[Music] [Applause] on Sunday March 19th 1978 a 15-year-old boy named Willie boset was riding the Subways looking for someone to Rob he'd been in and out of court on various charges since he was nine and he'd learned that there was little force behind the dispositions rendered in Manhattan's Family Court he faced a hearing on attempted robbery and knew that a loving couple had started proceedings to adopt him as a foster child since his own father was in prison and his mother had little to do with him because the state needed time to process the adoption papers Willie was out roaming around one evening he'd found three $380 in the wallet of a sleeping passenger on the subway train and he'd used it to buy a gun from Charles the man currently living with his mother in Harlem a man who told him that using a gun would get him respect on the streets Charles sold him a 22 for $65 Willie bought a holster and strapped it to his leg wearing it made him feel powerful at 5:30 in the afternoon that Sunday he found himself alone with another Rider on a number three IR train the passenger a middle-aged man wearing a gold digital watch was asleep Willie kicked him and getting no response began to work the watch off his wrist he noticed that the man was wearing pink sunglasses as well which reminded willly of a counselor from Juvenile Detention whom he had despised it irritated him the man suddenly opened his eyes and Willie reached for his gun and shot him through the right eye of the sunglasses piercing his brain then the passenger threw up his hands in defense and screamed Willie panicked at the thought that he might not die so he shot him again in the temple the man fell back against the wall and then slumped to the floor as the train pulled up to its last stop near Yankee Stadium Willie took his victim's watch found $15 in his pants pocket and also slipped a ring off his finger which he sold on his way home for $20 the shooting victim was identified as no Perez 44 who worked in a hospital and lived by himself the papers called it a random shooting with no apparent motive little could be done to find the culprit for Willie the Fatal encounter was his Destiny he'd lived much of his life toward this moment to know what it was like to take a life even more empowering was the fact that no one saw him he even told his sister what he had done yet there were no immediate consequences he'd gotten away with murder and felt that it was no big thing to kill a man now he was bad as bad as he told everyone he'd be one day Willie was living out a legacy that had come down to him from a History of Violence rooted in one of the most Savage counties in the South Edgefield County South Carolina in 1760 the Cherokee tribe massacred scores of settlers and homeless men soon formed into Outlaw gangs that abducted women and tortured wealthy Planters to get their valuables the first organized vigilante group known as The Regulators started here introducing yet their own strain of abuse and sadism the American Revolution in 1775 inspired Backwoods Violence by Cavalry under the command of Bloody Bill Cunningham who raided farms and massacred settlers the constant fighting left people in bloody Edgefield which had double the state's average murder rate with a callous attitude toward violence a gentleman's warrior code arose that involved fighting for one's honor dueling became a cherished part of the culture despite being outlawed Edgefield County came to be known as a place that had more Daredevils and adventurers than any county in the state perhaps in the country the Edgefield character was reputed to be intense and fiery violence was part part of this Region's Heritage Wily's ancestors were slaves in this County at Mount willing the first boset appears on voting records in 1868 after the slaves were freed the family name came from an Edgefield planter John bowet in 1850 he owned 221 African slaves he acquired Reuben who took his master's last name which eventually became boset reuin was sold to Francis Pickins who owned over 500 slaves he married and his son Aaron was Wily's great great grandfather Aaron was sold away from his family when he was only 10 to a hot-headed master who was among those responsible for the deepening anger among the slaves toward their white Masters Aaron was freed in 1865 at the age of 17 and he signed a labor contract with a white planter in the area to work in exchange for some of the crop he married but life proved to be a constant struggle he felt that the white men were swindling him but he understood the necessity to accommodate them around him the Klux Clan were beginning to harass freed slaves and he wanted to take no chances he had a son Clifton who was called PUD this boy grew up with a streak of Pride and resistance he wanted respect reputation was everything and he considered himself the white man's equal PUD was was gregarious and persuasive and since his mother's father had been white he inherited a light complexion when he was 21 and working as a sharecropper in the cotton fields the landlord decided to whip him for being a bad slave PUD would have none of that so he grabbed the whip snatching it away and pulled the man from his wagon then he walked away nevertheless he had gained a reputation that day as someone to be feared when he was short of money one day PUD broke into two stores taking $12 he was arrested but escaped 3 weeks later the sheriff recaptured him and he was sentenced to a year of hard labor on the county Chain Gang when he completed his time he returned to his community as a hero a bad man he was getting the respect he wanted and he was one of a new breed of African-American folk Heroes the black badman they could stand up to a harsh punitive world and not only survive but dish it out as well they were an explosion of Fury and futility PUD became increasingly more violent cutting people with a knife when they insulted him but he also married and had three sons William Freddy Lee and James while they were young PUD died in a car accident nevertheless they heard their father's exploits recounted in stories learning the BOS reputation and recognizing that it now lay on them to defend it he got respect and so should they James noticed that when he mentioned he was a boset people backed away their fear made him feel powerful he wanted to emulate his father claiming that he was going to grow up to be bad soon he carried a knife and took to drinking he developed seizures as well and the alcohol made him violent he once shot at his young wife Marie who ran from the house she complained that he was cruel and abusive and she went to court to request support for herself and her baby Willie James known as Butch rather than pay her James left the state he was not going to let the white man's Court interfere with his life he began to indulge in a series of petty robberies getting arrested in New Jersey and winding up in jail Marie decided to head north as well at the age of 17 she left her baby with Francis her mother-in-law and went to Chicago young Butch left mostly on his own learned early to be a hustler his grandmother didn't feed him so he did anything he could for food Francis beat him all the time seeing the Devil in him but it did not stop him from stealing it only hardened him and he soon went to live out in the streets he understood the need to fight to survive and there in the south fighting was socially approved honor was still important and Butch had no human attachments to soften his character he became the toughest boy on his Street then James returned home and he often beat Butch badly with his belt Marie too came back but was not allowed in so she headed to New York when 8-year-old Butch was arrested for robbing a woman at knife point a probation officer saved him from Reformatory by taking him to New York to be with his mother Marie was not happy to see him and made him feel that he was a burden he learned to ride the subway all day to avoid both school and home Marie finally kicked him out and he was taken to juvenile court and then sent to an institution they could not handle him and sent him back to the court he was then sent to wilt Wick school for boys the place was actually good for him it was the first place where he formed attachments he also learned to read however when Butch was 14 he was sent to live with his father who had moved to New York after serving jail time for armed robbery James began to beat him and punch him again undoing all the benefits from the reform school and Butch was ready now to fight back by this time he had developed hallucinations and was eventually diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia which was later changed to conduct disorder they considered him on his way to becoming a psychopath a person with no empathy and diminished control over his impulses however he scored in the 130 IQ range considerably above average and he had the advantage of being handsome soon Butch was arrested for armed robbery and got 5 years in prison the same as his father had before him he was constantly in fights and was diagnosed as having an antisocial personality disorder with a poor prognosis when he got out he married Laura R own and they were soon expecting a baby whom they wanted to name Willie they went to Milwaukee to start a new life but it ended in tragedy Butch went to pawn some pornographic photos and when the pawn shop owner tried to cheat him he exploded he stabbed the man six times killing him and then with great frenzy repeatedly stabbed another man who was merely a customer in the shop when he realized what he'd done he fled the premises and left Milwaukee eventually he was caught and returned to Wisconsin leaving his pregnant and destitute wife to fend for herself Butch was sentenced to life in prison he had made the most horrible mistake he could imagine and he had no idea how it would affect his son soon to be born on Thursday March 23rd 1978 Willie's cousin Herman Spates came to wake him up Willie strapped on his gun and holster and proposed they go get some money it was only 4 days since he had killed a man and he was feeling tough they walked over to the number three subway train at 148th Street and Lexington Avenue in the yard they spotted a motorman named Anthony lamort from Brooklyn he had a CB radio that the boys believed would bring them $100 on the street they followed him lamort was nearing the end of his shift which involved cutting or adding train cars as demanded and he spotted Willie and Herman where they didn't belong you're not supposed to be here he said get the hell out willly was not going to be told what to do by some white man that was the enemy why don't you come down here and make us get out he challenged lamort climbed down the steps of the car he was in and approached them he thought that Willie looked babyfaced much too young to be getting into trouble when he was about 30 ft away Willie pulled out his gun and demanded the man's radio and money lamort sensing something bad turned back to the subway car he heard the boys running toward him and then came a popping sound he felt a numbness in his back and right shoulder shortly afterward he heard the boys running away he walked to the dispatcher's office and said he thought that he had been shot Willie and Herman got out fast but over the course of the next three nights pulled three more violent robberies they got $12 from a man they had kicked down the steps to the A train station next they shot 57-year-old Matthew Connelly in the hip when he resisted them Willie was grabbed and searched but the transit authority patrolman completely missed the gun he'd hid in his pants when the victim failed to identify him Willie felt Invincible he knew he was smarter than the law and could get away with anything on Monday March 27th Willie and Herman jumped the Turn Style on 135th Street and entered the last car of the uptown train there was only one passenger on it a Hispanic man in his late 30s Willie posted Herman at the front of the car knowing the man could not get out at the next stop because of the short platform he took out his gun and demanded the man's money I ain't got any the man told them that was the wrong thing to say Willie pulled the trigger the man slid from his seat to the floor his blood pooling out around him Willie went through his pockets and found $2 the man's wallet revealed his name Moses Perez no relation to Willie's first victim Willie flung the wallet in the trash and walked back home with Hermon laughing over his exploit he felt like a big-time killer now a bad man when it made the front pages of the next day's newspaper he proudly showed his sister ironically that same day the division for youth in Albany had given final approval for Willie to be adopted as a foster child by a couple he had hoped to live with all of that was now to change and it was not only Wily's life that would be dramatically altered but the lives of every kid his age in New York who committed a violent crime detective Martin DAV of the sixth homicide Zone investigated the recent Subway killings there was talk of a serial killer on the loose and he knew that meant more pressure on him the fact that Moses peris's wallet had been found indicated that the killer might be from the neighborhood a computer search brought up Willie boset and Herman Spates picked up for the shooting of Matthew Connelly he had not been able to identify them so they had been released but since this pair had repeat arrests Davin thought they should be checked out Willie was a juvenile at 15 and Davin knew he'd have to be careful he decided to go after Herman who was 17 nevertheless some ambitious Transit cops grabbed Willie on the street and brought him in that meant he had to find Hermon quick because holding a juvenile too long meant the case might be thrown out they found Hermon with his probation officer he willingly accompanied Davin who told him that they knew where he was on the day of the fatal shooting Herman said he was asleep in a movie theater but they told him that that Willie had already given him up Herman then insisted that it was Willie who shot the man he also spilled the beans on the previous murder and revealed the whereabouts of the gun the detectives got a search warrant and ran into Wily's mother on her way out the door she reluctantly showed them where the gun was then she accompanied them to question Willie immediately he threatened the district attorney and then blundered by admitting he had the gun in the p P Wily's case had always gone to Family Court his various crimes since the age of nine had been dealt with by sending him to reformatories however with the growing rise of juvenile arrests in the mid '70s the family court system was being revised in 1976 New York passed the Juvenile Justice Reform Act which created a new category of juvenile crime the designated felony this allowed kids as young as 14 who committed violent acts to be given longer sentences than the traditional limit of 18 months they could now be sent to a training school for 3 to 5 years the court was no longer to act as a parent but to keep the protection of the community in mind as well District Attorneys now came into these Court sessions assistant DA Robert silbering acquired Will's case they had the gun and a ballistics test that linked it to the murder but silbering worried that they had no Witnesses and no confession Anthony lamort picked Willie out of a lineup and the da pressured Herman to testify against his cousin in exchange for a lighter sentence even with all of that there was not much a court could do to a juvenile despite his long record and a clear indication that he might very well kill again Willie had made the claim many times to juvenile authorities that his father was a killer and he was going to be one too violence he had learned won him respect added to that was a mother who had distanced herself from her son believing that he was just like his father and would come to no good growing up he learned to throw temper tantrums to hit his teachers to steal and in general to live life on his own terms his grandfather had abused him when he was nine he repeatedly told people he did not care if he lived and it seemed that he had nothing to lose nothing meant anything to him he never even had to face up to any of his criminal acts against others because a juvenile was considered incapable of Criminal Intent so he easily maneuvered his way through the idealistic cracks of the system and always ended up back home violence became a sport that he was good at by the time he was 11 he was an angry hostile homicidal boy whom no one could reach he showed grandiosity narciss ISM poor impulse control infantile omnipotence and a history of self-checkout attempts and daily threats against others his diagnostic evaluation was antisocial Behavior just steps away from the antisocial personality disorder diagnosis slapped on his father Willie was not psychotic but he was certainly dangerous even as young as he was at the time it was predicted that he would eventually kill someone with this back ground and whatever evidence he could gather silbering prepared to go to court the trial for Willie boset was held in the family court building on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan he was charged with three separate felonies two counts of murder and one of attempted murder which meant three different trials judge Edith Miller had seen Willie before and she thought him too bright to be in so much trouble yet this time in court he was belligerent to the point of needing to be restrained and his foul-mouthed manner surprised her what Disturbed her more was his lack of moral sense and his insensitivity to the victim's families he forced the Widow of Moses Perez to testify that it was indeed her husband's body that she had identified even at the Spofford juvenile center where he was confined he had stabbed another boy with a fork hit a counselor in the face and choked a psychiatrist later he bragged that though he was only 15 he had committed over 2,000 crimes 25 of them stabbings Willie approached his trials with an air of total Detachment he did not realize that he was now going through a new procedure different from only two years earlier and things were fairly serious he even thought he could skip the trial if he wanted to but not by pleading guilty as the trials went along Willie finally tired of it all and impulsively told his surprised lawyer to enter a plea of guilty silbering insisted he must plead to all three counts which he did the sentencing date was set and silbering tried to think of ways to get more than the maximum 5 years for these crimes however with no precedent there was nothing he could do Willie was placed with the Division of Youth for a maximum sentence of 5 years by the time he was 21 he would be free 2 days after Willie was sentenced in a trial that had created massive local publicity Governor Hugh KY was flying from Manhattan to Rochester to make a campaign appearance his Republican opponent in that election year was attacking him for being soft on crime and was proposing a tough new law that would permit juveniles to be tried as adults for violent crimes like rape and murder Carrie a liberal Democrat had resisted such a strong reaction he thought it was too drastic although he knew there were those in his party who supported it along with Republicans Statewide that morning as he read the paper he spotted the press report on Willie's sentence which should have been confidential but obviously had been leaked One account in The Daily News quoted Herman Spates saying that Willie killed because he got a kick out of blowing them away this newspaper also had uncovered the fact that one of Wily's assigned social workers had warned the Division of Youth officials that he was dangerous Carrie acted at once to this horrifying story it seemed that he had suddenly realized that some kids were not so easily rehabilitated as was the primary focus of family court with light or non-existent sentences Carrie shifted his position and called a midair press conference he was going to support trying violent juveniles as adults swearing that Willie boset would never walk the street again there was a breakdown of the system he told reporters and it is really on the doorstep of the division for youth the blame is squarely on the shoulders of the department the Division of Youth for their part felt they had done all that they could there were no programs or facilities for a child like Willie who had such an explosive temperament a week later Carrie called the legislature back to Albany for a special session passing the juvenile offender Act Act of 1978 under its terms kids as young as 13 could be tried in adult court for murder and would face the same penalties this law reversed the tradition of the past 150 years that children were malleable and could be rehabilitated and saved there was now an attitude that there were truly bad kids and they should be locked away from society it was too late for Willie to be tried under this law but it certainly changed things for others his age with the passage of this law New York became the first state to take this step yet as juvenile crime statistics worsened around the country other states followed the press the public and prosecutors in New York took to calling it The Willie boset law he got the notoriety he wanted but not quite in the way he had imagined when he bragged to everyone that he would become a killer just like his dad in fact Wily's father Butch was not not very happy to hear the Willie was trying to follow in his footsteps although he had escaped from prison in Wisconsin he had been recaptured after robbing several banks in New York he was sent to the federal penitentiary in lenworth Kansas Butch had tried very hard to find opportunities in prison to better himself so he could show the parole board that he was worth another look he had a cellmate who was an intellectual and who supported butcher's efforts to get educated in Wisconsin son he had finished his High School courses and earned a diploma then in Kansas he took 40 courses and graduated from college at the University of Kansas with a nearly perfect GPA he was in the top 3% of his class he was also elected to fi Beta Kappa a controversial event when Kansas finally released him he had to return to Wisconsin to see about getting his sentenced reduced there no such luck Butch ended up back in prison Willie read about him in the newspaper the Daily News had dug up information on Will's background noting that this babyfaced Killer's father was also doing time for murder Willie was thrilled it was the first independent proof apart from what his mother and grandmother had told him of his father's criminal exploits Willie sat down and wrote his father a letter Butch had tried to distance himself from his family particularly his father and he was not pleased to discover that his own son was now in prison for murder he understood the boy's rage from neglect in living on the streets but he tried to counsel him not to keep taking this road instead he urged Willie to return to school this is not what Willie had expected and the letter disappointed him they had one phone conversation and Butch sent Willie some books to help him with grammar and vocabulary Willie turned away from this advice instead he broke out of the gsan center for boys with several other boys 2 hours later he was recaptured what he had overlooked was that while in Goan he had turned 16 escaping from a penal institution was a felony for an adult even a youth facility he was sentenced to 4 years in a state prison that was strike one in prison he fell in with some black Muslims who gave Willie an idealistic context for his rage particularly against whites at this point his relationship with Butch fell apart he had his own way to go and his father a fallen Idol was not going to be part of it after serving four years Willie was returned to the Division of Youth and placed in another facility for boys when he turned 21 he was released he wanted to try to stay out of prison he met a girl sh Aron Hayward who had a child and they decided to get married he also enrolled in a community college and began to think about having a real future he even started looking for a job unfortunately it was not meant to be while visiting his sister one day a man in her building had an encounter with Willie that ended up in a complaint that Willie had tried to Rob him when Willie explained that this was a misunderstanding he was arrested the whole thing seemed absurd but smelled of politics Willie had gotten off too easy and the governor was taking the heat for his release one way or another Willie was going down the system that had worked for so long in his favor was now reversing itself his record now stayed with him and any little thing accumulated Force although his juvenile record had been erased he had developed a bad reputation with the law enforcement Personnel he was not getting off easy any longer will bail was too high for his family so he stayed in jail pending his trial while in court an officer put his hand on will to get him to move and when he resisted three officers started to push him Willie responded with obscenities and they pushed him against the defense table which cracked under their weight and the legs splintered off one officer clubbed him with a table leg Will's lawyer joined the fry and when it was all over Willie was charged chared with assault resisting arrest and criminal contempt of court Willie got a felony conviction out of the trial on the charge of attempted assault with his escape attempt from Goan that was a second felony for him strike two he was looking at 3 and a half to 7 years a third felony no matter what it was could get him 25 to Life under the 1965 persistent felony offender law Willie had only been free for 100 days that was another turning point for him since going straight had gotten him nowhere he decided to take on the system become even more Reckless once again he felt he had nothing left to lose he was destined for incarceration at his sentencing hearing Willie dismissed his lawyer and said he did not recognize the Court's Jurisdiction over him he also said that he was not Willie boset but Bobby Reid the judge let him have his in court as Preposterous as his claims were in the end the judge told him that he was a ticking time bomb and gave him the maximum sentence adding 30 days for court history onics yet he still had to stand trial for his assault on the court officers he demanded once again to be his own lawyer he put on such a show that the jury found him not guilty he had beaten a third felony conviction for the moment in the meantime Butch finally got got out of prison and started on a new life it was not long however before he did some Shenanigans with a child in his care he was arrested again desperate to get free he tried to escape and died in a shootout with the police killing his girlfriend and himself before they could capture him Willie heard about this and his belief was restored that his father was in fact a bad man to his mind Butch had gone out in a blaze of glory now now Willie was convinced he would never get out of prison alive they would keep him here forever if they could he embarked on an allout war against the system targeting guards as symbols once of his many altercations resulted in further felony charges once again he went pro se as his own defense he had learned a lot about law and he knew he could win the jury he did manage to elude many of the multiple charges but was found guilty of arson and assault strike three the three felony charges were all fairly minor Escape attempted assault and arson he could not understand how they added up to the same sentence someone got for murder nevertheless that's what he got he viewed that as a license to go to an extreme in everything he did he was at War at once point he stabbed a guard with a homemade knife just barely missing the man's heart for that he was tried for attempted murder and given another life sentence Willie was in jail for good Willie boset killer at age 15 is no longer an anomaly the number of young boys committing violent crimes like rape and murder has increased dramatically in the 1990s even as the murder rate for adults has declined criminologists predict that this will only get worse some state legislatures are making the age in which children are eligible for w a into adult courts increasingly lower adolescents in Florida are on death row in New York 85% of the young people released by The Division for youth are rearrested prison has come to represent a right of passage for some groups as a result instruments for predicting dangerousness at younger ages early enough to intervene and possibly prevent future crimes have been developed and improved model programs have been put into place to help parents with parenting skills and to alert communities to the need for coherence and vigilance for Willie this all came too late a few months after he was sentenced for stabbing the guard he bashed another guard in the head for which he received an additional life sentence he then threw hot water in the face of another guard he soon came to be known as the most dangerous criminal in the New York system and was kept in a special constructed isolation cell the guards are forbidden to speak to him he has no electrical outlets no television or newspapers behind the bars of his cell is a sheath of plexiglass four video cameras keep him under surveillance at all times whenever he goes out he is Thoroughly Shackled with an automobile tow chain he feels he is on death row with no hope of Escape in the electric chair sometimes he Mourns the Reckless violence of his youth other times he feels sorry for himself and all those things in life that he missed and because of him the juvenile justice system will never be the same [Music] now now [Music] oh [Music]