THE first confession came unexpectedly, around 10:30 p.m. on April 19, 1989.
Cops had just started picking up dozens of teens they thought were out bullying people in Central Park. Then, from the back of a police cruiser, Kevin Richardson, 14, blurted:
“Antron did it.”
The statement, relayed by a source involved in the case, was puzzling. “Did what?” the cop asked.
“The murder,” he said.
At 10:30 p.m. on April 19, the battered body of the woman known as the Central Park jogger had yet to be found, but Richardson did not know it. When he blamed his friend, Antron McCray, he apparently believed she was dead.
This is the earliest self-incriminating statement given by one of the so-called Jogger 5, five young men convicted – and soon likely to be cleared – of participating in the gruesome 1989 gang rape. It was far from the last.
Over time, they have confessed frequently – each man usually minimizing his own role in the attack. But it would defy logic to say now that they are completely innocent.
Here is a rundown of the confessions:
Richardson was not the only one to implicate himself on the night the jogger was raped. Raymond Santana and Steve Lopez were riding in a separate police car when a cop commented:
“You guys shouldn’t be out there beating up on people, you should be with your girlfriends.”
At that, Santana looked at Lopez, a source said, and cracked, “I already had mines.” The pair laughed uproariously.
The next confessions came in writing at the police precinct on April 20, after the woman’s battered body was found. Santana also admitted on the 20th that he touched the jogger’s breast, blaming the worst of her attack on others.
All this was before the chilling videotaped statements of April 21. That day, McCray, Santana and Richardson, each with at least one parent present, gave strikingly similar accounts of the attack. Each minimized his role in the rape.
Today, Jogger 5 defenders contend the men are innocent – not just of rape, but of the other assaults. Yet just this past June, Santana, who now denies taking part in the rape, admitted to investigators he took part in other attacks in the park on that infamous night.
These confessions change nothing. But we should never forget that the Jogger 5 are not the victims in this case.