Harlem Park Three

Around 1:25 pm on Friday, November 18, 1983, 14-year-old ninth grader DeWitt Duckett, alongside two other students, were walking to the cafeteria of Harlem Park Junior High School through a quiet hallway. While going to the cafeteria, Duckett, who was wearing a US$65 Georgetown University jacket, was approached by an armed man and two other people and asked to take off his jacket. While Duckett was taking off his jacket, the man pointed his gun at the students with Duckett, who ran away. As they were running away, the man shot Duckett in the right side of his neck. The two people with the man walked away and did not participate in the robbery or shooting. After being shot, Duckett ran upstairs, through the cafeteria, and collapsed in front of the doors to the administration offices. He was taken to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center and was pronounced dead at 3 PM. It was the first murder in the history of Baltimore City Public Schools.[1][2]

After Duckett's death, the primary witness was Ron Bishop, one of the students with Duckett when he was murdered. School staff also reported that three non-student 16-year-olds, Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins, were in the building earlier in the day. The murder investigation was assigned to veteran Baltimore Police Department detective Donald Kincaid. The day after the shooting, Kinkaid went to Chestnut's and Watkins's houses for questioning. Chestnut was wearing a Georgetown jacket during the questioning, and they both maintained their innocence and Chestnut stated the jacket was his. Kinkaid took pictures of all three of them.[1]

Soon after taking their pictures, Kincaid went to Bishop's house and showed him 11 pictures of potential victims. He recognized Chestnut, Stewart, and Watkins from elementary school but did not single out an victim. This repeated twice. Duckett's funeral was held and was attended by then-Councilman and future U.S. Representative Kweisi Mfume. The afternoon of the funeral, Kinkaid was informed of another potential witness, a 13-year-old girl who was interviewed in a conference room and confessed to pointing to Chestnut, Stewart, and Watkins. That evening, officers picked up Bishop without his parents. He was placed in a small room with Kincaid and a photo array. Kinkaid, however, acted angrily and accusatory. He threatened that he would not be allowed to leave and could be charged with being an accessory to murder if Bishop didn't tell who did it. All three witnesses said that Chestnut, Stewart, and Watkins did the murder. The next day, Thanksgiving (November 24), they were arrested on charges of murder, armed robbery, and handgun violations.[3][4] On May 28, 1984, Chestnut, Stewart, and Watkins were all found guilty of felony murder.[1][5]

In 2018, Chestnut, following years of attempts, received the investigative reports from Duckett's murder. He noticed one of the leads said that a person named Michael Willis, who had been shot dead in 2002,[6] was reported to have been at the school when the murder happened, was armed, and wore a Georgetown University jacket to a skating rink later that day. In 2019, Chestnut sent a five-page letter to State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby. The letter landed on the desk of Lauren Lipscomb, a prosecutor who lead the unit for wrongful convictions. She re-investigated the case due to the trio insisting on their innocence during the entirety of their imprisonment. She thought the case against the trio was strong, but she noticed that, when cross-examined, the witnesses couldn't testify to anything except that the trio did it. In June, she received another letter from Chestnut with the investigative reports.[1]

In the summer, Bishop, who was now 50 years old, received a letter from Mosby's office about the case State v. Alfred Chestnut, et al. The letter frightened Bishop who initially didn't respond, thinking that he could be arrested for lying under oath or a fabricated crime, but he convinced himself that he would respond.[1]

I’m tired of living this lie, that those three guys did it. If I have to tell the truth and it sends me to prison, I’ll go to prison.

— Ron Bishop, 2019

On August 8, 2019, he walked into Lipscomb's office and told about how his friend was killed, how he had been threated by Kincaid, and how he lied in court. The other three witnesses were interviewed, and they all confessed that they were coerced by Kincaid.[1]

On November 22, 2019, Mosby, alongside Lipscomb, visited the trio in their prisons to announce that they were freed. Three days later, they were taken to a courthouse where Circuit Court Judge Charles Peters apologized to the trio and set them free.[1][6]

In 2020, after being exonerated, the trio sued the Baltimore Police Department, Kincaid, and two other police officers, accusing them of coercing statements to support a manufactured narrative.[7][8]

When they sent us to prison as teenagers, they stole our lives from us. They took our families from us. They took our childhoods. This lawsuit can't bring back everything we lost, but it's an important step as we try to move forward and heal.

— Alfred Chestnut, 2020

In 2023, the Baltimore Board of Estimates approved a US$48,000,000 settlement outside of court between the trio and the Baltimore Police Department, the largest in Baltimore's history. In the settlement, the trio receives US$14,900,000 each and their attorneys receive a total of US$3,300,000.[9][10]

• The trio's lawsuit
• Interview between the trio and WJZ-TV