Free Davontae
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Well, from the southern border to the northern border, a new chapter in a bizarre murder case is playing out in Detroit. Four people were gunned down in a suspected drug house in 2007. A 14-year-old, partially blind, learning-disabled boy named Davontae Sanford confessed. Then another man came forward, and told police he was the real murderer. Now after five years in prison, Davontae Sanford may get another shot at justice.
From the HERE AND NOW Contributor's Network, Michigan Radio's Kate Wells has our story.
KATE WELLS: If your 14-year-old kid gets picked up overnight to go talk to police, wouldn't you go down to the station? Six years later, Taminko Sanford says she asks herself that all the time.
TAMINKO SANFORD: And that's something that I'm living with now because I never went down there. And I'll always be like - you know, like, why you didn't go, why you didn't go?
WELLS: Around 1 a.m. on a September morning in 2007, cops responded to a shooting on Runyon Street on Detroit's east side. Four people were killed; one of them reportedly a drug dealer. Sanford says her son Davontae, then 14 years old, was curious about all the police activity, but Sanford says she told him to stay inside.
Still, later that night, Davontae did go out and talked to the cops. At first he told them that he knew something about whatever happened on Runyon Street. Then he said his friends were the shooters. The next night, the cops took Davontae in for more questioning. Taminko says she thought Davontae was giving them more information about his friends.
SANFORD: I assumed by talking to Davontae - Momma, I'm all right, I'm playing on a computer, they just went and brought me some Coney Island. Sergeant Russell(ph) - like, your son is in good hands.
WELLS: Davontae, who is blind in one eye and learning disabled, was with the police all night. He was interrogated without a parent or an attorney present. And by the end of it, Davontae had confessed to doing the shooting himself. That interrogation was not recorded, which now in Michigan, would be illegal. Now, you have to record any interrogation relating to a felony case. But the tape was on when around 4 a.m. an officer walks Davontae through a written confession.
Sanford going straight home, hanging up his clothes from the crime in his closet, then he feels guilty and goes right back out the door to talk to police.