01x02 - Rampage

[bunniefuu]

[TV static drones]

[bright tone]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Boston police remain
tight-lipped about what could

be a major break
in the investigation

into the shootings
of Chuck and Carol Stuart.

[soft music]

- The search warrant
shows police recovered

what may be a key
piece of evidence

in the Stuart m*rder case.

The warrant on file
in the clerk's office

says that a black
jogging suit was soaking

in the sink of apartment 987,
and that was taken

into evidence by the police.

♪ ♪

- My client, Alan Swanson,

was living in Mission Hill.

The police went through
that neighborhood--

- Drop it!
- Go, go, go!

[radio chatter]

- Terrifying people.

Alan Swanson had a sweat
suit soaking in the sink.

That's what made them
put him into this.

- That sweat suit.

- Now, Chuck Stuart told
police his assailant

was wearing a jogging suit.

- And so they arrested him.

They never charged him,
but they let it out

in the community that they
had found their man.

- What they've done is to give
the public through the media

some type of bone
to chew on, you know?

To show that they're
out doing something.

Alan was scared to death.

He could barely talk.

He was the person they
believed had done the k*lling

of a white pregnant woman.

He wouldn't have
stood a chance in jail

if they put him
in general population

because even the Black inmates
would have k*lled him.

You don't k*ll
a pregnant woman.

Alan Swanson was kept separate
from everyone else.

He couldn't eat because
they spat in his food,

couldn't sleep because
they beat on the walls.

I would go down to the Charles
Street Jail to see him,

and tried to encourage him
and said,

they don't have a case
against you, Alan.

They charged him
with unarmed burglary.

He wasn't worried
about the burglary charge.

He was worried
that they were holding

him out as the k*ller.

- The entirely negligible
case against Alan Swanson

fell apart in almost no time.

The problem
with the investigation

is that the people
running the department

made up their minds what
happened before they ever

knew anything,
and that's what drove

all the police decisions.

There was always this sense
that this investigation

isn't really adding up.

♪ ♪

- At that time, I was
an investigative reporter

at the "Boston Herald"
in Boston, Massachusetts.

I can recall going
to a c*ck party

with a bunch of 30--

mid-30s to 40-ish lawyers,

and they knew
that I was a reporter

and worked at the "Herald,"
and when I said that I thought

Charles Stuart
might be involved,

the wives turned on me,
like, you know,

"Oh, that's disgusting.

"You want to blame the victim?

You want to blame
the victim for this crime?"

And that was very sobering
to me, because I realized

if the Boston Herald were
to do a story questioning

Chuck Stuart's
integrity and honesty,

and we turned out to be wrong,

we would have been destroyed.

Well, some of us thought there
were things about Chuck's

story that didn't add up.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- In the Black community
there was always

a lot of skepticism about
this story because, you know,

Swanson's a suspect,
and then he's not a suspect.

There was always this sense
that this investigation,

it just didn't ring true
to a lot of people.

- 30-year-old Black male...

- The crime was so bad,

to k*ll a pregnant woman,

that folks immediately
didn't even think

about anything else,
except people

from the community.

The people from the community
didn't believe it.

I didn't believe it.

- So wait a second.

Someone tried to rob a family,

a guy and his wife, there?

If you rob somebody,
you have an exit strategy,

and where that crime happened,
where the hell was he going?

- People who were
in the life at that time,

there was rules of engagement,
all right?

Definitely as a Black person,
you know,

you ain't--you're
not going to sh**t

a pregnant white lady.

Come on.

If your gig was
doing anything wrong,

the definite way to get
caught is to do this.

Why, you might as well just
walk into the police station

and turn yourself in.

- Growing up, we used
to read the "South End News,"

and they had the crime report.

It's what everybody
went to first.

And we would read it,

"Assailant advanced
on a couple with knives,

got $25 in cash,
and fled on foot."

That was Tony.

Crime and people trying to get
fast money and drug dealers,

all that was all around us.

But this crime

didn't make any sense.

If this crime made sense,

this thing
would happen a lot more.

So either this is the
dumbest criminal in history,

the most unlucky criminal in
history, or this is bullshit.

- I am sure there
are people who

were very street smart
who said,

this doesn't make sense.

And there may have
been Black leaders

who said to themselves,
this doesn't make sense.

This does not make sense.

I don't remember
people speaking out.

- In 1989, I was the president
of the Boston branch NAACP.

The night that
the incident happened,

I said to Ray Flynn,
who's the mayor, I said,

Ray, what's going on?

And they basically told me
what they thought

had happened,
and I said, you know,

that's not the
way things work.

Generally when someone gets
shot in the back of the head,

that's an assassination.

[radio chatter]

I said, Ray, you've
made a lot of progress

on dealing with race because,
knowing his history with race

in the city, particularly
during the busing, I said,

you know, you don't want
to turn things back.

You don't want to be
in the same situation we

were, you know,
five or six years ago

before you became mayor.

I said, I suggest
you take a minute,

take a 10 Mississippi,
and see this through.

Ray said to me, you don't
know what's going on.

You don't understand.

This has nothing
to do with you.

I said, it does.

This is the Black community
you're talking about.

You're making a mistake.

- After I got stopped
by the police and harassed,

I got pissed off
and I went home,

and I took out a marker

and I wrote on the soles
of each sneaker,

"f*ck Charles Stuart"
in my best graph.

I go to school,
we're at gym, and the coach,

who was Coach Costello,
he calls me over, he's like,

come here!

You can't have that kind
of filth on your sneakers.

And I'm like, I mean,
f*ck Charles Stuart, though.

So I end up in the
office because I

refuse to wash it off.

- Not at this time.

We talked to him prior to his
going into intensive care.

He is in intensive care
right now.

We don't--
we can't disturb him.

- I was a chief
surgical resident

in the Boston City Hospital.

Came in in the
morning after what

had gone on the night before.

One of the first things
that happened when I got

to the hospital was the chief
of the trauma department,

Dr. Hirsch, pulled me aside
and said that he was going

to make Mr. Stuart
my personal patient,

so I was responsible
from that minute

on for keeping him
informed on what

was going on with Mr. Stuart.

He had a major g*nsh*t
wound to the abdomen.

His nurse took care of him,
his family came and went,

and then there were
two Boston police detectives

that were there every day.

The guys who were
investigating Charles,

who were visiting him
every day,

they never bought his story
from minute one.

That led to some suspicion,

the fact
that the two detectives were

literally always there.

- The first assigned?

The Bobbys, the two Bobbys.

Bobby Tinlin and Bobby Ahearn
were investigating it.

They were pulled off the case
because they were immediately

skeptical of the story.

They interviewed Stuart
in his hospital room

and immediately thought
the story didn't add up.

People above them had
bought into this narrative

that this must
be what happened,

and nobody was supposed
to question it.

- He was pretty
reserved to the point

of being suspicious,
and I'll just leave it at that.

It was a pretty all-consuming
news story in the city then.

When he was in the ICU, some
guy had showed up and said,

I'm here to draw
Mr. Stuart's blood.

The secretary buzzed him in,

and then, as she told me
the story later, she said,

I recognized,
we're at Boston City Hospital.

We don't have phlebotomy here.

She tackled the guy,
and he was a reporter

from the "Herald"
and he had a camera.

So there was a little bit of
a circus-y kind of atmosphere.

- At this point
is questionable.

- What is
the number one interview

that anyone in the newspaper
business or television wants?

You want Chuck Stuart.

The guy is
the most pitiful victim

of the most heinous crime
ever imaginable.

- Two weeks ago,
the city of Boston

was stunned by the m*rder
of a pregnant woman.

She and her husband were shot
by a holdup man minutes

after leaving
their childbirth class,

and now their baby boy,
who was delivered by emergency

cesarean, has died.

His father is
doing OK tonight,

he's still in the hospital,
and police are

still looking for the k*ller.

- It was the biggest story we
had seen in many, many years.

It was a police story.

It was a mystery.

It was obviously you
had the investigation

unfolding on an hourly basis.

It was a political story.

It was a race story.
It was a society story.

- If I came into work
on a Sunday morning

and a 16-year-old Black kid
had been gunned down

in the streets, I would
be over his parents' house

knocking on the door,
and you know what,

they usually let me in.

But with this situation,
obviously they're grieving,

so we don't push hard
the way we would normally,

because that would k*ll
the chance of ever getting

an interview
with Charles Stuart

or possibly the DiMaiti family.

At the Boston Herald, the
interview was always prized.

- We had a really strong
rivalry between the "Globe"

and the "Herald"
for many, many years.

- Historically,
the "Globe" has been thought

of as the liberal paper,
where the "Herald"

has been thought of as
the more conservative paper.

There was an intense sense
of competition all the time.

- We wanted to be on the same
playing field with the "Globe."

This was w*r.

- You did not want
to lose to the competition.

- Losing on that primarily
meant the police would tell

one news organization
and not the other something

that was going on.

They'd give them some hot tip
or, so-and-so was a suspect,

and you did not want to be
on the losing end of that

by any measure whatsoever.

- When not getting
beat becomes

the number one imperative,
absolutely,

it can lead to bad decisions.

- Good evening,
I'm Mark Weill,

and welcome
to this News 7 late update.

Published reports say
that a prime suspect

was arrested
in Burlington this weekend

on an unrelated charge.

However, officials are
refusing to comment

on the case this weekend.

Our Team 7 coverage begins
with Ned Colt's report

on the arrest
of William Bennett.

[tense music]

- So the next suspect was
a guy named Willie Bennett,

who had a long history
of criminal activity

in Mission Hill.

So he fit the bill a little
better than Mr. Swanson.

- Willie Bennett was
an ex-con who had

actually served some
time for sh**ting

a police officer in the leg.

Wasn't a fatal or anything.

♪ ♪

- Willie Bennett
is known to police,

having served time for
sh**ting a police officer.

- Long before the Stuart case,

we're going through
the projects one night.

We see a guy standing in
a dark doorway, so I pull up.

What's your name?

You know my name.

I know your name.

I said, well, what's my name?

He said Dunn.

I said, very good.

Now, what's your name?

Willie.

I said, Willie Bennett?

He said, yeah.

So I said, jeez,
I heard a lot about you.

And he said,
I heard a lot about you.

And if you get in my way,
I'll k*ll you.

I said, if you get
in my way, I'll k*ll you.

I think I'll k*ll you first.

That's the first
time I met him.

- My name is Joey Bennett,
but, you know,

my family called me Toot.

All of us have nicknames.

My brother's nickname
was Train, so I was Toot.

And so there's a few
nicknames in the family.

My uncle, Willie Bennett,
his nickname was Wild Bill.

He was well-respected
throughout the city

of Boston.

I knew he was going
to jail for robbery,

stealing cars
and things like that,

but I didn't know the
particulars until one day I

stumbled on a news clipping.

And I read this news clipping,
and I'm like, wow.

He was crazy.

♪ ♪

I had it in a frame
on top of my television.

Has my uncle always
been a badass?

Yes, he has.

Have I always
looked up to him?

Yes, I did.

Has he done things?

Yes, he has.

He didn't do this.

♪ ♪

I was living at 7 Alton Court.

DCF had came,
removed me and my brother

from my mother's custody.

So we went to live
with our grandmother.

That was one of the best things
that happened to me,

because my grandma was
always a loving lady,

but to live with her and
to get that love that my mother

wasn't giving me
due to her addictions,

it was so, like, rewarding.

Right now it's just--

I just feel her arms around me
right now, because that lady

endured so much.

When the Charles Stuart
case happened,

I was living
with my grandmother,

as I explained to you.

You know, we would sit
in hallways listening to music

and chill, chill out.

But you couldn't sit
in the hallway

because the police was
running up in every hallway.

I'm 15.

I don't know what's
going on outside.

I'm just like,
oh, this is crazy.

So none of the other guys
have family members

that would allow them to have
people over, so I was like,

come on, let's go to my crib.

Went to my crib,
was smoking and chilling,

and the article
was on the shelf.

- We was over Toot's house.

You know, we were
having a session,

he was bullshitting around,
and, you know, that was it.

- Joey Bennett
happened to have

a framed news clipping
of one of Willie Bennett's

previous crimes.

And when Dereck Jackson,
his friend,

sees that clipping,
he looks at it and says,

you know, oh,
your uncle did that?

Did he k*ll
those people last night?

And Joey goes, yeah, maybe.
[laughs]

- I didn't know
Willie Bennett.

You know what I mean?
We were young.

You know,
we're smoking and drinking

and, you know,
we're just talking.

We're just running our mouth,
you know what I'm saying?

Toot running his mouth.

Toot don't know what
he's talking about.

Toot's young.

He don't know what
he's talking about.

He don't know nothing.

He's just running his mouth,
trying to seem tough.

- It was like
a game of telephone

took place in the projects.

Instead of just letting it go,
Dereck, being a teenager,

goes and tells his good
buddy Eric Whitney.

- I told Eric
about what Toot said,

you know what I'm saying?

I said,
he's bullshitting around.

And I told Eric that.

I said, man,
he's just talking.

- And Eric Whitney
is where the problem

begins, because Eric Whitney
embellishes the story.

- Eric Whitney
in turn told his mother

that Dereck Jackson
was in my house

when my uncle came in the room
and said he shot the people

and gave me the g*n
to get rid of it.

- His mother was dating a cop,
another dirty-a*s cop.

- Eric Whitney's mom is
dating Trent Holland.

And I'm sure Trent Holland
was anxious to make his name

by running to the homicide unit
and saying,

hey, I've got some boys
that know that Willie Bennett

did it,
and I can bring them in.

[police sirens wailing]

- I was a guidance advisor

at McKinley Technical
High School.

Dereck came to us really in
his last year of high school.

And what I met was
a nice young man who never

really gave me any problems.

The first time the police
came, I didn't see them,

but I knew they were there
because we dismissed

the school,
and all of a sudden,

Dereck was back
in the building.

And I said to him,
what are you

doing back in the building?

He said,
they're out there, Miss Gough.

I said, who's out there?

He said, the police.

I said, well,
what's the problem?

He said, they want me
to get in the car.

They're chasing me
around the building.

- I just remember them coming
there, telling Miss Gough

they wanted me to come
with them, and Miss Gough

and them was like, no, no.

- Ruth Gough, who was
the counselor and teacher

at the McKinley school,
called me because her students

were being harassed,
and she asked me

if I would listen
to their story

and see if I could help them.

- The lawyer took him home,
but they still went

that night and picked him up.

- Eric lured me to his house.

I don't know the police
are coming, you know?

So when I get there,
there's police present.

So they took me
from his house,

drove me down to South Boston.

You know, I'd never
been to South Boston.

You have to understand what
South End was in the '80s

for a kid like this.

At the time, I asked to make
a phone call to call my aunt.

They were like, no,
you don't need your aunt.

You don't need--you know,
you don't need nobody.

Just go down there with us.

Hm.

- A scared kid.

I hear it in my voice.

The pause.

I said "by my own free will."

That's not true. No.

They had me in the room.

It was a bunch of cops there.

It was dark.

And they wanted me to tell
them what I told Eric.

- We was just
bullshitting around.

You know, it was
a lot of rehearsing,

a lot of taps upside the head,
a lot of threats,

and so they had me down there,
and they're like,

they're telling me
what to say.

They're actually telling me.

The stuff Eric told
them and the rest,

they're actually
telling me to say this.

You know, it went this way.

And you've got a bunch
of old white cops

sitting around,
with fat Billy Dunn

there right here in my face.

- I remember me
coming in the room.

One of the kids said--
it might have been Dereck--

said, I'll take
a lie detector test.

And O'Malley said,
the only lie detector

test we have is Billy Dunn.

At the time,
I was a pretty big guy.

- You know,
the threat of a room,

being f*cked up
by cops in a dark room,

and then, you know,
you're going to go to Walpole,

you're going to do time.

You lie to us,
you're going to go.

- You've got to put yourself
in the place of a 15,


being told you're going

to Walpole for 20 years.

Walpole State Prison,
the nastiest,

and you'll go there
for 20 years if you don't

tell us the truth
about what you

know about the Stuart case.

The truth was,
they knew nothing.

- They knew they had
a scared little Black kid

from Mission Hill.

And we're there
for hours, man.

You know,
they're wearing me down.

You know, they did it.

They wore me down.

Mm-hmm.

This is all what
they told me to say.

- I'm sorry, what?

- This is what
they explained--

they told me to say.

I mean, we rehearsed this
for a couple hours

in that precinct, and, um--

- Yeah, I mean, there was
threats, you know?

So I said it.

I told-- I said
a lie, you know?

I said a lie.

And they went for the lie.

- Dereck and Eric, they
weren't read their rights.

They weren't told
that they didn't

have to talk to the police.

They were being threatened.

They were being bullied,
and they were afraid.

- Investigators obtained the
search warrants for the home

of Willie Bennett and their--
who was their prime suspect,

and were basing their case
against Bennett based largely

on statements made
to them and the grand

jury by Dereck Jackson,
a friend of Bennett's nephew.

Dereck Jackson says that
investigators and a friend

Eric Whitney pressured him
into giving false statements

to support the case.

Jackson later says he tried
to tell police the truth,

but says detectives weren't
interested in listening

to him then and continued
pressuring him

to stay with the story,
which he said was a lie.

Joining me now is attorney
William Crow, who is now

representing Dereck Jackson.

Essentially, what is
the truth that your client

tried to tell but says
he was not allowed to?

- Well, very simply,
my client's version

and the truth of what happened
as far as his involvement

in this matter was that on--

I believe on a Tuesday
subsequent to the sh**ting,

he was in a room
with a nephew,

I believe, of Bennett's, and
there was a question asked

of the nephew whether
or not Bennett

was involved in the sh**ting.

Bennett's nephew apparently
acknowledged that his uncle

was, in fact, involved,
although from what

I understand, he did it
in a somewhat lighthearted,

perhaps laughing fashion.

He certainly did relay what he
had heard to another friend,

and subsequently, as the story
got told over and over again,

it got more and more distorted,
and by the time,

I believe, the police heard
it from other sources,

it was very much close
to being reported

that Willie Bennett
had admitted

to having shot the Stuarts.

- Police first tried to find


at home at the Mission Hill
address he lived

at until three months ago.

They then went to Bennett's
sister's apartment

in the same housing project.

Still no suspect.

- It was me
and my grandmother sitting

in her room like
any other night,

and I don't know what made
me go to the window.

I don't know if I
heard something.

I think I heard
something out the window.

I kind of looked at her and
she kind of looked at me,

and I just kind of just got up
and I walked to the window.

And as I lift up the shade,
I can just see

a line of men with big shields

in their hands
just marching down.

There was a door that you had
to get in before you

could actually get
to the house door,

so we can just hear them
just banging and banging

and banging on that, and then
it was like a little window

to where I think they
kind of like broke that,

because they ended up
getting into the building.

- They just came in
and just tore the place up.

- They knocked on the door.

Can you see-- as you see,
this is three floors.

The time they came,
it was 2:30 something,



Naturally, people would be
in their bed right around.

Well, they wouldn't give
anybody a chance to come

downstairs to open the door.

They bust the door down.
Broke the lock off.

- I knocked on the door,
announced police,

and then I stepped back and
people didn't open the door.

This is the master key.

I had our master key.

It's called my right foot.

But I had a right
to do what I did.

I didn't just kick
doors in and ask

them what's for supper.

- I know he didn't do it,
but he wasn't here.

I mean, he had enough of that
when he was younger.

Now that he got
a little older,

he doesn't even do
nothing like that.

- People change.

- What happened here
last night, Mrs. Bennett?

- What happened?

They took my house all apart.

- How do you feel when you
see that newspaper story

this morning saying
your son is the number one

suspect in the Stuart case?

- How do I feel?

It's-- oh, I don't know.

Like I said,
I know he didn't do it.

- Number one,
it wasn't 3:30 in the morning.

I think it was midnight,
before midnight, I think,

if I remember correctly.

The house didn't
look much better

than that when we went in.

I remember that radio
on the floor.

- What?
- People stole my money.

- And we certainly don't steal
money on the highest profile

case in the history
of Boston that I

can remember at the time.

Nobody's going to--
not that we steal money.

Don't get me wrong.

Highly, highly
unlikely anybody's

going to take anything.

And again, I don't know
cops that take stuff.

I certainly don't.

Nothing they have I want.

- You know, they're wrong.

They grabbed the wrong picture
and put it in the paper.

Put the Bennett name
in shame for them

to be some glorified people.

No, it don't work that way.

No, that's not right.

- This is not my brother.

That's not my brother.
- That is--

- Who is it?

- That's Glenn Delonie.
- This is his son.

That's my--
- That's his father.

- And that's my son.

- And this is my mother.

They stole pictures
out of the house.

- That is not your brother
in the photograph?

- That is not
my brother, right?

I'll show you a picture
of my brother right now.

I'll show you.

- They was going
through the stuff,

tearing everything out.

Especially in Joey's room.

They were just throwing
things out the--

out the drawers.

They tipped the mattress over.

They didn't care how
they left our apartment.

They went in my mom's
room and started

doing that to her room.

I mean, it was messed up.

They went in my son's room.
He was only nine.

I have a specially
autistic son.

They put the g*n
to his head and c*ck it,

and I'm yelling,
can I get my son?

He can't talk.

They pushed me back
down on the couch.

So five minutes later,
we have to go to the bathroom,

they said--
he said, pee on yourself.

Are you serious?

They say, pee on yourself.

You all deserve that.

What?

- The newspapers and other
members of the media, maybe

even our stations, are making
your family look responsible.

What does it do
to your family having to cope

with something like this?

- Well, it's tearing us
all apart, I know that.

I mean, I hate
to even go out the door.

But I said,
he did not do this.

He was set up.

- Yeah, that's crazy.

I miss my grandmother, man.

I miss my grandmother.

That's my bedroom.

That's my bedroom.

And I didn't live like that.

You see all the plastering
on the floor?

You know what's that from?

They broke the wall.

You see all this?

That's plastering
from right there,

and they broke
the wall because I

was playing with a g*n,
and the f*cking g*n went off.

And there was a b*llet
hole in the wall.

My grandmother and them
never knew that, so--

and it just so happened
to be a .38 b*llet.

When they broke that wall
and they found that b*llet,

they thought that they
had the b*llet that

matched whatever
g*n they thought

was the ballistics to the g*n.

Yeah, that's-- when they broke
the wall and found

a b*llet, they--

that was their--
they knew they had something.

- William "Willie" Bennett,


to police sources,
the primary suspect

in the sh**ting of Charles
and Carol Stuart of Redding.

Police arrested Bennett.

- William Bennett
was reportedly arrested

early yesterday morning
at his girlfriend's

house here in Burlington.

- Referring to her son's
criminal record,

which dates back to 1973
and includes a conviction.

- Police commissioner
Mickey Roach

would not discuss Bennett,
only that the Stuart

investigation is proceeding.

- They've been going
at this, you know,

for quite a few weeks now.

- He was being held
for a Brookline

video store robbery.

The cops said,
well, a .38 or something

was used in the video store.

Well, the Stuarts
were shot with a .38.

Willie Bennett,
Willie Bennett.

We've got to lock him up.

And so the video store robbery
became a way for them

to hold him
while they were waiting

to build their grand jury case
against him

for the Stuart murders.

[soft music]

- My name is Will Zecco,
and at that time,

I was a hairdresser in Boston.

And I cut Chuck's hair
for about two years

up until the time
that this whole thing

kind of took place.

I knew him as Chuck.

I didn't know him as Charles.

He was very meticulous
about having his hair cut

regularly, so like every four,
maybe five weeks

he would come in.

He was very charming.

He was very charismatic.

Suit, impeccably dressed.

There was a whole
persona to him.

But from my perspective,
it was all about image,

how he came across.

Once he was in my chair,
the mask came down.

He was kind of like
a regular guy.

But there was never anything--

there was never anything
personal that he

ever really would share.

Never talked about a wife,

never talked about possibly
having a child on the way,

and never wore a wedding ring.

You only ask as much as people
are willing to tell you.

And if you get the sense that
that's the end of the story,

then that's the end
of the story and you move on.

- I remember
getting in my car.

It was about 8:00 at night,

and I got on the expressway
and I turned the radio on.

- Boston police
tonight are trying

to solve a gruesome crime,
finding a g*nman

who seriously wounded a man
and k*lled his pregnant wife.

- As I got closer to home,
they finally said the victims

have been identified.

And they said
Charles Stuart and his wife

and their unborn child.

So I'm driving there thinking,
wow, this is, like, insane.

I get home and the news
is on in the living room.

And I walk in
and his picture's on the TV.

And I look at my wife
at the time and I go,

that's my client.

♪ ♪

I don't get any of this.

I said, I didn't even
know he was married.

She said, what do you mean?

I said, well,
I've been cutting his hair

for two years and he never
wore a wedding ring

and he never talked
about a wife.

I just assumed
he was single, you know,

and then expecting a baby?

♪ ♪

We were following the story
pretty close at the salon.

And I remember they were
making an announcement

on the morning
that he was being

released from the hospital.

I get in to work that day,
my front desk person came out,

and she said,
Chuck Stuart's on the phone.

I said, the Chuck Stuart?

She goes, yeah,
he wants to know

if he can have a haircut.

I said, yeah, sure.

Do I have the time?

She goes, but he
also wants to know

if you can color his hair.

And I looked at her,
and I said, yeah, I guess.

I've never--
I never colored his hair.

So he came in.

He had lost some weight.
His face was very gaunt.

He was moving very,
very slow because he still

hadn't healed
from his g*nsh*t wound.

There was just this really
weird vibe about him.

It's like, what do
you say to somebody?

You know, what do you--

I was trying to think of
something nice to say to him.

So I just looked at him.
He was sitting in the mirror.

And he was sitting in
the mirror looking like this,

straight ahead.

And I said, Chuck,
I said, I really

don't know what to say
to you except I have a wife

and I have a daughter,
and I can only

imagine how I would feel
if something like that

happened to them.

Do you think you can take
and color these grays over here

on the side of my head?

I step back against the wall,
and I was like--

I felt like such a jerk.

It was like, why did I--

why did I put
myself out there?

You know, I should have just
gone on and done my job.

So I said, sure.

I said, I'm not really sure
what you want me to color.

You have a little bit here.

And he made a comment about,
well, you know,

I'm going to have to go
and identify somebody

at the police station, or
he made some kind of comment

like that, and I'm sure
the press will be there,

so I just want to make sure.

And I'm thinking to myself,
dude, seriously?

You've got two gray hairs
on the side of your head.

This is insane.

- Absolutely.

Willie Bennett's
face was everywhere.

- Willie Bennett.
- Willie Bennett.

- Willie Bennett.
- Willie Bennett.

- Willie Bennett.

- There was a feeling of,
we got the guy.

That was the feeling.

They got him,
and I think everyone felt,

if not better, relieved.

- I was very open
with my bosses

that I felt that Chuck did it.

When I saw the photograph,
there were

two things that struck me.

Carol looked
completely relaxed.

Her arms were at her sides.

She's still got
her seat belt on.

That photo to me said
she never saw it coming.

And Chuck,
it appeared he had taken

no steps to shield his wife.

Myself and a colleague
did a reenactment.

We went on the exact
same night of the week

at the exact same time,
and we followed Chuck's route.

- We know where
the car ended up.

And we know where
he says he came from.

And we were
encountering pedestrians

all over the place.

So many signs.

You can't go a block
without seeing a street sign.

The thing that jumped
out at me the most

was what Chuck didn't say.

- The word help.

He never asks for help.

- And then during the tape,
I felt there were times

when he became
deliberately evasive.

Deliberately.

There's a point at which,
when he's driving around,

he hits Tremont Street.

He knows it's Tremont Street,
and he says it.

- And then the dispatcher
is begging him,

just give me a building,
a location,

a sign, anything, Chuck.

Please, please.

- I can't--can't see anything--

- Chuck became more
and more evasive,

and then the more
Gary presses him,

"I'm blacking out."

- Who announces
they're fainting?

- It's the omissions
as much as anything.

He never says, please, you've
got to help me save my wife.

My wife, she's dying.
Our baby.

Never. Not one word.

He omits almost
any mention except when

the dispatcher
directly presses him,

your wife is shot too?

Yeah, in the head.

- And before he can say
anything, no questions,

Chuck goes, I ducked down.

- Always beware
the person who offers

an excuse before you've
asked the question.

- He says not one
word to Carol.

Not one word of comfort.

He never even told
the dispatcher

that Carol was pregnant
and that there

was a baby involved.

♪ ♪

I could not believe that any
criminal, if there was one,

would ever
have left that vehicle

with Chuck Stuart alive.

He's the big threat.
He's huge.

Carol was 5'2" tall
and pregnant,

and then he's well over


Who are you going
to sh**t first?

Who's the threat in the car?

Not her, him.

♪ ♪

[dial tone buzzing]

[dialing phone]

[line trilling]

- Hello?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[bright tone]