Heartbreaking Story of The Korey Wise

Crime

On the night of April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old female, Jogger was brutally assaulted and gang-raped in Central Park, New York. She was rushed to hospital in a coma. She had a head injury. Her body was bleeding and her body temperature was 84 degrees. When she recovered, she did not know anything about the attack. An initial police investigation raised suspicions about a group of African-American and Latino youths who were already in police custody in connection with several other attacks in the park that night.

 During the police interrogation, the five young 

Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam confessed to being involved in the attacks. At the time, Korey Wise was about 17 years old.

 Since all the boys were very young at the time of their arrest, they may have confessed to the crime out of fear of the police.

Fact

But let me tell you about a sad fact. Korey Wise actually went to the police station with his friend Yusef Salaam because Yusef was only 15 years old. Korey decided to provide him support. Suddenly, Korey was legally allowed to be questioned by a police detective without the supervision of parents.

Korey had learning and hearing disabilities, he struggled against aggressive questioning.

Evidence

 But the confessions were presented as evidence though they differed in the time, location, and description of the participants of the rape. At trial, prosecutors also presented forensic evidence. A forensic analyst testified that a hair found on the victim was "similar" to Richardson's hair "to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty." Because there is not adequate empirical data on the frequency of various class characteristics in human hair, an analyst’s assertion that hairs are similar is inherently prejudicial and lacks probative value. Also presented as evidence was a rock found near the scene of the crime that had blood and hair on it; evidence that was believed to have come from the victim.

 The five boys were convicted in two separate cases. Because Korey Wise was the oldest of them all, He was convicted of sexual misconduct and disorderly conduct and sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison.

Matias Reyes

 In early 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer, and rapist, admitted that he was responsible for the attack on Jogger in Central Park. Reyes had previously committed another rape near Central Park in 1988. The rape of Jogger and the method in this incident were the same. Reyes victim told police he had fresh stitches on his chin. Police arrested Reyes but failed to link the sexual assault on a Jogger in the Central Park incident to Reyes.

 Now DNA testing was very modern. Finally, in this case, too, the method of DNA testing was adopted. The DNA profile obtained from the spermatozoa found in the rap kit matched Reyes' DNA testing. In addition to this, the hair sample obtained from the crime scene also matched with Reyes instead of these boys. All the evidences were going against Raees. The boys had been acquitted. Although Reyes was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes, Korey Wise had already served nearly 11-and-a-half years in prison.

 On December 19, 2002, on the recommendation of the District Attorney, the sentences of the five boys were annulled.

 Korey Wise is a good-natured person. It didn't go well with him, but he always did well with others.

 In 2015, Wise donated $ 190,000 to the University of Colorado Law School Innocence Project, which was renamed the Korey Wise Innocence Project.

 In 2019, the story was dramatized and released as a four-episode miniseries on Netflix entitled When They See Us. Actor Jharrel Jerome won the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his portrayal of Wise.

 In July 2019, Wise purchased a condominium overlooking Central Park. He is the only one of the five who chose to continue to reside in New York City after his release. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wise helped provide sustenance to senior residents in Harlem.