survive or lose your life.

[Kevin] It so much mirrored the Roman Colosseum.

The Caesars, ups, downs,

life, death.

[gun cocking]

[interviewer speaking]

[Billy] Okay. The whole crew was assembled.

I was told to get naked.

Which I did.

I was to stand inside of a black bag.

I was shackled.

I was handcuffed behind my back.

The bag was pulled up to my shoulders,

and another bag was pulled down over that,

over my head.

And there was a vote taken.

"All those in favor

of just getting rid of this guy...

say 'aye.'"

I could hear him going around the room.

Nobody voted to kill me.

Except for Malik.

Malik didn't like me very much at all.

About five seconds goes by.

I hear Preacher say,

"Take them chains off my son."

The bag was removed from my head.

The bag had... [chuckles]

A few ounces of sweat

in the bottom of the bag. You know what I mean?

The chains were taken off of me,

and I looked over at Malik, and you could clearly see that

he was extremely angry

because nobody voted to kill me.

Preacher controlled life.

He controlled death.

He was a god.

[Donnie] Flush with power

and a devoted, murderous crew,

ready to follow his every command,

Preacher is ready to cash in

on the hottest street drug the world has ever seen.

Around 1985 and '86 is when the crack

came to Harlem.

Crack was a different animal.

People were making so much money off of it.

$40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a week,

if not more.

[Kevin Chiles] There was so much money made

between the years of, like, '86 and '90 that

it's unimaginable, even when I reflect on it.

[David] One drug dealer,

he had an operation in the Bronx

that was making...

maybe $10,000 a night.

And the guy had a problem with

some other people

that he couldn't handle.

So he got in touch with Preacher.

Preacher had one of the janitors

take care of that guy's problem.

[interviewer speaking]

Oh, they killed him.

[siren chirps]

[David] So now the guy

got Preacher on his back,

taking half of his drugs

and his operation.

[Joe] I like to use the word, maybe, "mystique,"

about Clarence Heatley.

He would just do anything that he wanted to.

One of the major things that he was doing

was he was shaking down, uh,

Harlem bodega owners.

If he needed money,

he would just walk into the bodega and say,

"Empty the cash register and give me everything

that you have."

[Kevin Chiles] Preacher developed a reputation of somebody who

you didn't want to have a problem with.

He had that Mercedes that he would drive around with.

And people feared the car.

He didn't even have to be in it.

Preacher became

ultimately a kingpin.

[David] He put his suit on,

and he had two or three cars

as a convoy

driving him through Harlem.

The vision of watching him

get out of this car with a $3,000 suit,

you're thinking that this is the guy not to play around with.

Because this is also the guy that

they said killed your friend

a couple of months ago.

[Donnie] At first,

the street dealers that Preacher orders killed

barely register with police,

until a savvy detective begins working

Harlem's homicide beat.

Jay Maher, take one. Marker.

[siren wailing]

We were confronted with a lot of violence.

I worked many cases,

and I recognized a pattern in the homicides.

I approached the commanding officer of the detective squad,

told him, "I think this crew is

doing a majority of our homicides."

When people were getting killed and bodies were popping up,

it's like, "Wow, who did that?"

But you never would have heard anybody

mention Preacher's name,

even though they may have thought that he did it,

because they're probably like, "He'll kill me."

The fear was there.

[Jay] The most frustrating thing about this whole investigation

was Preacher was one of those individuals

that everybody knew his name,

but nobody could tell you what he looked like.

[Kevin] The turning point was

William Donnell Porter.

It flipped the whole script on

what would eventually be

the end of this story.

[Donnie] By 1989,

Clarence "Preacher" Heatley's crew of killers

has been shaking down drug dealers and shop owners

for six years.

Preacher himself is raking in millions.

But his income pales in comparison

to some of Harlem's top drug dealers.

[Joe] Rich Porter was extremely wealthy,

and he was one of those who flaunted his wealth.

Always had flashy cars, flashy women.

[Harlem] Rich Porter

lived life larger than life.

With that smile on his face, the way he dressed.

He lived every day like it was his last.

I knew Rich

because him and I were like friends in the street,

I guess, cohorts.

[Harlem] He was moving bricks.

Kilos.

He wasn't just no street corner drug dealer.

He was on a whole other level.

But he became a target

because he was so flashy.

[Joe] Heatley felt a little jealous of Porter

only because of the constant money flow.

Heatley had his own sources of income.

But Heatley woke up one day and said,

"You know, all this money,

I should be getting a bigger piece of the pie."

[Donnie] 24-year-old Rich Porter pays Preacher for protection.

He also has an ally in Preacher's gang.

His uncle.

Johnny "Apple" Porter.

Rich hopes that family connection

will keep him and his 12-year-old brother Donnell safe.

[Harlem] Donnell was the baby.

They wanted Donnell

to not have to want for nothing.

A lot of the kids from the projects in the local area

was part of my basketball team.

So that's how I met Donnell.

Donnell was a regular kid.

You know, they all were.

You know, pizza.

You know, basketball.

Horsing around.

Just doing things that 12-year-olds did.

Rich and Donnell were very close.

He cherished his brother,

and Rich definitely didn't want

his brother in the streets.

Donnell was on his way to school.

And according

to the young man that was walking with him that day,

somebody called him to a car.

Donnell looked at his friend, he said, "I'll see you later."

And Donnell was never seen after that day.

Donnell had to have known the people in the car,

because when he told his friend

he'd see him later, it wasn't like,

I'm scared, I'm frantic. "I'll see you later."

When Donnell didn't come home from school,

the family got worried.

Nobody had seen Donnell.

We know,

during that time,

that Preacher Crew was known

for snatching people off the street to get money.

So, of course,

Rich would be a great target.

Because they couldn't get to Rich,

I guess the next option for them,

because it was an easy target,

became Donnell.

[telephone ringing]

[Thomas] And soon after, Rich received a ransom call

demanding

$500,000 for the return of Donnell.

Just like any other business,

you're not always flush with cash, you know.

You might have drugs on the street,

you have people that owe you money.

So he might not have been able to put his hands on

$500,000.

[Harlem] He let them know, "I can't come up with that."

And I think

these kidnappers,

they just wanted the money.

[Thomas] "Malik" Boatwright allegedly uses his cigar cutter

to cut off Donnell's finger.

[Jay] The torture of a child like that,

it really shows

what this group was capable of.

[Thomas] And what was just a heinous crime that kind of

was one of the defining crimes of the era.

[Harlem] The family was told to go to this restaurant,

which was on Broadway and 125.

And they told them

to look in the bathroom under the sink.

When they went there

and looked under the sink,

they found a can,

which contained Donnell's finger...

and an audio tape to show that

they had him.

[Thomas] It was Donnell on the tape

pleading for his life.

[Harlem] They heard his cry for his mommy.

"Mommy, come help me.

Come get me.

They cut my finger off.

Come and help me."

[Kevin] It's hard to imagine

what he must have been going through, the fear,

let alone what the people

inflicting terror

are going through.

Because Preacher had the right people working

for him

to do the job that he wanted done.

These type of people

are indeed...

sick.

These type of people

are inspired more

by the behavior.

It's almost orgasmic

because the conscience is not present...

which allows them to

do this ruthlessly

without even thinking that what they're doing

is something evil.

[Donnie] To rescue his little brother from Preacher

and his sadistic crew,

Rich Porter hatches a desperate plan.

The biggest drug dealer at that time in Harlem

was Fritz.

Fritz gave Rich, I think it was like

25 or something keys of coke

and he gave Rich money.

He told Rich,

Sell it to whoever you want to sell it for."

Just get the money to get your brother back."

Fritz didn't want nothing back.

But then on January 4th, 1990,

Rich Porter's body is found in the Bronx.

[Harlem] His body was dropped on Orchard Beach,

four weeks

after Donnell was kidnapped,

and he had $2,000 in his pocket.

So, the cops knew it wasn't a robbery.

[Donnie] After a lengthy investigation,

the police determined Rich Porter

was murdered by a rival drug dealer,

not Preacher and his crew.

It had nothing to do with the kidnapping of his brother.

But the murder

seals Donnell's fate.

[Thomas] Once Rich Porter died,

the hopes for getting Donnell

kind of died with him.

Now there's nobody to pay the ransom.

The kidnappers probably realized they weren't gonna get the money.

And since Donnell could identify them,

they killed him.

[Harlem] On January 28th,

seven weeks

after Donnell was kidnapped,

a homeless man

found Donnell's body

not too far from his brother's in the Bronx

on a bike path,

wrapped in black garbage bags like trash.

I couldn't imagine somebody

harming you

in that fashion because it's not deserving.

Like your child, the innocence of it all,

or somebody who you would consider

outside the scope of what we were doing.

[Harlem] And maybe they didn't let him go because he knew their faces.

Like, I'm trying to understand,

and it's something that I will never understand.

[Ms. Tee] Things changed for Harlem,

'cause we've never had that before.

[Harlem] The FBI and NYPD,

they formed a task force,

because we're talking about a child

that's now been pulled

into this madness.

[Joe] We had an old Irish supervisor,

and he said,

"Who is the biggest, baddest [bleep] in Harlem?"

And we all answered in unison,

uh, "Clarence Heatley."

That's how the investigation got going.

Myself and Jay Maher,

who worked out of the precinct in Harlem,

he was one of the backbones of the investigation.

So now we had the FBI coming on board,

and they went over my flow chart.

And it was decided that's good stuff.

So that's how the Preacher case started.

[Joe] So now,

how are we gonna get Clarence Heatley?

What can we do to bring Clarence Heatley to justice?

Before the Donnell kidnapping,

nobody, and I mean nobody,

would talk about Preacher.

After Donnell Porter's body was found,

now it's a cat and mouse game.

Okay. Now we have to

bring justice for Donnell.

We have to bring justice to all these other families.

You know, we have to get this guy.

When most criminals find out

they're being hunted by the FBI,

they lay low.

But Clarence Heatley isn't most criminals.

Even with the feds watching him,

he's rumored to have committed his most daring crime yet.

And his alleged victim

is a pop culture icon.

[upbeat music playing]

[David] Preacher and his crew with John Cuff

decided that they wanted to go

to Jersey to go gambling.

They sat at a table.

And at the end of the night,

some guys from Jersey is sat there.

They're telling war stories.

The guy from Jersey said,

"If we catch this dude, Bobby Brown,

we're gonna kill him."

One of the guys is asking,

"Why are you going to do that?"

He said, "Because he borrowed a key of coke from us,

and he disappeared."

Meanwhile, Bobby and Whitney get a house in Jersey.

And these guys

see Bobby Brown every night

because he's at that club in New York.

All the stars hung out at that club.

I hung out in Harlem,

you know, during the '90s.

Whenever I wasn't on tour,

you know, I had a bunch of friends that

lived in Harlem

that I would hang out with.

[David] Preacher asked the Jersey guys,

"How much does he owe you?"

He said, "He owes us $25,000."

So he said, "I'll tell you what,

let me buy that beef from you.

I'll give you $10,000,

it's no longer your problem, it's mine."

The dude was like, "[bleep] yeah."

Preacher often bought debt

from other crews and other gangs.

And as any loan shark would do,

they would up the ante,

which is what Preacher did.

Preacher, he upped the price to $400,000.

That's not what it was before.

You know, at the beginning.

[telephone ringing]

Bobby Brown let them know, "I can't come up with that.'

They go back to Harlem and they get this girl

from the projects who's absolutely beautiful.

Get her dressed up,

send her to the club.

[Bobby] At that time,

in the clubs, you know,

you'd see all sorts of types of people.

Uh, the hoods would be there,

you'd see lots of females,

skimpy dresses.

It was just that time.

They said Bobby Brown was all into her.

And she was like, "I can't hear you.

Let's go outside and talk."

Well, they started walking down the street.

And Preacher and them had a van

sitting out there.

And when he walked past the van,

they opened up the door and pulled him in.

[interviewer speaking]

Heatley, um,

I didn't know of the crew back then.

I only found out about them, um,

around ten years ago.

[interviewer speaking]

It was funny because I know

nothing like that ever happened to me.

[David] They took Bobby Brown to the Bronx.

Malik stripped him

and hog tied him.

They basically told him

to call Whitney

and that they wanted $400,000

or they were gonna kill him.

I've never been kidnapped.

I've never,

um, had a debt with any drug dealers.

I kind of took it really personal

that, um, my name would be

mentioned in such a dark light.

I didn't want my name to be associated with

anyone of that caliber.

And I went to the house and I seen him in there.

[Kevin] I don't know

if it happened or not.

If it happened, it was definitely brazen,

definitely bold.

But he probably knew he could get the money.

[Ms. Tee] Whitney was from the streets.

She's from Newark.

So she's been around

and she probably understood what was going on.

[David] She loved that guy.

She came there by herself

with a wig and big glasses on

with a bag full of money.

Went up to the house.

They said she threw the bag down...

and said, "Where the [bleep] Bobby at?

Got in the room, untied him

and took him home.

[Billy] Preacher said that Whitney was a gangster.

She came into the Bronx by herself

with 400 grand.

And then cussed him out when she paid him.

And he envied her.

He liked her.

The incident never happened.

I don't know how they connected my name

or even my ex-wife's name

to that crew.

And I really wanted to clear

the air about me

owing somebody for drugs.

I've never have and I never will.

I am working on me.

God is still working on me.

And, um,

you know, I like to keep it that way.

[Donnie] If Bobby Brown's run-in with the Preacher Crew

did actually happen,

we know he survived.

Most of Preacher's enemies aren't so lucky.

[Donnie] In the early 1990s,

one of Harlem's drug dealers

was named "Small Paul" Singleton.

He allegedly owed Preacher money.

And Preacher came knocking.

[Billy] When Preacher asked for the money,

he was laughed at.

"Like, man, you're pressing me about some money, man.

You got all the money in the world."

And that was the end of his life, right there.

All he had to do was give him the money. He had it.

[man] They lured Small Paul

to a location where

he was eventually brought to the Bronx.

When they were in the basement,

thumbs-down on Small Paul.

They're gonna whack him.

[Billy] And from what I understand,

he was sexually assaulted...

after his murder.

[Kevin] Post-mortem necrophilia.

It is not about sex.

It's about dominance. It's about power.

It's about control.

Well, there are many commonalities

that mirror other

pathological serial killers.

Like Jeffrey Dahmer.

The rules had to be adhered to,

lest you, too,

find yourself in the basement.

That torture chamber.

[Jay] Small Paul was killed and put in bags

and partial suitcases,

and brought to Queens,

and dumped back in the neighborhood.

Which, if you think about it,

the Queens detectives

are gonna think it happened in Queens,

and the Bronx detectives

are never gonna know it even happened there.

It's actually a really smart way of

dividing and conquering the police department,

'cause the police department,

really, in those days in particular,

was focused in the county in which they sat.

So if they found a body in Queens,

the detectives who found the body

wouldn't necessarily be questioning

a whole bunch of people about what had happened,

in the Bronx or in Manhattan.

[Joe] One of the things that made Preacher so unique

was an air of invincibility.

They thought of him as like Superman.

And with law enforcement, he was

virtually untouchable.

[Donnie] After almost four years of work,

the federal task force

still doesn't have any evidence linking Preacher

to the vicious crimes they believe he's committed.

Witnesses are too scared to talk.

So Detective Jay Maher

gets more aggressive.

I get a call from a source telling me they just spotted

Preacher's buddy, John Cuff.

[Joe] John Cuff was a former housing authority cop

in New York City

who was capable of running records, doing things.

[Jay] So I head over there

and I pull him over and I walk up.

And sure enough, it's Cuff driving.

So he hands me a driver's license.

I know the name on the driver's license

is not John Cuff.

But I also know there was an employee

in the Department of Motor Vehicle in New Jersey

that was selling real licenses.

So if I run this in the computer,

it's gonna come back real, even though it's not him.

So then we went through this game where I said,

"What's your name?"

And his response was, "You got my license."

And I said,

"Okay, step out of the car."

I said, "John, what's your name?"

And he looks at me, he goes, 'You know my [bleep] name?"

I said, "Yeah."

So I locked him up.

So we go in and I'm doing an inventory search.

And in his wallet was a list.

And it was several names.

And it was actually,

uh, not only names, but relationships.

All these different players

and relationships, or players themselves

that are getting money.

I figure it's an extortion list or a kidnap list.

So it would be like what they were into.

They would kidnap relatives

or people associated with these crews

and then hold them for money until they paid it.

There's a copy machine right in front of the cell,

so I copied it.

Then I gave him back his copies,

but I had my copy too.

And I turned that over to the FBI.

I charged him with criminal impersonation.

The license is real.

And so basically they did nothing with that.

He gets right back out.

[Joe] Like, when he was walking out smiling,

in your mind you're saying...

[chuckles]

I don't think I can say on camera

what my mind was saying, but,

"You got off this time.

But we're gonna dance another day."

Clarence Heatley's right-hand man beats the case.

But now Preacher knows

investigators are on to him and his crew.

So he begins tying up loose ends.

Starting by taking out his most deadly hitman.

[traffic blaring]

Malik Boatwright was probably third in charge.

He had Preacher's ear.

Mallik had prior military training.

He clearly knew how to fire a weapon.

He was a marksman.

So he was a trained killer.

[David Collins] And he had some personal problems of his own.

I heard that he was abused by his father,

and somehow, he came to New York

and got caught up with Preacher and them.

Malik was devoted to Clarence "Preacher" Heatley.

Malik would do anything for Preacher's love.

Malik said that he would give himself to him,

and I believe he did.

I believe Preacher and Malik had a relationship,

and Malik got into it

with other guys in the crew

because of the relationship that he had with Preacher.

[Kevin Early] It became an obsession

where no one else could have

that closeness to the Preacher that he desired.

But Malik was so violent and so potentially problematic

that his behavior became unacceptable.

I'd seen Malik go out plenty of nights

and it wasn't to go dancing.

-[gun cocking] -[gunshot]

You'd hear about the aftermath.

"Somebody got killed over here."

"Somebody got killed over there."

[gun cocking]

He was just killing people too much.

They sent him to, I think it was Georgia.

Well, while he was there, Preacher told John Cuff

that, "Malik said that he wanted to kill you."

John said, "Okay, well, that's it.

He gots to go."

[Joe Walsh] They had their special vote

and, you know, Preacher voted thumbs down

and everybody else voted thumbs down.

Now they had to get Malik back, you know, to the apartment.

They brought Malik back on to some, you know, story

that they were gonna kill somebody else,

and then they brought Malik down to the basement.

He believed that someone else is getting whacked,

and, in fact, he was the target.

[Collins] Then, when he came back and got out of the cab,

I was in front of the building.

I seen him, I said, "What's up, Malik?"

You know, and he went into the building,

everyone was saying, "What's up, Malik?"

They all went into the building

and I never seen him again.

[Ray Brennan] They went downstairs to the basement,

and as they enter,

Malik was turning on a radio.

[cassette player clicks]

[indistinct singing on radio]

[Gregg Soffer] They were so concerned about Malik

because he was so good at what he did that they needed to sneak up on him.

[Brennan] At that point...

-[air whooshes] -[gun cocking]

...John Cuff shot Malik in the head...

[indistinct music playing on radio]

...as he was turning up the radio.

[cassette player clicks]

[gunshot]

He was killed in the very basement

that he had supervised the execution of other individuals.

This is a killer

and crew

that killed indiscriminately,

that tortured indiscriminately

in the very building operated by the Preacher,

and I suspect it occurred in one place

'cause it was easily manageable.

[gunshot]

-[duct tape rips] -[saw slicing]

[Brennan] Preacher wanted his body dismembered,

and that's what they did,

they cut Malik's body up.

[electric saw whirring]

They were cutting up the torso,

well, with an electric saw...

[electric saw whirring]

...and then the blade got entangled with the large intestine.

[electric saw whirring]

When they switched out the blade of the skill saw,

they tossed it over their shoulder

and threw it into the corner of the basement.

[electric saw whirring]

But then they were extremely careful

about washing down the basement floor with acetone.

You could eat off the basement floor even after a murder.

[Brennan] They took Malik's head and his arms

in a knapsack

to a location on Bradhurst Avenue.

They were put in the refrigerator overnight.

I know for a fact that the head was in the refrigerator

because, during the course of the investigation,

I opened up the refrigerator and all the blood was in there

and the blood came back to Malik.

So they did decapitate him, they did keep the head there,

and they did their thing to try to, you know, keep everybody in line.

[Brennan] The following day, three or four of the crew

attempted to remove a tattoo.

-[water sloshing] -It said, "Dad."

That was the tattoo on the arm

that Preacher wanted them to remove

because, if found, it could be connected to Preacher.

They tried to remove Malik's tattoo with acetone.

[Brennan] And it wasn't working,

so they took the bucket with the body parts

over to the abandoned building a couple of doors over

and they threw them down into the building.

Once Preacher found out about that,

he directed them to retrieve the body parts.

He didn't want them found in that building

because of the tattoo on arm.

[Collins] They was trying to retrieve body parts.

Pulled it out, there was Malik's head,

and then they start playing soccer with it.

-[interviewer speaking] -Yeah.

Yeah.

We never saw any signs of Malik, you know,

overstepping his bounds or overstepping loyalty,

and if you're down in the basement,

you know, sewing up his body,

and he hasn't done anything to really deserve it,

what's going through your mind?

You know, "Am I next?"

Because he was so ruthless and they feared him so much,

even if they didn't step out of line,

they knew they were gonna be killed, so...

But, eventually, it was Preacher

who was the undoing of the crew.

[Donnie Wahlberg] Three months after

the brutal killing of Malik Boatwright,

some of Preacher's once loyal janitors

are terrified they could be next.

With no idea that his followers

are looking for their exit strategy,

Preacher orders yet another hit,

this time on a well known Harlem drug dealer.

[sirens wailing]

[Jay Maher] There was a double murder...

[sirens wailing]

...at 120th and 7th Avenue

that was carried out by the Preacher crew.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

It was a person named James Brunson.

His nickname was Jamie O,

and then there was Ali-MO,

whose name was Alex Brown.

[Billy] I was supposed to kill Jamie O.

[man] Roger that.

[Billy] Ali-MO reached for a pistol,

and I ended up shooting him once.

-[gun cocking] -[gunshot]

I shot Jamie O in the head 13 times

'cause I was told to close his casket.

[Ms. Tee] My friend Jamie O was definitely killed

by Preacher and his crew.

I got the phone call and I was like, "Oh, wow,"

and I ran down to 7th Avenue

and I saw him laying down on the ground.

Growing up in Harlem, and seeing death a lot,

you kinda get numb to it.

[Donnie] At first, it looks as if Preacher

is going to get away with murder,

but after working for four years to uncover enough evidence

to charge the most dangerous man in Harlem with something, anything,

Jay Maher gets a big break.

[Maher] I walk into the detective squad

and in the pen is the owner and manager of a store,

I nicknamed him "Sunshine."

So I said, "Sunshine, what are you doing here?" I thought he got robbed.

He goes, "I need to speak to you.

I have someone that wants to meet with you,

and he wants your help.

He's scared."

And I said, "Who's that?"

And he told me, "Larry Love."

[Donnie] Larry Love allegedly peddles PCP, angel dust,

on the streets of Harlem.

[indistinct police radio chatter]

[Maher] I said, "Larry Love wants to come talk to me?"

And he said, "Yes, but not here."

So, if you come to my apartment tonight,

I'll send my family away and you can meet him.

So I went to the Bronx with my partner.

Larry Love comes into the apartment,

he sits down, and we begin talking,

and he tells me, "You know about my boy, Jamie O?"

I said, "Yeah, I know what happened to Jamie O and Ali-MO."

So, now he starts talking about

it was the Preacher crew

and they're coming after him now. He's afraid.

I said, "Why is this going on?"

They want his business. His business was called Milk,

and it was nicknamed Milk because it was angel dust,

but they bought it in such large quantities

that you can't put it in a regular container,

it had to be put in a glass milk bottle.

Jamie O and Ali-MO were also partners,

and pushed back on Preacher,

and that's why they were killed.

Now they're coming for him.

So he told me he needs my help.

[sirens wailing]

[Donnie] Larry will testify that Preacher and his crew

committed several murders

if the government will protect him.

Jay Maher needs to run this request

up his chain of command.

[Maher] I can't remember how many days later it was

that my pager starts going off,

and it's Larry Love's code,

and a phone number, and then 911, 911 .

So now I get up and I call

and it's a payphone in the courthouse at 100 Centre Street,

and he says, "They're out there right now.

They're sitting in a van right next to my car.

Cuff and Preacher are in there and they're gonna kill me."

[Walsh] This particular individual had what we call in the trade,

he had street cred.

So when this guy, who had committed murders himself,

is talking about getting murdered,

and you could hear in his voice

how scared he was, we went into action.

So I said, "Okay, stay in the courthouse.

Let me get some people down there."

This is a criminal courthouse, and it's around lunchtime.

I know these people are nuts, but that's nuts.

The middle of the afternoon in front of a courthouse,

they're gonna try to whack somebody?

So I get down there, and I see the van

and I could see, from the side mirrors,

there's people sitting in the van,

and they're right next to Larry Love's car,

and then, for some reason,

Larry Love comes walking out of the courthouse,

even though I told not to,

and he runs across the parking lot and jumps in the car,

and it's like, "Oh, great."

The cooperating witness panics. [laughs]

He throws it in reverse and takes off

and goes the wrong way.

The traffic's coming this way. He's backing up into the traffic.

[car horns beeping]

He must have went about 8 or 10 blocks

against the traffic...

[car horns beeping]

...and if you watched it unfold before your eyes,

[chuckling] he was a pretty damn good driver

'cause he didn't hit any of the cars

that were coming right towards him.

So, now I see the van's reverse lights come on,

so I start running towards the van,

and Cuff looks over his shoulder and sees me

and stops just for a second,

and takes off with traffic, the opposite way.

[tires screeching]

So now the chase is on.

We're running on foot through traffic.

And we're running, and now all chaos has broken loose.

All these people that are there for court,

they're law enforcement officers,

all get involved in the chase.

I remember we went over the city wide radio,

"Three guys running with guns."

They didn't know we were cops.

We'll, to make a long story short, we get to the van.

It's Preacher, it is John Cuff in the van...

[indistinct police radio chatter]

...and we pull them over, we pull them out of the van,

and inside the van are Halloween masks,

duct tape, ties, and a lead pipe.

You know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist [chuckling]

to figure out what was gonna happen.

[police radio chatter]

Of course, we lock 'em up on the spot.

[police radio chatter]

But the US Attorney said we don't have anything to hold 'em on.

Two and two makes four with the masks and the pipe

and the flex ties and everything,

but he didn't commit the covert act.

He didn't get out of the van and kidnap the CW and kill him.

[prison bell rings]

So he was eventually released.

And I'll never forget, you know,

when he was released, he had to walk right by us,

and he just looked at us and smiled

like, "You're never gonna get me."

[Donnie] Preacher is off the hook and back on the street

where his murderous rampage continues.

[Walsh] When Sheila Berry was murdered, it was heartbreaking.

She was a victim in all sense of the word.

I mean, put it in capital letters.

[Collins] She was sweet.

Had she had her life together, she would have been a nice person.

[Barry] Sheila would sometimes transport drugs.

Not too often because she was a drug addict,

so Preacher couldn't trust her.

[Walsh] What happened was

Preacher's crew had ripped off another drug dealer,

and they weren't gonna pay him.

They decided to, "Okay, let's play it off on somebody else."

So they told the other drug dealers

that Sheila Berry had ripped them off

and that they would take care of it.

[Barry] I was told she stole some work.

So, if you steal...

I'm a janitor.

If I was around at the time,

I'd probably be the one that have killed her.

[Walsh] She was an aspiring rap artist slash actress,

but really into music,

so they brought her up to the apartment,

and the guys, they wanted her to listen to another track

that would help her music career...

[music playing]

-...and they put headphones on her and... -[gun cocking]

...they shot her in the head.

[gunshot]

[Collins] Sheila, everyone knew that she didn't steal no drugs.

They knew she didn't do it,

but the blame died with her.

[Early] These countless number of killings

are a reflection of the intensity of Preacher

that allows him to order death

in a way that makes him a terrorist.

[Brennan] And they took her body,

and it was like one or two buildings over,

it was abandoned and it was all boarded up.

But there was a hole in the roof,

so they brought her body across the rooftops

and they dumped the body down into the building.

Sheila Berry joins the long list of people

murdered by Preacher's crew,

who kill without question on his command.

But whether Clarence Heatley knows it or not,

the clock is ticking on his reign of terror

and time is running out.

[Maher] A CI, a confidential informant,

told me what car the Preacher was driving.

One day, while I was out,

I see the car,

and it's like three o'clock in the afternoon,

and it pulls over to a fire hydrant.

I'm with a rookie detective, and I was like,

"I just need to stop this car and check this guy out."

So I go to get out of the car. Preacher comes out of the car,

turns towards me,

sees it's me and jumps back in

and he takes off.

-[tires screeching] -He's in a really fast sports car.

So, I'm chasing him

at three o'clock in the afternoon down Bradhurst

over to St. Nicholas Avenue, up St. Nicholas Avenue,

on the wrong side of the road.

I'm able to get behind him,

but as I'm coming up behind him,

another car gets between us.

He takes the first right and gets stuck behind a truck.

But there's a car in between us.

So I jump out now

and go to go towards Preacher, but the truck move.

So when the truck moves,

Preacher's able to get around it,

and I can't get around the car in front of me, and I lose him.

[car horns beeping]

[Donnie] Preacher gets away,

but several weeks later, the police track him down

and arrest him for evading an officer

and reckless endangerment.

It's enough to keep him behind bars...

-[flash bulb pops] -...at least for now.

He gets put in and held without bail,

and he's in for a couple of months before we go to trial.

I go to trial with Heatley and he beats it.

[Soffer] He beat that case,

so what does that tell the people in the street, right?

It fed into that legend

that no one's ever gonna actually put this guy away,

and no one's ever gonna catch him

because no one's ever going to break the loyalty oath to him,

and if they do, they're gonna be dead before they can testify.

-[flesh thuds] -[electric saw whirring]

[water sloshing]

[Walsh] After Preacher gets off

the story went through the streets of Harlem like a wildfire,

you know, he was picked up, the police couldn't do anything.

So he started to think

he was even more invincible than what he believed in.

Same thing happened with the Italian mob in New York.

John Gotti beat the case,

and it ultimately took the power of the federal government

to go get him and to finish him off.

[indistinct chatter]

[Donnie] Three years earlier,

the FBI finally put away Preacher's idol,

Gambino family crime boss John Gotti, the "Teflon Don."

Perhaps to avoid a similar fate,

Preacher goes on offense.

His top lieutenant, former cop John Cuff,

has his own informant inside the task force.

John Cuff was absolutely essential

for the Preacher and the crew.

Why?

Because he had access to the law enforcement community.

The idea that there's a police officer out there

who's working for this big criminal organization that kills people is scary.

[Maher] So now the information came out

that Cuff has someone in the squad.

I was transferred, like that.

I found out the name well after the fact,

and it was a guy that I considered a friend

and I had worked with for several years,

and if it had not been for me reading this,

I would never have believed it,

but now I know why they moved so quickly

in moving me out of there.

I was made in undercover.

They took all my information,

literally all of my information

out of the computer.

So I became a number.

I was given confidential vehicles.

My personal plates were red flagged,

which means, if anybody runs my tags,

the department is notified immediately,

and it turned out that my plate

had been run several times.

So they wired up my house,

they had directed patrol...

I lived in an area that was patrolled by state police,

so if an alarm went off, they would respond.

They couldn't take me off the case at the time

because I was the only one that actually knew the players.

So I had to stay in it.

[interviewer speaking]

I had, I think, eight, seven, four,

and an infant. It sucked.

This was around the clock security on all of the kids,

detectives sitting at the schools,

taking them back and forth to the schools,

going grocery shopping.

It was really crazy, intense.

[Donnie] Preacher is fighting it out with the feds,

but there's also trouble brewing

inside his own deadly crew

when Johnny "Apple" Porter, the man who was allegedly

involved in the murder of his nephew, Donnell Porter, gets out of line.

[Collins] I was out of town

and Apple Porter

put his hands on my daughter and tried to rape her.

I come home.

Two or three days later,

Apple Porter comes running out of the building

and jumps into my front seat.

He wanted me to drive him to Harlem

to go get a bag of smoke.

We ride to Harlem.

We stop at a stop sign.

This dude got his feet on my dashboard.

He's looking out the window, and these little kids are getting out of school.

These kids had to be 9, 12, 13 years old.

Little girls walking down the street with skirts on.

He's leaning back and he said, "Look at this little bitch.

I'll rape this little bitch."

The anger hit me so hard

that I just forget everything.

[train blares]

And I had a gun in my car,

so I reached over and got the gun and I hit him in the head...

-[gunshot] -...bam!

I shot him with a 22.

When I hit him in the back the second time,

this dude opened up the door and jumped out of the car.

I'm running back, I'ma hit him again,

but the school crossing guard jumped over him and said,

"Please don't do it. It ain't worth it."

So I jumped back into the car

and I drove straight back to the headquarters

and I went and seen John Cuff.

I told him what happened.

-As soon as I said that, the phone rang... -[phone ringing]

...and it was Porter's sister.

She was at the hospital with him.

She said, "Popcorn just shot Apple."

He was like, "Well, how is he doing?"

She's like, "He's okay. He's gonna be all right."

He said that, "We'll handle it."

And I know what that mean.

-So he hung up the phone... -[phone clicks]

...and I looked at Jack,

and I said, "Yo, I know what y'all said,

but I did that.

My family has nothing to do with this. It's me.

I know what y'all gonna do.

Can I write my family a letter

and let them know I love them?"

And Jack looked at me and he said, "You know what?

We don't like that [bleep].

Just go lay low."

And that's how that happened.

[Donnie] No longer a member of Preacher's family,

Apple Porter goes looking for new friends

who can keep him safe.

Apple Porter was basically scared for his life.

They found out Preacher had turned on him.

The word's out on the street, "You're dead."

And then you get what you can only hope for is,

in the FBI or [chuckles] in law enforcement

-you get the... -[knocking]

...you know, the knock. "Hey, we needs to talk."

That's a quote from Apple. "We needs to talk."

[Thomas Freeman Jr.] One of Preacher's lieutenants

gave police the location of Sheila Berry's body.

[inaudible]

[gunshot]

They had dumped her body in one of the abandoned buildings,

and the roof and five of the floors

had collapsed on top of her.

So now it's part of the investigation.

You know, the US attorney's office goes, "Okay,

we need to prove that they killed her,"

and what's better proof than, you know,

finding, you know, her body?

But you always wonder whether a cooperating witness tells you the truth.

We dug in that building for five days, almost six days,

and you're wondering, as you keep going down,

layer by layer by layer, you know,

was that cooperative witness telling us the truth?

[gunshot]

So we continued to dig and dig,

and finally, on day six, we found her body.

Now breaking news. A chilling discovery.

Police knew there were victims of a bloody drug war buried in town.

Now they think they have one.

[Soffer] She was skeletonized.

She had a durag on her head

-which had a bullet hole in it. -[gun cocking]

And she was wearing a ring that I remember

we were able to help identify her.

[Freeman Jr.] Once they recovered that body,

they had what they needed to go in and start making arrests,

and that's when everything came crashing down.

Once the indictments were sealed and everything,

now we gotta find Preacher.

Preacher had not been seen for like three weeks.

Did he flee?

Did he get word on the street? Did Cuff get word to him?

Finally, he came out of his apartment.

He was on his way to the payphone...

[phone clicks]

...and the two crack NYPD detectives

that were part of our task force

jumped up and arrested him.

It was an opportunity to grab him,

and they grabbed him.

Even when he was arrested...

[handcuffs jingle]

...he still had this air of invincibility,

like, "I'm gonna beat this case."

[Maher] When I spoke to him after the arrest,

his demeanor was shocking.

He actually told me he was happy to see me.

That was not what I was expecting to hear,

but then what he followed that up with was death threats.

[Walsh] We were sitting in a very small room

and we don't have any weapons

if anything breaks bad, so to speak.

Preacher tested me there.

He looked right at me and said, you know,

"Who the hell are you?"

I looked him right in the eye

and I just said, "I'm the man that's gonna put you in the electric chair."

He just shook his head like,

"Yeah, he's the real deal."

[Freeman Jr.] When the feds indict you,

they give you the option of what you'll be facing if you go to trial,

and in Preacher's case, it was death.

The feds have like a 90-something percent conviction rate,

so nobody wants to gamble with their life.

So at that point, Preacher started cooperating.

I was shocked at how fast Preacher flipped.

This is the guy that's at the top of this whole food chain,

he is the apex predator,

and he flipped, like, pretty much immediately.

[Soffer] I didn't think Clarence "Preacher" Heatley or John Cuff

would ever plead guilty. They didn't strike me as that kind of guy.

[Walsh] He realized he was a dead duck

and he was trying to cut a deal.

And he told some of the co-defendants that,

"You guys are not going to see past those doors again

because I'm telling."

He had no shame.

I just thought that was just like, "Wow!"

[Billy] Out of everybody in this crew,

he's the last one I thought would fold.

But he's a manipulator.

He's a user.

He tried to sacrifice us to save himself.

[Walsh] I interviewed Preacher numerous times.

You sit down and you talk to this guy,

you realize that there is something wrong there.

He was definitely, in my opinion, you know, a psychotic.

Preacher is not just your ordinary gangster,

not just your ordinary serial killer.

He's a terrorist

who even the serial killers fear.

When you look in Preacher's eyes,

you just see space,

a blank stare, like no feeling,

and I'm thinking to myself,

"He has no soul."

But he verified everything.

About 10:00 o'clock in the morning,

the fire department knocks on my door.

-[knocking on door] -They come running into the house

saying that there's a chemical leak going on.

Everyone gotta get out of the house.

So my wife, they told her to go get the baby,

"We'll go get your husband,"

So they came in the room and told me to get dressed

because there's a chemical leak going on.

So when I got to the door,

-it was the Police Department, the news... -[sirens wailing]

Everybody was outside.

-And that's how they locked me up. -[cell door banging]

[Billy] I was visited by a federal prosecutor.

Mary Jo White says, "Before you say anything,

you have no attorney here.

Are you willing to speak?" I said, "No."

She says, "Well, don't say anything. Just listen."

She set a mini recorder on the table,

and she started putting in cassette tapes.

The first tape she put in was Clarence Heatley,

and he started naming names.

[interviewer speaking]

[Billy] Yes, he did.

Preacher betrayed me.

He gave statements on pretty much everybody in the crew,

and I heard the cassette tapes, personally.

[Walsh] As he explained each murder,

the thing that I couldn't believe,

he tried to rationalize everything to me.

He was talking about Malik. He was trying to rationalize...

-[gunshot] -...killing Malik.

He said, "Well, you know, that boy got out of line."

"Yeah, well, he didn't get out of line.

He didn't do anything outside of your orders."

And they cleaned it up so nice,

but they never washed down the walls,

and they made the mistake

of leaving that skill saw blade...

-[electric saw whirring] -...in the corner of the basement.

The FBI matched the blood to Malik.

One of his reasons for talking

was, you know, he was looking for a deal.

"Sammy the Bull" Gravano's name, from La Cosa Nostra,

was brought up so many times

because he got to walk on so many homicides.

So now you're sitting there with a guy that you know is a killer,

and you convince them that, if "Sammy the Bull" Gravano

can get away with that many murders and be out,

what do you got?

And we were actually successful [chuckles]

in using that name several times

to actually let them come forward

and tell us which murders they did.

[Walsh] But as he freely admitted murder 12,

US attorney said, "No," you know, "that's too much.

Now any kind of a deal is off the table."

One of the most chilling things to me

during the entire investigation

was when he's talking about the kid, Donnell Porter.

He looked me in the eye and he says,

"You've gotta understand, I couldn't let that kid live."

You know, they were actually afraid

that some of the people in the complex

would hear the kid screaming in the basement,

so the autopsy revealed that he was suffocated.

In some strange way,

I think he really wanted to tell his story.

He was looking for some sort of absolution.

Like, "I did all these bad things,

but these are my reasons, and please forgive me."

He wanted to say, "You did wrong and," you know, "God forgives you,"

or, you know, "There was a reason for why you did what you did."

But it worked in our favor

'cause he's baring his soul, telling us all the details.

As long as he was talking, he kept, you know,

sinking himself more and more and more.

So, by the time we finished the interviews with him,

the case was iron clad.

This guy's a monster.

[siren wailing]

[Donnie] Clarence "Preacher" Heatley confesses to 25 murders,

but the feds only have enough corroborating evidence

to charge him with 13.

Investigators suspect the crew carried out 75 more killings

during its bloody 13-year reign.

Preacher's confession puts nearly every member of his crew in prison.

[Collins] When they locked me up

they put me in the same unit with Preacher.

Well, Preacher comes up to me and I ask him, I was like, "What the hell is going on?"

He said, "Listen, your part in this is minimal,

but I told them everything."

I said, "You did what?"

He said, "I told them everything."

He said, "Anything they didn't know, they know now."

And so I wound up serving five years

for shooting Apple Porter.

[Billy] The last thing I heard from Preacher

was a message he sent,

"Keep your mouth closed and stand up while you inside."

[button clicks]

So I waited for five years and eight months

before I pled guilty to all four murders.

I took my deal.

Fifteen to life.

[interviewer speaking]

Believe me, I ask myself that question all the time.

[gun cocking]

How did he get these people to do this?

[gunshot]

The mind control that he had over all these people

is something that we could never really comprehend...

[child screaming]

...but to take somebody from a broken home,

you show them some love, some respect,

you show them some money, some power,

that was the hook, so to speak,

and then he brought 'em in.

[Maher] I sometimes compare him to, like, Charles Manson,

who can actually get a bunch of people to pull acts of violence for him.

He's very manipulative, he's very charismatic,

but he's very dangerous.

[Early] Manson had a crew,

a group of followers,

they were obsessed with the manner in which he spoke.

He had almost a hypnotic effect.

So did the Preacher.

[Billy] It was like we were all in a trance.

The life I lived with Preacher was definitely cult-like.

He was the Black Charles Manson.

That's who he was.

I've seen the nicest man I've ever met,

and I've also seen

the scariest person that you could imagine.

[thuds]

[Soffer] Clarence "Preacher" Heatley pleaded guilty

to a slew of very complex federal charges

that included 13 murders in aid of racketeering,

along with other charges connected to

his participation in a continuing criminal enterprise

and the use of firearms,

along with other racketeering acts,

and John Cuff pleaded guilty to similar charges,

however, Preacher was never found guilty or convicted

of the murder of Donnell Porter.

[Harlem Holiday] Nobody got charged for Donnell.

Everybody took plea deals, okay?

So there was no court trial.

[Soffer] I think that's a great frustration for a lot of people

because that's really what got a lot of people motivated

to work on the case.

It would have been nice to see some resolution,

but not every case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

There's a very high standard.

Even if I know in my heart that somebody did something,

you must corroborate what people are telling you.

[Freeman Jr.] Once Heatley got to sentencing,

he asked for leniency.

He felt like, since he didn't physically commit the murders,

that he shouldn't take the brunt of the weight.

[Donnie] Before sentencing, Preacher reads a statement.

"It's with deep regret and remorse that I am here today.

I have betrayed my family, my neighbors and my community.

Though, for the life of me,

-I haven't killed anyone. -[gun cocking]

I understand that, if your hand touched the gun,

you gave the nod,

or if you just were there,

-then you gave the devil his due. -[gun cocking]

[gunshot]

Whatever acts I committed like a coward

won't stop me from taking what I have coming to me like a man."

[prison bell ringing]

[bangs]

[Early] His letter that he wrote to the judge

was just an extension of the manipulation

to get what needs to be got

because, given what happened,

he should have been put to death, but he wasn't.

[Soffer] If individuals offer to plead guilty,

often, the federal government

will accept something like life without parole.

It avoids all of the uncertainty

and gets a sentence that guarantees

that the defendants never walk out of prison,

and that they'll die in jail.

So Preacher got life in prison without parole,

and John Cuff also received life in prison without parole.

[Maher] How many people they killed, tortured...

[electric saw whirring]

...chopped up, extorted.

Just the sheer numbers are amazing.

So if anybody deserved to be killed,

Preacher deserved to be killed.

[Walsh] One of the things that bothers me about this case

is how his psychotic behavior molded the lives

of these impressionable young men from broken homes

that maybe, if it wasn't for him,

they could have maybe made something with their lives.

[Collins] Preacher's a predator.

I'm pissed as hell. You know what I'm saying?

'Cause they dragged me into it. And I...

I lost part of my life.

[Billy] I did a lot of evil in my life.

I killed four people.

And everything I did,

I did out of love for Preacher.

[cassette player clicks]

[rock music playing]

[gunshot]

There's four Black men,

fathers,

that never had a chance to change, to grow

[tearfully] and it kills me.

[Holiday] Preacher probably could have been anything he wanted to be

because he was able to attract attention, attract people,

get people to bend at the will

-of the snap of a finger, -[gun cocking]

[gunshot]

But Preacher's agenda was violence.

Preacher's agenda was to control Harlem.

Like, nothing could go through Harlem without his okay.

When people ask me, after 30 years of doing cases,

including prosecuting terrorists,

"Who are the baddest guys you've ever seen?"

the words Clarence "Preacher" Heatley always come out of my mouth.

[Brennan] How do you describe someone like that?

He's just pure evil.

It's hard to say exactly how many murders

Clarence Heatley is responsible for,

fact and fiction sometimes blur,

and his reputation as an unpredictable killer

fueled the legend of the Preacher,

turning him into an almost supernatural force

who pretended to be a man of God,

a best friend, a surrogate father,

but in reality,

destroyed many families and countless lives.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching. Good night.

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