Who Killed Garrett Phillips?

Bailiff: All rise.

Thank you very much, Your Honor,

and a good afternoon to you.

The narrative of this case up to this point

has been very, very simple.

A group of, uh, bungling,

incompetent cops from a small town in upstate New York...

on a razor-thin amount of evidence...

brought a case against a man

perhaps insidiously motivated by the color of his skin.

Great TV,

great theater,

but ultimately it's not about tunnel vision,

rush to judgment,

the defendant's race.

It's about 30 minutes in Potsdam...

4:53 p.m. to 5:23 p.m.

on Monday, October 24th, 2011.

The death of a child

is always tragic.

There is pain

and grief,

and there is sorrow.

And with that pain and sorrow,

there is naturally a cry for justice,

a cry for someone to be held accountable,

but it must be the right person.

Marissa Vogel: My boyfriend and I went to Potsdam

to both attend college, and I felt

right at home, right away, the first year.

It was very homey.

It was very simple, that small-town feel

where everybody knows everybody,

and you just live your daily life.

We found our apartment at 100 Market Street

at the beginning of the summer of 2010.

It was not like your typical college apartment.

It was clean, it looked like you could live in it,

and it was homey,

and, uh, the whole building was well-kept,

and it felt very safe.

You're sharing a wall with somebody,

so we could hear the muffled noises,

but I didn't really know a lot

about what was going on on the other side,

and I knew that there was two young boys.

Definitely could hear a skateboard going down the hallway sometimes,

some footsteps, some-- you know, you could hear them

talking back and forth.

Sean Hall: We knew we really didn't have much

in common with them-- two boys that were

12 and younger, and a single mother.

Us two college kids, we didn't really

have too much to talk about.

Shannon Harris: I'd seen Garrett,

and I believe it was his little brother with him,

on their little scooters in the front parking lot,

driving all around.

Andrew and I started dating.

He lived with his parents

at 100 Market Street apartments,

in the back building.

It's cozy, quiet,

and everybody knows everybody.

I feel like now we have a connection with this family

that we don't even know,

and... we'll always have that.

Marissa: It was just a normal day.

I actually came home earlier

than I was normally coming home at that time.

I arrived home around 4:15, 4:20,

and we started to cook dinner.

Actually, Sean cooked dinner.

The whole process took about half an hour,

so, about 5:00, everything got plated up,

and we went into our bedroom to eat and watch a TV show.

We watched Dexter. We're big fans.

Shannon: It was around 5:00, right before dinnertime.

We were outside of the back building,

changing Andrew's tire.

He was down on the ground. We were standing there.

He was underneath the car with a jack, lifting it up.

While Andrew was underneath the car,

I kept hearing multiple noises,

could not figure out what it was.

I kept looking up there.

Couldn't see anything.

While we were watching the show and eating,

we weren't really chitchatting anymore,

so we were just listening to the show,

and that's when we heard the running and, um,

the crash.

There was silence after the crash,

and a few seconds later,

uh, we heard a moan for help,

and it sounded like either "ow" or "no."

It was definitely a child's voice,

but it sounded scared

and it sounded, you know, muffled through the wall,

but I could hear that word "help,"

and I will never forget that word.

Just... it sounded scared.

This isn't really the time to ignore it

and just think nothing happened.

Marissa: When I knocked on the door

of the other apartment--

Sorry.

When I knocked on the other door,

I heard a slight noise behind the door.

I couldn't tell you what it was,

but then I heard a click,

and it was one of those things where my mind

instantly knew that it was a lock clicking.

She turned around immediately,

and I could see in her eyes that she was not comfortable

with whatever it was she heard or felt.

Potsdam Police, Dispatcher Snyder.

Hi, um, my name is Marissa Vogel, and...

Where do you live?

Sorry, 100 Market Street,

North Country Manor Apartments.

Okay, I'll have somebody check on it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, bye-bye.

Bye.

Within a few minutes, a police officer

had arrived on the scene.

We heard him walk up the stairs,

knock on the door to the other apartment.

( indistinct police radio chatter )

Dispatcher: 17:16.

Rick: Hello?

Dispatcher: Hi, is this Rick Dumas?

Yes, it is.

- Dispatcher: Marissa? - Marissa: Yes?

They do have an emergency in that location.

Could you assist me by going down

and waving down the rescue squad when they arrive?

- Yes, I could do that. - Thank you very much.

I believe they left the door open

because I could hear their voices.

I couldn't hear what they were saying,

but I could hear that they started to sound

a little... um...

Marissa: I couldn't tell you how long the rest of it took.

It seemed like a whirlwind.

It was just, once everybody was there,

there was people running up and down the stairs,

and the gurney went up, and, um,

then they took Garrett down,

and...

it kind of seemed as though everything stopped.

Officer Wentworth: Yep.

Ed Tischler: Okay, yeah.

Dispatcher: Nobody.

To my knowledge, nobody.

Ed Tischler: Um, I mean, it's--

I think I got a phone call from Tandy about 6:08,

stating, "Could you run over to the hospital?"

She goes, "I'm headed there now."

Some parents, I guess, apparently told her, "Where have you been?

Something's happened to Garrett.

You need to get to the hospital.

And then she immediately thought of me first,

and called me because, uh...

um... you know, I've always been dependable with Tandy.

She can count on me.

I was out back, and I heard my aunt scream,

and you knew something wasn't right.

And she said, "Get to the hospital.

Something's wrong with Garrett."

So, I think my mother, Tandy and myself

went into the room.

Patricia Phillips: And when I got in there,

I see him layin' there.

They had him on a breathing machine,

and I took his hand,

and I give him a kiss on the forehead,

and I said, "Come on, bud, for Grandma."

And he coded.

We went in...

hugged him, kissed him...

I had to leave.

We didn't know what had happened.

Nobody concluded that, you know,

a person had done this.

We just didn't know what had happened.

Just... it's pretty unfair, I guess...

that somebody could do that to him.

Garbus: How often do you come here?

I used to come every single day.

Now I come up usually once a week,

till it gets nice weather, and then I come up

and have coffee with him in the morning,

just thinking and drinking my coffee.

Oh, it's just like it happened yesterday, and...

Every year, too, the boys bring up, like, a new soccer ball,

and they all sign it, his classmates,

and they bring that up and put it up there.

Garrett stayed with us a lot.