Everton Wagstaffe

The Crime

At about 7 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1992, the partially-clad body of 16-year-old Jennifer Negron was found in a deserted industrial area on Stanley Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Negron, the first of about 2,000 homicides in New York City that year, had been stabbed and raped.

The Investigation

On January 2, Brunilda Capella, a 25-year-old sex worker with a substance use disorder, went to the 75th precinct and said she had learned of Ms. Negron’s murder and wanted to report that she saw the girl being kidnapped.

By that time, police had interviewed Carrice Coles, who said that she and Ms. Negron were walking on the street after New Year’s Eve when, at about 2 a.m., a car pulled up with two men. The driver, she said, was someone she knew only as “Reggie.” Ms. Coles said the two men had a cordial conversation with Ms. Negron, which she did not hear. The car then pulled away. Ms. Coles said she and Ms. Negron then went separate ways.

When detectives interviewed Ms. Capella, she said she saw a man she knew only by the name of “Black” pull Ms. Negron into a car. Ms. Capella said the car was driven by someone she only knew as “Reggie” or “Shorty-D.” She said there was a third man in the car whom she did not know.

Ms. Capella accompanied the detectives to an address where she said Shorty-D lived. After returning to the precinct, the detectives checked the address and found an association with the name “Connor.” A records check revealed the full name of Reginald Connor. He was 23 years old.

Ms. Capella then viewed several books containing mugshots and picked out the photograph of 23-year-old Everton Wagstaffe.

On Jan. 2, the detectives drove Ms. Capella to an address on Stanley Avenue where she identified a Buick Skylark as the abduction car. Records showed the car was owned by Betty Bonner, who lived in the building next to the lot where the car was parked. The detectives then brought Ms. Coles to the lot, and she also identified the vehicle. She said it was the car she saw driven by Reggie.

The detectives created a photographic lineup that included Mr. Connor’s photograph. Ms. Capella identified that photograph as the person she knew as Shorty-D/Reggie.

Police towed the car in for examination and found a black headband that relatives of Ms. Negron said they believed was Ms. Negron’s. No forensic tests were ever conducted on the headband.

Mr. Wagstaffe was arrested on Jan. 8, 1992. Mr. Connor was arrested on January 31, 1992. They were charged with murder and kidnapping. They were not charged with sexually assaulting Ms. Negron, although she was found nude from the waist down, her bra was open in front, and there were abrasions to her anus. Both men said they were not involved in the crime.

The Trial

In January 1993, Mr. Wagstaffe and Mr. Connor went to trial in Kings County Supreme Court. The prosecution’s case rested primarily on the testimony of Ms. Capella, who had been in a locked hospital ward for heroin withdrawal for three days prior to the trial to make sure she would be present in court.

She told the jury that she saw Mr. Wagstaffe and Mr. Connor abduct Ms. Negron in the Skylark. She did not go to police immediately, she said, because she was scared.

Three witnesses testified that they believed a black headband found in the Skylark belonged to Ms. Negron.

On Jan. 27, 1993, the jury convicted Mr. Wagstaffe and Mr. Connor of second-degree kidnapping. The judge refused to permit the jury to consider murder charges because of a lack of evidence implicating them in Ms. Negron’s death. Both men were sentenced to 12½  to 25 years in prison.

Mr. Connor was released on parole in 2004. Mr. Wagstaffe remained in prison because he refused to accept any release on parole that would suggest he was involved in the crime or had acknowledged guilt.

The Exoneration

Mr. Wagstaffe began seeking DNA testing in the case in 1994. In 2008, the Legal Aid Society agreed to pay for the testing. The prosecution had claimed that the testing would not be meaningful because any DNA that did not come from Mr. Connor or Mr. Wagstaffe came from the third man that Ms. Capella, who had died in 1999, claimed was in the car.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wagstaffe had discovered a police record that showed that 24 hours before Ms. Capella first identified them, detectives had made a computer record request for him and Mr. Connor. This suggested that Ms. Capella had been fed the information to implicate him and Mr. Connor.

By 2009, DNA tests had been performed on hairs found on Ms. Negron’s body and revealed the DNA profiles of two unknown people, but not Mr. Wagstaffe or Mr. Connor. Both men took polygraph examinations, and both were assessed as being truthful when they denied any involvement.

In 2010, a hearing was held on a motion for a new trial filed on behalf of Mr. Wagstaffe and Mr. Connor. Ms. Bonner, the owner of the car that Ms. Capella said was used to abduct Ms. Negron, testified that she drove the car to a church service on New Year’s Eve and that the car was parked at the church — actually blocked in by a row of double-parked cars — until about 5:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day, hours after Ms. Capella said she saw the abduction. Ms. Bonner also testified that the headband found in the vehicle belonged to her daughter.

In addition, Ms. Bonner testified that she had told police where the car was parked. Police had not made any report of that interview and did not inform the prosecution of Ms. Bonner’s statement. Consequently, the defense was not informed. The defense lawyer for Mr. Wagstaffe and Mr. Connor had failed to interview Ms. Bonner.

The defense also presented evidence that Ms. Capella, although she was not listed as an informant, had previously provided information to the police as many as 17 to 20 times. The defense argued that evidence should have been disclosed by the prosecution because it undermined Ms. Capella’s claim that she delayed reporting the crime because she was too scared to go to the police.

The defense also presented the computer record showing that detectives had gathered information on Mr. Conner and Mr. Wagstaffe a day before detectives said they first interviewed Ms. Capella about the killing. That information had been disclosed to the defense during jury selection, but its importance was not recognized at the time. Now, the defense contended that instead of Ms. Capella coming forward on her own to implicate Mr. Connor and Mr. Wagstaffe, the police had fed her their names and she had agreed to implicate them.

In October 2013, New York Supreme Court Justice Sheryl Parker denied the motion for a new trial. In September 2014, the Appellate Division for the Second Department of the Supreme Court reversed Justice Parker’s decision, vacated the kidnapping convictions, and ordered the indictments dismissed. Mr. Wagstaffe was released from prison on Sep. 23, 2014, more than 21 years after he was convicted.

The Appellate Division ruled that there was a reasonable probability that the computer records, “had they been properly identified and exchanged (by the prosecution) in such a manner so that they could be used in a meaningful fashion during the cross-examination of Capella and the detectives, would have changed the outcome” of the trial. The court said that the prosecution was responsible for “burying” the documents that could have shown that Ms. Capella and the detectives had lied.

The Kings County District Attorney’s office sought a rehearing on the decision, but on July 27, 2015, the motion for a rehearing was denied.

In 2017, Mr. Connor and Mr. Wagstaffe settled their claims for wrongful conviction for $25,578,000, with $6 million coming from the state of New York and the remaining more than $19 million coming from the city of New York. Mr. Connor was awarded $11 million and Mr. Wagstaffe’s settlement was $14,578,000.