The Horrific Story of The Central Park Five- How Five Innocent Teenagers Were Sent To Prison

The case of Central Park jogger Trisha Meili, which resulted in the conviction of "The Central Park Five," was a classic example of not just rampant criminality in 1980s New York City, but also endemic bigotry, which resulted in the wrongful incarceration of these minority youngsters. The five young men — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Korey Wise, and Kevin Richardson, who were 14 to 16 at the time of their incarceration — were finally exonerated after years in prison.

Inside the Story

What actually happened in Central Park that April night was an anarchistic gathering of criminal mischief and disruption by roughly 30 youngsters. The troublemakers tossed rocks at passing automobiles at first, but their antics swiftly escalated into actual assaults on joggers.

The obvious offenses drew immediate attention and resulted in the arrests of 14-year-olds Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana, who officials suspected were part of that crew of roaming adolescents. Meili was attacked and sexually molested between the hours of 9 and 10 p.m., when the two lads were being held at a police station.

When Meili was found in a muddy Central Park gully at 1:30 a.m., Richardson and Santana were still at the Central Park precinct. Meili's skull was shattered, her body temperature was 84 degrees, and she had lost 75 percent of her blood. She was almost dead.

A detective working on Meili's case urged cops at the station to detain the two boys there as suspects even though they were about to be released with nothing more than a ticket to family court.

The Central Park Five

Many New Yorkers were in a frenzy the next morning. The first news reports about the night's events had filled the newsstands, public radio stations, and local television newscasts.

A clip of the coerced confession;

While Richardson and Santana were being questioned — and possibly coerced into confessing to acts they had no knowledge of — police went out into the community to gather more potential suspects. During the second phase of investigation, 15-year-olds Antron McCray and Yusef Salaam, along with 16-year-old Korey Wise, were added to the list, completing the infamous Central Park five.

Santana later said that he had no knowledge what happened to Trisha Meili, but that police had threatened him with spending the rest of his life on Rikers Island if he did not confess.

After days of interrogation, four of the five boys were videotaped discussing the beating of Trisha Meili. Richardson, Santana, McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Wise were charged with attempted murder, first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse, two charges of first-degree assault, and first-degree riot.

Each of the five boys recanted their statements as soon as their interrogations ended, but charges were already filed against them.

Waking Up From Coma

Trisha Meili was in a 12-day coma with terrible injuries — a deformed face, 75% of her blood drained, major cognitive loss, and amnesia upon waking up — the media and notable New York figures backed the idea that the five boys were to blame.

Donald Trump, a wealthy playboy and Manhattan real estate legend at the time, yelled this disrespectful, bigoted propaganda.

“You better believe that I hate the people that took this girl and raped her brutally. You better believe it,” he said. He paid $85,000 for a now-famous full-page ad in The New York Times and other local newspapers calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in the case of the Central Park jogger.

The Trial

The Central Park Five were tried in two separate trials, the first of which began in August 1990. The initial defendants were Salaam, McCray, and Santana. In the rape and beating of Trisha Meili, a jogger in Central Park, all five would plead not guilty. They claimed that their filmed confessions were completely coerced. Likewise, none of the other seven witnesses who testified in court about the other acts of mayhem perpetrated by the horde of arrogant adolescents could identify McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, or Wise.

Yet, the jurors couldn't comprehend why five tall lads would admit to raping Central Park jogger Trisha Meili if they hadn't actually done it.

Despite the three boys, who were still minors at the time, were cleared of attempted murder, they were found guilty of rape, assault, robbery, and rioting and sentenced to five to ten years in a youth correctional facility.

During the second trial in December, Richardson was convicted of attempted murder, rape, assault, and robbery and sentenced to five to ten years in prison. Wise was found guilty of sexual molestation, assault, and rioting and sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison. The Central Park Five would come to serve five to 12 years.

Matias Reyes

Wise was charged as an adult and sent to Rikers Island. It was there in New York’s dilapidated prison island on the East River that he met Matias Reyes — a convicted killer and serial rapist serving a 33-year-to-life sentence, who confessed to actually having raped the Central Park jogger, Trisha Meili.

Reyes even admitted to this to prison officials which subsequently led to a DNA test that confirmed his claims.

The Central Park Five's convictions were officially vacated by New York County District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. But, the Central Park Five had already served lengthy terms and had reached adulthood behind bars.