(poignant music)
- [Narrator] Miami, Florida, is a multicultural mecca
with its sun soaked beaches, legendary food,
and electric nightlife.
The city attracts tourists from all over the world.
It's also one of the most
influential sports towns in America,
whether it's the Marlins, Dolphins, Hurricanes or Heat,
Miami's love for its hometown teams
and its athletes runs deep.
And in 2007, when one of the city's hometown sports hero
is gunned down while defending his young family
from a group of brazen killers,
a single bullet has devastating consequences
for all of Miami.
(upbeat music)
In the late 19th century,
the city of Miami sprung up along Florida's East Coast,
seemingly overnight.
It's sudden rise to prominence
earned it the nickname Magic City.
Since then, it has grown from a tourist destination
into one of the most culturally diverse,
and endearing cities in America.
Everyone wants to live in Miami,
for the music, the culture,
the food, the beaches.
Miami is just this beautiful paradise
where it's hot 365 days of the year,
and it's just this wonderful place to live.
I feel like Miami is its own country,
although we're a city, we really are our own country.
So I think people wanna live here.
People want to come to Miami
because you can literally walk down the street,
and see a celebrity.
So that's another reason why Miami is just so special.
And as we say here in Miami,
we're born and raised in the county of Dade
and it's such a special place to live,
and just to be here to be born and raised in Miami.
(upbeat music)
There's over 120 languages
that you can find here in Miami.
There's a uniqueness within each neighbourhood
that you go to.
- [Narrator] Residents from Latin America, Africa,
and the Caribbean make up over half of Miami's population
creating an energetic atmosphere unlike any other.
We have different pockets
of where you have concentrated populations of colour,
you'll have little Haiti,
then you may have Calle Ocho, Little Havana,
where you'll find the Cuban population,
and then you'll have the pockets
where the black people may live.
Brownsville, Liberty City,
Overtown, colour city,
and I think that's what makes Miami so special
is that you can experience
all different cultures in one location.
I'm pretty sure you get like
just the melting pot aspect of everything,
or even a salad bowl because it's not even so much
of everything kind of blending together,
there's a uniqueness within each neighbourhood
that you go to.
(upbeat music)
Some key neighbourhoods that really,
really stand out are like Little Havana.
Literally, I have been told so many times
that stepping onto the main vein of Little Havana,
which is Calle Ocho, is like stepping into Cuba literally.
When you get to Wynwood,
Wynwood is more of an art scene.
So it was actually created by Tony Goldman.
He had the idea of creating this outdoor open air museum
after creating the Soho District in New York.
(upbeat music)
[Narrator] No matter where you come from
or which neighbourhood you call home,
most Miamians will agree on one thing,
their shared love of sports
brings everyone in the city together.
- To be able to go and see the university play.
It's amazing to kind of feel that spirit
and to see how everybody,
they get angry together (laughs)
they're gonna yell together, high five each other
once that touchdown is made.
You get to see that even when it comes to soccer.
I remember specifically going onto
Lincoln Road on South Beach,
and it was dead silent because there was a game going on,
and then all of a sudden you hear
the uproar of people yelling and screaming coming together
because that goal was made by their favourite team.
So being able to see it kind of played out
throughout the areas
and being able to see everyone come together
doesn't matter about your background, your diversity,
what may have kind of separated you
so to speak from any other culture,
you come together for the love of the game.
When you're sitting in the stadium
rooting for the University of Miami,
doesn't matter where you were originally from,
or what nationality or you know,
if you're from South America,
central America from Europe,
you're all rooting for the same team
and it brings everybody together
and that's one of the beauties of sports.
(dramatic music)
[Narrator] But in the winter of 2007,
a single bullet would send shock waves
throughout Miami's close-knit fan base
and it would leave a beloved hometown sports hero
fighting for his life.
Just before 2:00 AM on November 26th, 2007.
(phone vibrating)
Miami Day detective Juan Segovia
gets called out to an attempted murder scene.
That morning I was actually sleeping,
my team was on call that night and I was dead asleep,
but my phone went off.
Traditionally when we we're on call,
I knew we were getting called out for some sort of a case
and I remember specifically just getting an address
and that somebody had been shot.
You know I'm the type of detective
that I don't like getting a lot of information up front.
Some guys dos, I don't,
just gimme the address and I'll start getting ready.
And I remember just jotting the address down
on a piece of paper on my nightstand.
I took a quick shower and I started heading out.
I begin to prepare myself mentally,
and I'll begin to gather more information.
By that time usually I'm calling the other guys on my team
or I'll call the detective that notified me initially,
and I'll try to gather more information
to see what else has developed since they got notified.
Get a little more detail as to what occurred
during the homicide.
And the detective that called me,
he goes, "Oh man, you got a big one".
He goes, "Sean Taylor was shot,
"he's critical and he's been transported.
"So, you know, good luck".
It took me like a full three seconds
to register the name Sean Taylor,
and I thought to myself, "Sean Taylor, the football player".
[Narrator] Although NFL Star Safety,
Sean Taylor played for the Washington Redskins,
he was a Florida native and maintained a home
in the upscaled Miami enclave of Palmetto Bay.
It's not a place where violence happens,
so it really was sort of a mystery
and a shock when this happened.
- I remember pulling up a couple blocks away
and as I'm approaching the house,
I could see in the distance a lot of lights,
and as I got closer,
it was just a sea of media on scene already.
So the word had gotten out
and the media had already responded.
So I navigated as much as I could.
It got to the point where I couldn't go any further
from the amount of trucks and media
that was in front of the house,
and I walked the rest of the way through.
(dramatic music)
[Narrator] Detective Segovia learns
that Sean was shot during an apparent home invasion.
First responders had found Sean just inside his bedroom
bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to his leg.
He'd been taken via helicopter to a nearby trauma centre.
- Anybody who's done this job for a little while
knows the amount of blood signified as arterial bleeding,
so I knew it was serious.
- [Narrator] Sean's girlfriend, Jackie Garcia
and the couple's 18 month old daughter
are still on the scene,
but both are seemingly unharmed.
Even though Jackie was in the home
at the time of the shooting
and was the person who called 911,
detective Segovia holds off on speaking to her for now,
even though she's likely his best witness.
- You're dealing with someone who now knows
their loved one is in critical condition,
their mind is completely somewhere else you know,
she's worried about the health of Sean Taylor,
not so much the health of my investigation,
so I don't wanna push too much.
[Narrator] As Juan and this team
begin to develop a game plan for their high profile case,
word gets back that just as they had suspected,
a bullet has torn through Sean's right femoral artery
and his condition is extremely dire.
- It's usually not a good outcome for the victim.
And I knew that Sean had a very tough fight ahead
to stay alive.
(poignant music)
- [Narrator] Sean Taylor was born on April 1st, 1983,
and spent most of his childhood growing up
in nearby homestead Florida.
Sean was very active,
he always liked to catch lizards,
play in the yard, play street football,
go fishing, he kept busy all the time.
I noticed his energy at a young age,
you know, typical kid but he just,
there was something different about him.
You could actually see where he was really intense
and focused and very, very competitive.
[Narrator] After his parents divorced
Sean went to live with his father
in Miami's Overtown neighbourhood,
his career in football began soon after that.
My memory of him is just that,
him being the fireball running around beyond everybody else,
I called him Mr. Bamalam
because every time he came to the play
and he gets to the play, it is done, bamalam.
He played for the South Day Rams,
and it's funny because there's a lot of guys in the stands
that would be betting on kids,
and they would be betting that Sean
was gonna knock somebody out
or he's gonna score a touchdown.
- [Narrator] Sean's family threw their full support
behind their budding star.
- At first I couldn't watch him play and do those hits.
I would be afraid he is gonna get hurt,
but as time went on,
I started enjoying it and getting into it.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] By the time Sean graduated high school,
colleges across the nation were lining up to sign him,
but he chose to stay in Miami and the city loved him for it.
- To see the love that he got from the fans,
to see how he responded,
it's kind of like he knew
when you stay home and you play for the University of Miami,
you have the city on your back.
[Narrator] After three successful years
with the Hurricanes Sean set his sights on the NFL,
and in 2004 his hard work paid off
when he was drafted in the first round by Washington,
Sean and his family were elated.
Everybody was hugging and you know,
was big celebration.
The way he smiled, it was like, "Yeah, I did it".
This is just the start of something special.
- [Narrator] Sean signed a six year, $18 million contract
that changed his life
and the lives of everyone in his family.
He wanted to change some people's lives
that were close to him, his mum especially.
You know when you see your mum working a lot
and you know that they're making a sacrifice for you,
I know for a fact that that was what really drove him.
[Narrator] Two years later in 2006,
Sean had even more to celebrate
when he and his girlfriend Jackie,
welcomed their first child into the world.
- That changed his life because now it was,
my number one priority as my child.
I saw him take it very seriously.
- That love that you getting from a child is unconditional
and it makes you into a better person,
it changes you, your thought process, your movement.
It did everything for him.
It's nothing like that, he definitely enjoyed it.
- [Narrator] But now Sean is clinging to life
and the news of his shooting
spreads through his family like a wildfire.
- I was walking in my hallway just walking back and forth,
I couldn't sleep for some reason
and that's when I got the call,
and his dad told me what had happened that he was shot.
I don't even remember anything after that.
- I was at the Hard Rock Casino and I was playing poker.
I don't know how much money I had,
but I got the call and then he got shot,
and I just walked out the building
and got in my car and just drove.
- [Narrator] While investigators at the scene
try and piece together what happened to Sean,
his loved ones descend upon the hospital
hoping for some good news.
His prognosis, however remained grim.
He was bleeding profusely,
like every time the bloody would go out there,
try to put the blood back in.
Even thinking about it was horrible.
- I think being a world-class athlete
will help in certain situations,
but a lot of things would have to go right,
and there was a lot of things
that didn't go right that night.
(dramatic music)
[Narrator] As doctors desperately fight
to save the life of NFL star Sean Taylor,
investigators begin searching his Miami home
for clues to explain what happened to him that night.
- We start doing an assessment of the residence
from the outside and we very quickly determined,
that there have been forced entry into the residence.
From the rear of the house you could see wood shavings
and wood debris on the ground,
and when you see the door itself,
it was very easy to determine that someone had just pried
that door open with some sort of metal object.
- [Narrator] Detectives carefully worked their way
through Sean's home.
For the most part,
nothing seems to be outta place.
- That immediate area appeared to be undisturbed.
Nothing that stood out to us,
nothing that was alarming.
[Narrator] That all changes
as they approached Sean's master bedroom.
There's a little hallway
and you can already see blood on the ground.
- [Narrator] In addition to the large amount of blood
outside Sean's bedroom,
detectives also find some damage to the bedroom door.
We could immediately see on scene
a faint outline of a shoe against that door.
So I knew the confrontation had occurred there.
I knew that it was probably something very quick,
not a lot of physical involvement.
And he had been shot and he had collapsed
right there on the same spot.
There wasn't any blood splatter that I could see.
There weren't any signs of a fight.
[Narrator] Detectives also find
a single nine millimetre shell casing
outside Sean's bedroom.
There's scenes that you get to
that you have absolutely nothing,
so the fact that you can locate a casing,
it's a positive.
- [Narrator] While CSIs continue processing the scene,
detective Segovia turns his attention
to Sean's girlfriend, Jackie Garcia.
- Because she was in the house at the time it happened,
she was gonna be able to tell us at least a story
that would explain some things to us.
So getting to her was of utmost importance.
- [Narrator] Through her shock, fear and pain,
Jackie tells detectives that she and Sean were asleep
with their 18 month old daughter,
when she was awakened by the sound of someone breaking in.
She immediately called out to Sean
and woke him up and told him I heard something in the house.
At that moment, Sean Taylor
reached behind the headboard of the bed
and pulled out a machete
that he had back there for protection,
and begins to walk around the bed.
And then next thing you know,
door gets kicked open.
(gun shots)
Shot rings out and then it's just all pandemonium.
Jackie's crying, she's terrified.
(dramatic music)
- The next thing she remembers is grabbing a cell phone
and calling 911.
She remained in the bedroom,
until the uniform officers arrived.
Ms. Garcia unfortunately never saw anybody.
Really was like something out of like,
a mystery thriller kind of Hollywood plot.
[Narrator] Detectives have no reason
to doubt Jackie's story,
and she's ruled out
as having any involvement from the beginning.
His fiance was of utmost importance
and was extremely helpful
'cause she was able to tell us exactly what happened
the moment he got shot and everything that led up to that.
[Narrator] Detectives believe
a broken sliding glass door was the shooter's likely exit.
- The sliding glass door was completely chattered.
The majority of the glass was on the outside,
on the patio area indicating to me
that it had been broken from the inside going out.
[Narrator] Detectives locate
security cameras in Sean's house,
but unfortunately they weren't actually connected
at the time, it's a definite blow to the investigation.
Kinda like that Rocky saying, you know,
life is about getting hit and continue moving forward.
That's kind of what it's like as an investigator.
Every time you get knocked down
you just get back up and you move on to the next thing.
- [Narrator] A canvas of Sean's neighbourhood
doesn't provide many more details either.
The houses are not on top of each other.
Most of the property lines are divided either
by a big fence or walls, and nobody heard anything.
So we were never able to gather anything pertinent
to the case from our area canvas.
- [Narrator] Throughout the night and until the morning,
police continue their investigation,
while Sean's loved ones continue to pray for his recovery.
He ended up landing in probably
the best trauma hospital in the world at
Jackson Memorial Ryder Trauma Centre,
and they were able able to repair the artery
but I knew that was a long shot.
[Narrator] On November 27th,
Sean's valiant fight for his life
comes to a devastating end.
Sean lost so much blood,
he went into a coma and then from the coma he passed away.
So just innocently being home
and protecting his family from an injury cost him his life.
It hit us hard.
I'll never forget one of the doctors saying that,
he had never seen someone fight so hard to stay alive,
and that always touched me.
- It was hard they couldn't believe me, it crushed me.
I'm not gonna lie.
This really was a maddening case
because it literally is just a fraction of a millimetre
left or right and Sean Taylor might have survived.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Sean's death is now a homicide,
and it only adds to the pressure for detectives
to find some answers and fast.
- I understood the implications of what it meant
to have someone like that being shot.
I knew there was gonna be a lot of pressure.
- It really was a mystery because all we knew was that
somebody had gone into the home and shot Sean.
(gun shots)
I think everybody's suspicion was that it was not random.
I think everyone assumed no,
this was someone that knew Sean Taylor
who came there for nefarious reasons,
whether it was a burglary,
or whether it was just to kill him outright.
I've covered a lot of random break-ins
that end up in tragedies,
and this one didn't have the hallmarks of that.
- [Narrator] As word of Sean Taylor's death
hits the 24 hour news cycle,
some found and speculated
that Sean was just another high profile athlete
whose bad choices must have finally caught up with him.
I remember very clearly some reporters
putting out stuff about Sean Taylor
and how he was living a lifestyle
that probably resulted in his death.
It was very hurtful to the family.
It was even hurtful to us as investigators.
He was never more down to earth in his life
than he was at that moment.
Nothing indicated that anything he was doing
should have led to him getting shot.
- [Narrator] Following the death of NFL star, Sean Taylor,
detectives begin to doubt
that his murder was a random crime.
- This wasn't something where a random drug addicts
just broke in and suddenly decided to kill
whoever the person was and oh,
it happened to be a football star.
One of the more telling details about the break-in
was the house wasn't ransacked.
It almost seemed like whoever went in there
knew exactly what they were looking for.
- [Narrator] But according to Sean's loved ones,
he had no known enemies,
and he didn't live a lifestyle
that would've brought danger into his life.
Especially at that stage in his life.
He had a young baby and his girlfriend,
his high school sweetheart.
He wasn't someone that was known to be out, you know,
at South Beach at odd hours of the night.
(suspenseful music)
[Narrator] But detectives are made aware
of one particular incident
prior to his daughter's birth
that does get their undivided attention.
- Sean Taylor had an incident a couple years earlier
where his ATVs have been stolen.
Unfortunately, Sean being a young guy
and wanted to take care of things himself
without getting the police involved,
he was able to locate his ATVs.
He found out who had 'em.
And he had gone and confronted them
and brandished a weapon at them,
and so he ended up getting arrested for the weapons charge.
- Sean never had to do any prison time or anything,
but that was one of the first things
we had to consider and eliminate.
Was it a group of guys involved in that
that came back to get revenge?
- I thought it might have been somebody from the local guys
that he might have had some words with
because the guys who were involved in that
were some real, real serious guys.
(suspenseful music)
[Narrator] But as detectives dig
through the old case files,
they determined that none of the men involved
in the prior incident were anywhere near Palmetto Bay
on the night of Sean's murder.
Some of the players involved
were incarcerated at the time.
One had moved out of town
and we verified he was out of town,
and the other one we couldn't tie in
through any phone records.
So we were able to quickly eliminate
that as being one of the reasons why Sean Taylor was killed.
- [Narrator] But if Sean wasn't the intended target,
maybe his house was.
Detectives learn a shocking new detail
that gives credit to the theory.
- Sean Taylor was not really supposed to be home that night.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Sean had a game against Tampa Bay that weekend,
but he'd suffered an injury to his knee the week before.
- Joe Gibbs, who was the head coach at the time,
told Sean that he wasn't gonna be able to play that game.
- [Narrator] But Sean was desperate to play
in his home state and had other plans.
Without telling anybody
he flew in the night before
to get a second opinion on his knee
from one of the local doctors here in Miami.
- That day he called me and told me that he was coming down.
He wasn't gonna let anybody know.
- His own father didn't know he was in town.
That was Sean.
Sean would do the things
that you wouldn't expect him to do.
- So the assumption is, while whoever broke in,
they might have thought he was on the road,
he was with the team.
So they break in and something goes wrong
and they're surprised by Sean Taylor,
and Sean Taylor ends up getting killed.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Detectives learn that Sean's younger brother
and sister were allowed to stay at the house
anytime he was in Washington.
They're brought in for questioning
and reveal another shocking detail.
- We found out about an on November 18th burglary
at the same residence.
Nobody was home at the time.
[Narrator] An intruder had attempted
to break into the house
just two weeks prior to Sean's murder.
Sean's siblings weren't there at the time,
and Sean was in Washington.
His brother and sister had filed a report,
but since nothing was taken,
the case never went any further, that is until now.
- That makes you think, hey, this is a pattern.
Maybe this house is being targeted
and being targeted for a reason.
- [Narrator] Detective Segovia believes the perpetrator
may be someone known to Sean and his family.
Someone familiar with Sean's movements
and the living situation at his house,
in other words, an inside job.
Sean's siblings tell detectives about several parties
and barbecues they had thrown at Sean's house
over the last few months.
The guest list typically consisted
of just a handful of people.
It was, but who attends those barbecues?
Who else knows house belongs to Sean Taylor?
- [Narrator] Sean's siblings provide a list of names
and numbers to the detectives.
- I can't emphasise how important they were,
especially when you have nothing to go on it
initially in the case,
or you don't know what's relevant in the investigation.
[Narrator] Armed with a list of names,
detectives look at every cell number
that bounced off the closest tower to Sean's house
at the time of the murder,
hoping to find any matches.
We knew exactly within a minute
when Sean Taylor was shot.
So we were able to request numbers from his home tower
for a very specific amount of time.
So you think three, four in the morning,
only four people are talking on the phone.
It's not the way it works,
it's millions of phones, it's overwhelming.
- [Narrator] Detectives study the numbers for hours
before a pattern finally begins to emerge.
- We see a couple of area code 239s picking up the tower
and we're talking about a minute when Sean Taylor was shot
inside his residence.
Well, 239 area code
is for the west coast of Florida, Fort Myers.
Through the interviews with the sister
and the brother, we had learned that they had connections,
friends and other acquaintances from the Fort Myers area.
- [Narrator] As they cross reference the numbers
and the list of names,
detectives get a promising hint.
- The first name that came through was Jason Scott Mitchell,
who ended up being somebody that was mentioned
by Sean Taylor's family
as being a frequent visitor to the residence.
- He was someone that had been in the house.
He's around enough that maybe
he's someone that could have something to do with it.
- It was like an energy thrust into all of us
'cause for the first time in the case
something's matching up.
There's no coincidence that that person
has been to that house before,
and they happen to be hitting off
the same exact tower of Sean Taylor
at the time he gets shot.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] The investigation into the murder
of NFL star, Sean Taylor, has just taken a dramatic turn.
Detectives have identified their first viable suspect,
a 19 year old from Fort Myers named Jason Scott Mitchell.
Jason had this connection to the family.
He would even do odd things around the house.
He was someone cops could look at
and say maybe he might have something to do with it
because he knows where things are.
- [Narrator] Not only does cell phone data confirm
that Mitchell was near the crime scene
at the time Sean was shot,
but police also begin receiving tips
that provide even more details and names.
We begin to get now new tips
coming from the Fort Myers area
about a group of young guys who are bragging
about having been involved in the homicide of Sean Taylor.
So now it's streamlining and it's solidifying
the individuals that we need to talk to.
- [Narrator] Investigators narrow the list of suspects
down to four additional names,
Eric Rivera, Timmy Brown,
Venjah Hunte and Charles Wardlow.
Once we've identified these numbers
and we begin to gather intelligence about these individuals,
we knew they were all associated.
- [Narrator] Agencies from across the state
hit the streets from Miami to Fort Myers
looking for any sign of the five suspects.
Not even an hour in,
I was in the office and we immediately are notified
that Eric Rivera had been located
and he was gonna be interviewed.
- [Narrator] On November 30th, detectives questioned
17 year old Rivera.
It was a very gentle approach
and it wasn't even directly necessarily
discussing a murder initially.
- We got a lot of background information on him.
Who he lived with, kind of car he drove,
what grade he was in, what his activities were,
sports he liked playing.
According to Rivera,
he went to the movies that night
with his girlfriend and his mum.
I told him very quickly,
it'll be very easy to verify
and we'll bring your girlfriend in,
we'll bring your mum in.
We'll interview people at the movie theatre.
All that stuff checks out then couldn't have been you,
no problem and I could tell that started weighing on him.
- [Narrator] Rivera does his best to sidestep the questions
until the interview takes an unexpected turn.
- I remember seeing his eyes like just light up
and I saw him looking at something and when I look back,
I see Jason Scott Mitchell being walked into
one of the other rooms and he sees that.
It's a common tactic for police
to kinda prime the pumps
by letting one see the other
because then, oh man, they have him here too.
I better be the first to the table
to start confessing, right?
Let me pin all the blame on that guy.
And ultimately Eric told the truth.
- [Narrator] Rivera admits to taking part in the robbery
on November 26th.
But he says Mitchell was the mastermind,
and the motive was money.
Sean's brother would always brag
about how much money there was in the house.
Oh man, there's always, you know, 15, $20,000,
$30,000 in the house all time.
Eric Rivera, Jason Scott Mitchell,
Charles Wardlow, Venjah Hunte and Timmy Lee Brown.
They entered the residence exactly the way we suspected.
They had a crowbar,
they pried the door open,
and they proceeded to enter the house
and begin to look through all the rooms
looking for this money.
- [Narrator] But they didn't find anything.
Rivera says the group was getting nervous
and some of them wanted to leave.
They make the decision, listen,
there's only like basically one room left to look in,
so that's it, let's get down to it.
And that's when they attempt to enter
Sean Taylor's bedroom.
- What he doesn't realise on the other side of that door,
Jackie has already been awakened by a noise.
She's already woke up Sean Taylor,
and Sean reaches behind the headboard of a bed
and brings up the machete.
[Narrator] Since Shawn had been charged
with brandishing a firearm when he went after his ATVs,
he was no longer allowed to have a gun in his possession,
instead his machete was his only protection.
He normally would have a weapon.
There was so many things that could have changed things,
but you know, what can I say?
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] When Rivera kicked in the door,
6 ft 2, 230 pound NFL safety, Sean Taylor
was there waiting for it.
(dramatic music)
(gun shots)
- He just lifted up the gun and fired at one time.
And according to Rivera,
he just dropped right there on the spot.
(glass shattering)
At the end of the day,
they left with nothing,
and somebody died for nothing.
Totally for nothing.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Shootings are nothing new to Miami,
but Sean's murder was especially difficult
for everyone in the city to process.
- I've covered countless shootings in Miami
and I can't tell you how many times I've written about
people literally getting shot up 10, 11, 12 times
and managing to survive these God awful bullet injuries.
But this really was a maddening case
because a man that age in his athletic prime superstar,
famous person with a growing young family
is not supposed to die in that way so suddenly.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Police now have five suspects in custody
for the murder of rising NFL star, Sean Taylor.
17 year old Eric Rivera has already confessed
to pulling the trigger,
and now detectives turn their attention
to the alleged mastermind Jason Scott Mitchell.
Jason Mitchell starts talking.
He really minimises his involvement by saying,
"Yes, I had seen the money there before,
"but really we were only there to break in.
"I didn't have the gun.
"I wasn't going there to kill anybody".
[Narrator] In the process of confessing,
Mitchell also admits to breaking into Sean's house
a couple of weeks before.
On that previous attempt,
he'd gone by himself but walked away empty-handed.
Just a week later,
he attended another party at the house,
and overheard Sean's brother
talking about the failed attempt.
Sean Taylor's brother mentions,
"Man, somebody broke in the house
"and they're so dumb they never realised that
"I keep all my money in a shoebox
"right next to the nightstand".
He goes back to Fort Myers
and he now decides he's gotta gather more people.
So he recruits his little buddies
to come along with him this time
and break into the house,
and they're gonna look for those money
and they're gonna find it this time.
- These guys travelled from Fort Myers thinking,
"Hey Sean Taylor the football star,
"the rich football star isn't in town right now,
"so we'll have free reign.
"We can ransack the house,
"we'll go straight for the money".
And that's not what happened.
(gun shots)
[Narrator] Their tragic miscalculation
cost Sean Taylor his life, and left his girlfriend
and young daughter wounded forever.
It's kind of like,
gosh, you gotta be careful who you have in your circle,
but then who your family members have in their circle,
'cause you just never know
who may be looking at something that you have
and may want it.
- Venjah Hunte ended up taking two pairs of sneakers,
and that's all they took from the house.
[Narrator] On the way out of Miami,
they dumped the gun in the Everglades.
- They took all the stuff they were wearing
and they took the gun, put it inside one of the socks,
and they flung it into the Everglades right off the road.
We attempted to, but we never recovered the property.
- [Narrator] Mitchell puts all the blame on Rivera,
but it does nothing to save him from murder charges.
- Jason Mitchell places all the blame on Eric Rivera
because he was a trigger man,
(gun shots)
and Eric Rivera places all the blame on Jason Mitchell
because he was the mastermind,
but at the end of the day
the police believed that they were equally as responsible.
[Narrator] The other three assailant,
Wardlow, Brown and Hunte all eventually confess as well.
- They all ended up giving complete confessions.
All the stories matched almost exactly.
So we knew that we had a pretty good understanding
of what happened that night.
[Narrator] With confessions in hand,
Miami police charge all five of the teenagers
with armed burglary and second degree murder.
It was like the weight of the world
have been lifted off my shoulders,
calling a next of kin to tell 'em that we figured out
who killed your loved one.
[Narrator] But the news is bittersweet.
- You have so many questions that they can't be answered.
You know, we wanna know what they were thinking.
I wanna know what he was thinking,
what his girlfriend was thinking.
That situation is something that
nobody should ever have to be put in.
- [Narrator] For Sean's fans and teammates,
the pain runs just as deep.
- This was in the middle of the football season
when this happened.
Your star safety is suddenly no longer there,
and all his teammates are devastated.
He loved the fans, they loved him,
and I actually became a rescue fan
because I've never seen a fan base
so committed to their team.
[Narrator] As both Miami and Washington
come to grips with the loss of their superstar,
prosecutors ready the cases for trial.
They received some good news
when one in the group decides to turn on the others.
- In the first couple months after the arrest were made,
Venjah Hunte agreed to a plea,
so he became a cooperating witness on the case.
- [Narrator] But sadly, their early momentum
comes to a screeching halt.
The trials are postponed a total of nine times
due to court backups and scheduling delays.
A full six years passes since Sean's death
without any resolution.
- It was a long and tortured pass to get there.
There was a lot of hearings,
there was a lot of media coverage.
There was a lot of legal fights in the run-up.
- [Narrator] Sean's loved ones begin to wonder
if he will ever get the justice he deserves.
It didn't feel too good, you know,
it wasn't a good situation.
You see 'em go from anger to sadness,
to indifference to frustration,
and you just run the gamut of all the emotions.
[Narrator] Even with all the waiting,
there's still no guarantee of a good outcome.
Trials are very, very unpredictable,
you're asking 12 people to agree on something.
Nowadays you can't get people to agree
on basically anything.
What we found out as the case went on is that
there was a lot of turmoil within the jurors themselves.
- [Narrator] And that turmoil might be just enough reason
to allow one of Sean's killers to walk free.
Eric Rivera took the stand
and insisted that he was forced into confessing.
[Narrator] After six long years.
The first trial in the murder of NFL star
Sean Taylor, finally begins.
Eric Rivera, the confessed gunman
is the first to face the jury.
- Eric Rivera really was the main attraction
because he was the trigger man,
so everybody wanted to know
what's gonna happen with his case.
[Narrator] Rivera's confession
is the centre point of the state's case.
- We finally got to see in Eric Rivera's own words
what his account of what happened that night was.
[Narrator] But Rivera's defence team
raises questions about the confession.
They argue that Rivera's interview
lasted over 10 hours,
but only a few minutes were actually recorded by police.
They asked the jury to imagine
what could have happened in the interrogation room
when the camera was off.
The defence was basically,
it was a false confession,
that whole time he was being brow beaten,
he was being coerced,
he was being told what to say.
[Narrator] Rivera takes the stand
and tells a much different story
from what the jury heard during the video.
Eric Rivera got on the stand
and he tried to blame Venjah Hunte
and say that he was the one that brought the gun,
that he was the one who did the firing.
It's a risky strategy at trial
because you're still admitting
to taking part in the burglary,
but with a videotaped confession
it probably was the only way they could handle it.
[Narrator] On some level,
the bold move actually seems to pay off.
There was one person in that jury
who did not feel comfortable
sending a young male to prison for the rest of his life.
Final result was what we call a compromised verdict.
They ended up finding him guilty of armed burglary
and the homicide, but not using the firearm.
[Narrator] Instead of automatic life,
Rivera is sentenced to 57 and a half years.
- To this day, I will never forget about that trial
or my dealings with Eric Rivera
is that he has never shown remorse,
ever for what he did.
- [Narrator] The group's ring leader, Jason Mitchell
stands trial the following year in May, 2014.
- Jason Mitchell did not testify in this trial,
which probably was the right call.
His statement was played,
so the jury got to hear all of it
but at the end of the day,
he couldn't get past the fact that he was the mastermind
and that he was the one that set everything in motion
and the jury believed it.
- Despite not being the shooter, he got life.
I think at that point,
the remaining two realised it's all the writing on the wall.
They realised, oh, we better just plead this out
and try to reduce the amount of time we're gonna spend.
- [Narrator] Venjah Hunte has already accepted
a 29 year plea deal.
Now Charles Wardlow is sentenced to 30 years as well.
The youngest defendant, Timmy Lee Brown,
takes a plea in exchange for 18 years.
I think Pete Taylor, Sean Taylor's dad,
he was a little more forgiving by that time,
and maybe saw maybe something in Timmy Lee Brown, you know,
maybe giving him a chance at a life someday.
Venjah Hunte was another guy involved
that I don't believe by any means he's a bad kid.
Just did something really, really stupid
that ended up costing somebody's life.
There's no doubt that I think when Venjah gets out,
that he'll be able to be a productive member of society.
I hope he has learned his lesson,
and I hope Timmy Lee Brown at least, you know,
they he'll come out and do something with their lives.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Nearly 15 years after Sean Taylor's murder,
his legacy lives on,
not only for his loved ones,
but for the thousands of fans
whose lives he touched as well.
Nah, it is not a day that goes by
that there's not somebody talking about him, you know,
so I know he had a big impact on the world.
You go to a game and his jersey is still the dominant jersey
in the stadium.
Lets you know that, you know, I mean,
kids that weren't even born
are wearing this jersey.
- I don't think it really registered even until today
totally how much he meant.
But I know he was, you know,
he loved everyone and he cared for the community and family.
(gentle upbeat music)
- You know that one bullet changed the trajectory
of his family's, his parents' life,
his girlfriend's life,
his young daughter who's not gonna remember much of anything
about her father in person,
and the trajectory of a whole football franchise.
Now the whole franchise has been in turmoil
for decades since then.
It really is just a terrible story
that just continues to percolate.
He was a great football player,
he was a great father,
great cousin, brother,
but he hadn't even started, you know,
and to have that taken is really hard
because I knew he had plans,
he had dreams and things that he wanted to do
that never happened.
(gentle upbeat music)