After writing up a budget line and e-mailing it to Prendergast, and then signing off on Angela’s story for the print edition, I found an unoccupied pod in the far corner of the newsroom where I could concentrate on the Alonzo Winslow transcript and not be intruded on by phone calls, e-mail or other reporters. The transcript had my full attention now and as I read, I marked with yellow Post-its pages where there were significant quotes.
The reading went fast except in places where there was more than the back and forth of ping-pong dialogue. At one point the detectives scammed Winslow into a damaging admission and I had to read the passage twice to understand what they did. Grady apparently pulled out a tape measure. He explained to Winslow that they wanted to take a measurement of the line that ran from the tip of his thumb to the tip of his first index finger on each hand.
Winslow cooperated and then the detectives announced that the measurements matched to within a quarter inch the strangulation marks left on Denise Babbit’s neck. Winslow responded with a vigorous denial of involvement in the murder and then made a big mistake.
WINSLOW: Beside that, the bitch wasn’t even strangled with anybody’s hands. Motherfucker tied a plastic bag over her head.
WALKER: And how do you know that, Alonzo?
I could almost see Walker smiling when he asked it. Winslow had slipped up in a huge way.
WINSLOW: I don’t know, man. It must’ve been on TV or something. I heard it somewhere.
WALKER: No, son, you didn’t, because we never put that out. The only person who knew that was the person who killed her. Now, do you want to tell us about it while we can still help you, or do you want to play it dumb and go down hard for it?
WINSLOW: I’m telling you motherfuckers, I didn’t kill her like that.
GRADY: Then tell us what you did do to her.
WINSLOW: Nothing, man. Nothing!
The damage was done and the slide had begun. You don’t have to be an interrogator at Abu Ghraib to know that time never favors the suspect. Walker and Grady were patient, and as the minutes and hours ticked by, Alonzo Winslow’s will finally began to erode. It was too much to go up alone against two veteran cops who knew things about the case that he didn’t. By page 830 of the manuscript he began to crack.
WINSLOW: I want to go home. I want to see my moms. Please, let me go talk to her and I’ll come back tomorrow to be with you fellas.
WALKER: That’s not happening, Alonzo. We can’t let you go until we know the truth. If you want to finally start telling us the truth, then we can talk about getting you home to Moms.
WINSLOW: I didn’t do this shit. I never met that bitch.
GRADY: Then how did your fingerprints get all over that car, and how come you know how she was strangled?
WINSLOW: I don’t know. That can’t be true about my prints. You fuckers lying to me.
WALKER: Yeah, you think we’re lying because you wiped that car down real good, didn’t you? But you forgot something, Alonzo. You forgot the rearview mirror! Remember how you turned it to make sure nobody was following you? Yeah, that was it. That was the mistake that’s going to put you in a cell the rest of your life unless you own up to things and be a man and tell us what happened.
GRADY: Hey, we can understand. Pretty white girl like that. Maybe she mouthed off to you or maybe she wanted to trade, a little poon for a spoon. We know how it works. But something happened and she got killed. If you can tell us, then we can work with you, maybe even get you home to Moms.
WINSLOW: Nah, man, you got it all wrong.
WALKER: Alonzo, I’m tired of all your bullshit. I want to get home myself. We’ve been going at this for too long trying to help you out. I want to get home to my dinner. So you either come clean right now, son, or you’re going into a cell. I’ll call your moms and tell her you ain’t never coming back.
WINSLOW: Why you want to do this to me? I’m nobody, man. Why you setting me up for this shit?
GRADY: You set yourself up, kid, when you strangled the girl.
WINSLOW: I didn’t!
WALKER: Whatever. You can tell that to your moms through the glass when she comes visit you. Stand up. You’re going to a cell and I’m going home.
GRADY: He said, Stand up!
WINSLOW: Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what I know and then you let me go.
GRADY: You tell us what really happened.
WALKER: And then we talk about it. You got ten seconds and then this is over.
WINSLOW: Okay, okay, this is the shit. I was walking Fuckface and I saw her car over by the towers and when I look inside I saw the keys and I saw her purse just sitting there.
WALKER: Wait a minute. Who’s Fuckface?
WINSLOW: My dog.
WALKER: You have a dog? What kind of dog?
WINSLOW: Yeah, for like protection. She a pit.
WALKER: Is that a short-hair dog?
WINSLOW: Yeah, she short.
WALKER: I mean her fur. It’s not long hair.
WINSLOW: No, she short-hair, yeah.
WALKER: Okay, where was the girl?
WINSLOW: Nowhere, man. Like I told you, I never saw her-when she was alive, I mean.
WALKER: Uh-huh, so this is just a boy and his dog story, huh? Then what?
WINSLOW: So then I jump in the ride and take off.
WALKER: With the dog?
WINSLOW: Yeah, with my dog.
WALKER: Where did you go?
WINSLOW: Just for a ride, man. Get some fuckin’ air.
WALKER: All right, that’s it. I’m tired of your bullshit. This time we go. Winslow: Wait, wait. I took it over by the Dumpsters, okay? Back in Rodia. I wanted to see what I got in the car, okay? So I pull in and I check out her purse and it’s got like two hundred fifty dollars and I check the glove box and everything and then I popped the trunk, and there she was. Plain as motherfuckin’ day and already dead, man. She was naked but I didn’t touch her. And that’s the shit. Grady: So you are now telling us and you want us to believe that you stole the car and it already had the dead girl in the trunk. Winslow: That’s right, man. You ain’t pinning nothing else on me. When I saw her in there, that was fucked up. I closed that lid faster than you can say motherfucker. I drove that car outta there and I was thinking I’d just put it back where I found it, but then I knew it would bring all kinda pressure down on my boys, so I drove it on up to the beach. I figure she a white girl, I put her in the white ’hood. So that’s what I did and that’s all I did.
WALKER: When did you wipe the car down?
WINSLOW: Right there, man. Like you said, I missed the mirror. Fuck it.
WALKER: Who helped you dump the car?
WINSLOW: Nobody helped me. I was on my own.
WALKER: Who wiped the car down?
WINSLOW: Me.
WALKER: Where and when?
WINSLOW: At the parking lot, when I got up there.
GRADY: How’d you get back to the ’hood?
WINSLOW: I walked mostly. Walked all fucking night down to Oak-wood and then I got a bus.
WALKER: You still had your dog with you?
WINSLOW: No, man, I dropped her with my girlfriend. That’s where she stay ’cause my moms don’t want no dog in the house on account of all the people’s laundry and shit.
WALKER: So who killed the girl?
WINSLOW: How would I know? She dead when I found her.
WALKER: You just stole her car and robbed her money.
WINSLOW: That’s it, man. That’s all you got me on. I give you that. Walker: Well, Alonzo, that doesn’t add up to the evidence we’ve got. We got your DNA on her.
WINSLOW: No, you don’t. That a lie!
WALKER: Yes, we do. You killed her, kid, and you’re going down for it.
WINSLOW: No! I didn’t kill nobody!
And so it went for another hundred pages. The cops threw lies and accusations at Winslow and he denied them. But as I read those last pages, I quickly came to realize something that stood out like a 72-point headline. Alonzo Winslow never said he did it. He never said he strangled Denise Babbit. If anything, he denied it dozens of times. The only confession in his so-called confession was his acknowledgment that he had taken her money and then dumped the car with her body inside it. But that was a long way from him taking credit for her murder.