07x03 - In His Father's Footsteps

[bunniefuu]

[narrator] A promising college student, ambushed alone.

[woman over radio] It sounded like a g*nsh*t.

There's this body on the ground...

[narrator] A community in shock...

For this to happen to him, it's something that I will never be able to understand.

[indistinct chatter on radio]

...without any leads.

We have come back with no information, whatsoever.

This was gonna be a whodunnit type of crime.

[narrator] Detectives face a cat and mouse chase.

We knew we had an individual out on the streets that was willing to k*ll.

[narrator] Can surveillance footage...

What?

...track down a m*rder*r?

We were looking into the eyes of the k*ller.

There.

[theme music playing]

[dreamy guitar music playing]

[narrator] 22-year-old college student, Rick Bailey,

spends his weekends at home with his parents and his sister Katie.

-[Katie] Here we are. -Hey, everybody!

-What's cooking? -[Dad] Hey!

On time as always!

[Lisa Bailey] Rick would come home at least once a month.

He would bring all his laundry.

[indistinct chatter]

He knew when I was cooking dinner.

Soon as we were sitting down,

Rick was coming through the door.

"Hey! What's up? What's for dinner?"

[Lisa] Couple more? Yeah.

[chuckles quietly] I have to laugh.

[Dad] How are your classes?

Good. Good.

[Jim Bailey] Rick was studying criminal justice

at the University of Albany.

He wanted to find some type of career in law enforcement.

'Cause I was a police officer, and it's not a very easy job, and...

You know, I was a little resistant at first,

but I could see that he really enjoyed it

and that's what he wanted to do.

So, I became proud.

And, I thought it was, you know, nice following your dad's footsteps.

You ready for tomorrow?

Yeah. I sure am.

[music playing]

[narrator] Later that weekend,

Rick heads in to New York City,

to take the NYPD entrance exam.

[Lisa] He was a little nervous.

I used to tell him all the time, "Don't get nervous."

"As long as you study, you'll pass and do good."

I picked him up after he'd taken the test.

You know, he looked very confident.

-[door closes] -Well?

He said, "I think I did real well on it."

"Let's go get something to eat." [chuckles wryly]

Hey!

[indistinct chatter]

We had such a good weekend.

I made him chicken wings.

'Cause he was gonna watch the football game.

He had about four trays that Lisa had made him

to bring back up to college 'cause...

you know, college kids don't eat. [chuckles]

-See you at Thanksgiving? -Okay.

-Love you guys. -[Lisa and Jim] Love you, too.

Oh, it's always sad to see him leave to go back to school

'cause you want to spend as much time as you can with him.

But, you know, we were excited that he was in college,

he was very excited to graduate.

[wistful music playing]

[dramatic music playing]

Come on, come on, come on, come on, run! Run! [groans]

Jeez! Come on!

[Steve Mazz] We watched about the first half of the game.

It was a complete blowout. Patriots were winning.

We had been sick of seeing that enough.

I gotta get going.

He was exhausted. He'd had a long day.

I had an exam the next morning.

And you know, we just decided to,

you know, kind of call it an early night.

-See you, bro. -Yeah, see ya'.

[Steve] He had about a three-block walk home.

I went to bed. I didn't...

You know, didn't think anything of it.

[ominous music playing]

[phone ringing]

[woman speaking over phone]

[911 operator speaking over phone]

[woman speaking over phone]

[911 operator speaking]

[woman speaking over phone]

[911 operator speaking]

[woman on phone]

[911 operator speaking]

[woman on phone]

[police siren wailing]

[Victor Pizzola] To get a call of this nature in this part of town was unusual.

You would get calls for loud parties,

criminal mischief, burglaries,

not so much shootings.

[dramatic music hits a crescendo]

[Victor] When first officers arrived at the scene,

they came upon a man, an individual, a male on the ground

that was motionless.

The victim had been shot in the head.

Lot of blood at the scene. The victim was still alive.

Pretty soon, we learned that the victim was a college student

named Richard Bailey.

The sense of urgency is huge.

They have to react quick.

Seconds ticking away is a life ticking away.

The officers do everything in their power

to assist until emergency medical services could get there.

[ambulance wailing]

[narrator] Detectives Vic Pizzola and Jason Vogel arrive at the scene.

A canvass had immediately begun of the area.

[Victor] Members of the patrol division went knocking on doors

trying to see if somebody heard something or saw something

that was out of the ordinary.

[Jason Vogel] My first initial thought was

there didn't appear to be

a lot of evidence or information to go on.

[Victor] After an exhaustive search,

we did not come up with a m*rder weapon,

there was no footprints, no trails of anything

that would have led us in any direction.

This was gonna be a whodunnit type of crime.

You were gonna have to dig to find out who perpetrated this crime.

[Victor] The 911 caller was able to give a statement.

[Dave Rossi] The witness had heard a shot.

She'd stopped and she'd seen a couple of individuals

on bicycles, leaving the scene.

She described one of those individuals as wearing a grey hoodie,

and she indicated which direction that they were headed.

The next steps for us were to try to find

some video surveillance.

[Jason] The video camera's unbiased.

It has no stake in the game.

[Victor] At that point in time,

there wasn't a lot of home video systems.

So we drove from the scene...

outwards, looking for any business,

building, street camera that was in existence.

Time was ticking away.

A lot of video systems back then

didn't hold video for very long.

So we had to move quickly.

[narrator] Pizzola spots some cameras on the side of an apartment building.

[dramatic music playing]

[Victor] I met with the building owner...

who granted me access to the DVR.

I'm looking for... from 10:30 p.m. to midnight.

Thank you.

[dramatic music playing]

Took it back to my office.

Then I had the task of viewing all of the camera angles.

After watching hours of the video,

something did pique our interest.

What?

This could be the key to cracking this case.

I'm looking for two individuals on bicycles coming away from the scene.

Your eyes, your attention

is on every frame of the video.

[dramatic music playing]

[music crescendoes]

What?

I see two individuals traveling south to north,

which was in the direction away from the crime scene.

Two individuals on bicycles.

Both were wearing hoodies.

But it differed from the eyewitness statement that gave us

one individual in a grey hoodie.

In our business, we know eyewitness statements aren't always reliable.

Grey could be black on a video screen.

So we broaden our search parameters.

We were hoping that if we could identify the individuals,

we'd be able to identify the sh**ter of Richard Bailey.

What it didn't show us?

It didn't show us facial recognition.

It really didn't give us many identifying factors

such as type of bicycles, any logos

on clothing, or hats or sneakers.

I only saw individuals traveling north.

After that, I didn't know where they went.

[narrator] Hoping to track them,

Pizzola switches to another angle.

The second camera was mounted on the front of the building.

That gives you Washington Avenue at the intersection

of Quail Street.

[dramatic music playing]

[music crescendoes]

By switching over to the second camera,

I could see the two individuals on the bicycles were pedaling pretty quickly,

crossed Washington Avenue, and continued northbound on Quail Street.

This was a big break in the case.

By finding these images on this video,

now we had a direction where we can continue

a video pursuit.

We were going to use the video systems

and try to follow these individuals throughout the city,

and hopefully, right to their front door.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jim] It was late at night. Lisa and I had been in bed.

[knocking on door]

[footsteps on stairs]

Hang on. Hang on.

And I'm like, wow. It's really late, you know.

Who's at the door?

It was a Nassau County police officer and a detective.

Yes?

Being a retired police officer, I knew that was not good.

Are you James Bailey?

[melancholy music playing]

[machine beeping]

It was just a shock to see

your son lying in a hospital bed with tubes and,

and... [clears throat]

and wires coming all out of him, and...

breathing on a... on a respirator.

That's how he was breathing. He was just...

total mind... mind shocking.

[Lisa] I nearly collapsed.

I don't remember much

because it was so painful to see him like that.

Breaks your heart.

You wish it was you instead of him.

You know, we... Anyone of us would have...

took his place instead of him being there.

So young, and still, a lot of life ahead of him.

You just... can't believe it just happened to our family.

Nothing like this has ever, ever happened.

It's just... total shock when they explained

exactly how it happened.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jason] In the majority of shootings that I've worked on throughout my career,

more times than not, the suspects

knew the victim in some capacity.

Nothing seemed to have been taken from Rick.

We need to find out if there's somebody who'd want to do Rick harm.

[Steve] What's this all about?

Rick Bailey has been shot.

[Steve] They were asking me, you know, the events of the night.

How everything played out, what did we do.

[Dave] We were obviously probing to see if...

if we could find any explanation for what had happened to him.

Was he involved in drugs? Was he involved in gambling?

No. Nothing like that.

Rick had never had an enemy in his life.

He barely even got into arguments with his friends.

For this to happen to him of all people,

it's just...

It's something I will never be able to understand.

Because he was, you know, truly one of the best

and most kind people that I've ever met.

[Jason] After speaking with family members and friends,

we were coming back with no information whatsoever

in regards to any enemies that Mr. Bailey had.

If I can be of any more help.

[Victor] So any theory was opened.

It could have been a mugging gone bad.

It could have been a random act of violence.

[narrator] Investigators search incident reports

from the night Rick was shot.

There was a robbery that had taken place over on Ontario Street.

Approximately seven minutes after Mr. Bailey was shot.

[phone ringing]

Check this out.

The victim of this robbery reported to the police

that an individual robbed him with a g*n,

struck him with a g*n, took his wallet and then fled the scene.

We were given information by that victim

that it was a black male

wearing a grey hoodie on a bike.

This could be our guy.

We utilized his description to narrow down

another area of the city in which to look for video.

[Dave] We knew we had an individual out on the streets

pointing g*ns in people's faces and that he was willing to k*ll.

It was important for us to solve this crime as quickly as we could.

If this individual's pattern of conduct was gonna continue,

what happened to Richard Bailey could happen again over and over.

We knew we had two individuals on bikes

fleeing the scene where Rick was shot going in one direction.

And now we had another individual wearing a grey hoodie

in the area.

It was our job to find out if this was connected.

[narrator] Detectives Pizzola and Vogel focus on tracking

the two suspicious cyclists.

I continued my video pursuit northbound on Quail Street

until it took me to the intersection of Quail Street and Central Avenue.

That intersection is heavily video-ed.

There's a location called WAMC.

It's a production studio, radio station.

Let's see what we got.

They had video which my office had access to.

The parking lot camera at WAMC is facing southbound, looking across Central Avenue.

Play it again.

We saw two individuals on bicycles.

One crossing the street just opposite the camera.

And then the other individual on a small bicycle

wearing a dark-colored hoodie is traveling

westbound, on the south side of the street.

They seem to be traveling a little slower.

We were trying to figure out what this meant.

We were just thinking, if these individuals were involved,

they now feel comfortable that they're far enough away

from the scene, that they can slow down

and not draw attention to themselves

by running away quickly.

This video continued to show us a direction of travel

for two individuals that we would like to speak with.

Freeze it right there.

[Jason] What we can't see on this footage,

like with the 522 Washington Avenue footage,

we can't identify who the two people are that are on the bikes.

[Victor] We have to identify these guys.

We have to get them in and talk to them.

We have to get their stories.

We're becoming more of the belief that they were involved with this crime.

[melancholy music playing]

[Jim] We spoke with the doctor.

And they told us he's... he's... He's brain dead.

He's paralyzed from the neck down.

That he's never, ever gonna regain consciousness.

[Lisa] I was in utter desperation.

I was crying very hard

and hoping. I would whisper,

"Please wake up, Rick, come on."

You'd see his foot move and you'd be like, oh, wow. Okay, here it is.

He's gonna get up. You know, there's always hope.

There's always hope, but, as time went on, you realize that...

there is no hope.

[stuttering] You wanna do everything possible...

but after speaking with so many medical people...

...the decision was...

[stutters]

He can't live like this. He can't...

be in a bed for the rest of his life.

Just not regaining consciousness.

It was the most difficult decision that Lisa and I had...

have ever made in our lives that...

It was just...

It was terrible. It was... It was horrible.

The only thing that kinda helped us along with it

was...

Rick was an organ donor.

And, you know, my wife and I sat down,

you know, trying to figure out the decision.

We came to the realization that...

you know, part of him can live through other people.

[Lisa] I told my husband

we will not let this tragedy

be a negative, that we have to turn it into something positive,

and basically, that's what he wanted to do,

was to help.

That's how we get strength.

To know that...

he did good. 'Cause he was a good person.

[sniffles]

Thank you.

He didn't make it.

In any homicide, the end of life is traumatic for the loved ones.

The families, the friends. But it's traumatic for us, too.

There are family members that are hurting,

that are looking for answers,

and it's our job to give a sense of closure for the family.

We take the next logical step

and start looking for video locations

westbound on Central Avenue from Quail Street.

[Jason] It's extremely important

to get these two individuals from where they started to where they finished.

The ultimate goal is to get them as close to their ending point

as we possibly can.

We want to make sure that there's no one else

these two individuals can hurt.

[Victor] We come to the city-owned camera

at Central and Ontario.

[Jason] Play it again.

There!

There's one. Where's the other?

[Victor] These are the same individuals we saw at WAMC traveling westbound.

They cut through the parking lot on the east side of the McDonald's restaurant.

That is a thoroughfare into an area of the city called Arbor Hill.

We continued our video pursuit into various locations.

We're looking for a recognition view,

we're looking for a street-level camera

eye-level, that is three feet away from somebody

where you can say, "Dah, that's who it is."

[Victor] Anything yet?

The last place we see these two individuals on bicycles

is in the parking lot of McDonald's

and then they disappeared.

There's a level of disappointment.

We cast this huge net, and we dragged in all this video

and then it comes up to be a letdown.

[cell phone ringing]

Pizzola.

Perfect. I'm on my way.

[Victor] I went to a restaurant a block and a half away

from the robbery that occurred after Richard Bailey was shot.

It was called Trios Deli.

They have surveillance video equipment there

that may have captured the individuals

that committed this crime either coming or going.

I spoke with the manager and asked him if I could view the video for that night.

He granted me access to the camera system.

This put us in the location of the second robbery.

I brought the video system to the time period

and I was scrubbing through the video little quicker than I normally would.

Oh!

Incredible!

Whoa.

I captured an image of an individual wearing a grey hoodie

riding a bicycle away from the scene.

I'm thinking to myself,

this isn't helping me. I don't see a face, I don't see a logo.

I don't see any identifying characteristics

that are gonna lead us to who this individual is.

Fortunate for us, Trios had a second video camera

that faced the opposite direction.

It's very frustrating at this point.

We're just looking to get a clean image

so we can figure out who this person was.

At the end of the video clip,

the individual's hoodie blows backwards

like he's traveling quickly.

We finally see a glimpse of some detail

of who this person was.

We could see it was a younger, black male.

This guy matches the description, he's in the area at the time

and he's leaving the scene.

It's an exciting moment where I thought, "Boy, this could be our guy."

We were quite possibly looking into the eyes of the k*ller.

We had enough detail where somebody would recognize who that was.

We were able to distribute that picture into the community

saying we're looking to talk to this individual.

Anybody knows, please call the detectives.

[Steve] Rick had hundreds of friends.

Rick dying...

It crushed, you know, an entire community.

His parents were obviously devastated.

I can't, ever, comprehend what they've gone through.

But, the ripple effects of this event...

Everyone knew him.

Not any person that he's ever met has had a bad thing to say about him.

And...

A community of thousands was affected by this loss.

It was huge.

[narrator] Weeks pass with no developments.

The investigation started to stall out.

We didn't have any more footage to really give us any insight,

so, while people were still working countless hours on it,

it became more fishing, at this point,

trying to find anybody who may have information.

At that point, we conducted any interview that we could

with anyone,

whether it was someone that had been arrested for an unrelated crime,

or someone that was coming forward

saying that they had information about the Bailey homicide.

No, doesn't ring a bell.

We received a tip of an individual named De Von Callicutt

who may have been involved in the crime.

Okay, thanks.

That happens a lot.

A lot of names are thrown out during investigations.

Often times they lead to nothing, but you have to follow those leads.

Callicutt, got it.

[Jason] About a month after the Bailey homicide,

De Von Callicutt was arrested for possession of a firearm,

and he was brought down to the police station.

So, we're thinking, "Okay, this g*n could be our m*rder weapon."

So, now, it starts to get a little more interesting.

De Von Callicutt indicated that he was not involved.

He was willing to take a polygraph.

You like riding bikes, De Von?

Yeah.

You like sh**ting g*ns, De Von?

The result of that examination was...

No, man, it wasn't me.

[Victor] He passed it.

[Dave] The answers that he gave were deemed truthful.

So, it felt like we hit another wall.

The De Von Callicutt angle wasn't what we were looking for.

A lot of us in the investigative side were thinking,

"This could be a long time if we could ever solve this case."

[Dave] There are plenty of crimes that are never solved.

The further away you get from the date and time of the homicide,

you start to wonder

if this is going to become one of those cases that just goes in that pile.

[narrator] Investigators tap into all their street contacts for any leads.

[telephone ringing]

Vogel. Yeah, put him through.

[Jason] We're lucky enough to have an individual come forward.

This individual was able to tell us

that he was in the area of McDonald's on Central Avenue

on the day of the Richard Bailey homicide,

and that he recalls hearing police sirens.

And then he remembers next seeing two people

making a left hand turn on Central Avenue

going west bound from Quail Street.

And once these individuals rode past him,

he identified them as being

King Modest and Ricardo Caldwell.

This was a big moment in the investigation

because now we had a name that we could put to these two individuals.

What was really important about it was that it was so believable

because he didn't know what footage we had.

He just told us the story.

And then we could go back and look

and see that the footage we had corroborated his story.

[Jason] Now that we've identified the two individuals on the bike,

our next steps were to try and obtain any evidence,

that would tie these two individuals

to the Bailey homicide.

We had someone step forward that told us they could

have a conversation with King Modest.

[Dave] This informant was looking at quite a bit of time

and said that if King Modest was involved in this

he could get him to talk about it.

The next step was somewhat unprecedented.

We actually sprung him from jail.

[Victor] The individual was provided with some recording equipment.

And he went off about his business

in an attempt to try and get whatever information he could.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

[Jim] They would contact us all the time

and let us know what's going on

and they would just say to us, you know,

"Be patient, we're gonna get you where you wanna be."

Just give us time...

Okay.

...we're gonna get justice for Rick.

Just be patient.

[narrator] The informant returns to Albany PD.

[Victor] We were told that King Modest was on this audio.

We were really excited about this

because for the first time we were gonna hear,

from the mouth of somebody that was involved in this,

exactly what happened that night.

And when we heard that recording...

We couldn't believe it.

[King Modest speaking over recorder]

[King Modest speaking over recorder]

[Victor] Instantly we could hear two individuals speaking on the audio.

We heard who we believe to be King Modest,

describing what had taken place.

[King Modest speaking over recorder]

[man speaking over recorder]

[Jason] We could hear King Modest describing

what his role along with Ricardo Caldwell's role was during this sh**ting.

He and Caldwell were the lookouts.

And that someone by the street name of Cut,

was the person that went up to the college kid.

And ended up sh**ting him.

[King Modest speaking over recorder]

[narrator] Ratchet is street slang for g*n.

[King Modest speaking over recorder]

King Modest told his friend, on the recording

that, yes, he was there

and yes, Ricardo Caldwell was there.

But it was Cut, who had the g*n.

And it was Cut who shot Rick Bailey.

[King Modest speaking over recorder]

[Jason] This was so important because it's a candid conversation.

This was not someone talking to the police,

you know, maybe telling them what they wanna hear.

This is King Modest,

not having any idea he was being recorded

telling a close friend what happened to Rick Bailey that night.

[narrator] King Modest, just 17-years-old

and 18-year-old Ricardo Caldwell,

are brought in for questioning.

Both King Modest and Ricardo Caldwell

were in separate rooms but they essentially told the same story.

And that was, the three of them were out

committing robberies that night.

And it was a person they called Cut

who put the g*n to Rick's head and m*rder*d him.

So what's Cut's real name?

-De Von Callicutt. -De Von Callicutt.

[Jason] It was shocking to me,

that they were implicating De Von Callicutt.

Because we knew that De Von Callicutt had passed a polygraph test.

[narrator] It's enough to gain a search warrant

for De Von Callicutt's cell phone records.

[Dave] Those records showed us that,

De Von Callicutt was in the area where Rick was k*lled

at the time that Rick was k*lled.

So we knew we had our guy.

It surprises me that someone was able to pass the polygraph.

It takes a special type of person to be able to lie

and not give off those signals that are usually picked up on.

[Victor] What we've learned is that a good liar

could beat a polygraph.

And we do believe that Mr. Callicutt was exactly that.

He was a good liar.

[narrator] Modest and Caldwell agreed to take part

in separate walkthroughs of the crime scene.

[police officer speaking]

[police officer speaking]

[police officer speaking]

[police officer speaking]

[narrator] Modest and Caldwell's stories match.

providing police with a chilling account

of Richard Bailey's m*rder.

[Dave] The evening started with Ricardo Caldwell,

King Modest, De Von Callicutt gambling.

Ricardo Caldwell lost a bunch of money,

he was upset about it.

It was De Von Callicutt's idea to go get some free money.

Which is, "Let's go rob some people."

They got on their bikes and they were looking for victims.

They came upon Richard Bailey

on South Lake near Yates Street.

[Dave] De Von Callicutt and Ricardo Caldwell

rode up to him while King Modest stood look out at an intersection.

De Von Callicutt approached Rick,

attempted to rob him,

and ultimately shot him in the head.

[g*nsh*t firing]

King Modest and Ricardo Caldwell fled.

De Von Callicutt fled in a different direction. Went around the corner.

Saw an individual who he thought he could rob.

Put the same g*n right to the neck of that individual.

Robbed that person...

and rode off into the night.

The fact that De Von Callicutt could sh**t Rick Bailey in the head

and ride around the corner and put that same g*n

to the face of another individual.

Someone who could do that, who's that cold-blooded.

That's a coldness that I haven't seen much

in my time as a prosecutor.

[narrator] In exchange for testimony against De Von Callicutt,

Modest and Caldwell plead guilty

to attempted robbery.

Modest is sentenced to ten years.

Caldwell to 12.

De Von Callicutt is convicted of armed robbery

and first degree m*rder.

He is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The security camera footage was crucial in solving this crime.

Without it, I think this would be a cold case.

I don't believe it ever would have been solved without that footage.

It gave us confidence that we didn't just

have to rely on what the witnesses said.

We could see it with our own eyes.

It was what we needed to determine what happened that night to Rick.

[Jim] I was very angry that...

Rick wasn't able to take the next step in life.

He had worked so hard, to get where he was.

And he was graduating in a month from college.

And Lisa and I were very excited

to see what his next phase in life would be.

[Lisa] I think he'd have kids. He wanted a big family.

You know, he used to joke with me,

"Oh, I want six kids."

I think Rick would have been an awesome dad.

[Jim] The Albany Police Department

made him an honorary police officer.

And that was just... That was amazing.

Every year we have a benefit for Rick.

A football tournament, where we raise money for different charities.

We've actually had, at this point, 13 fundraisers.

Each year has been bigger than the one before.

He was just a great person throughout his life.

And that's why we've always had such successful turnout.

It's just amazing to show what kind of person he was.

That all these people still look forward to coming to this every year.

and celebrating the life of Rick.

He would be proud.