[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- New york city's nightlife draws
People from across the world.
But late night parties sometimes come
With uninvited guests.
[gunshot]
- I was scared.
I didn't know who was out there.
- A deadly mass shooting
In a trendy new york city neighborhood...
[gunfire]
- Everybody just starts screaming,
Running out of the club.
- At the time, I didn't know that both of my brothers
Had been shot.
- Just might be the case that helps
The nypd catch a serial killer
Before another victim falls prey.
- There were slash wounds to his neck
And stab wounds to his torso.
- We have the same gun that was used in both cases.
It's gotta be the same guy.
- Police had no idea how dark and evil
This case was going to get.
[screaming]
[sirens wailing]
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
[hip-hop music]
- New york city, the birthplace of hip-hop...
- ♪ we started from the bottom ♪
- Where rappers from across the globe
Come to earn their stripes and vie
For the spotlight at the city's legendary nightclubs.
One of these clubs is opus 22,
Nestled deep in manhattan's nightlife district of chelsea.
♪ ♪
It's here on may 23, 2006,
That the spanish language hip-hop duo parceros luchadores
Takes the stage before a sold-out crowd.
- [rapping in spanish]
- For rappers gustavo cuadros and yeison correa,
It's the night they always dreamt of.
♪ ♪
- Gustavo was my best friend.
We met during--like, around high school times.
We understood the things we wanted to accomplish
Weren't going to be easy.
Then some promoters from opus 22 saw
That we were getting a lot of plays on myspace.
We're actually very excited because that was going
To be our first performance
In front of a crowd in new york city.
We were doing underground things,
But we had never been officially promoted.
- [rapping in spanish]
♪ ♪
- We were like, oh, man, this is sick, you know?
We're going to do our thing.
We're going to blow up after this,
And it felt like a dream come true.
♪ ♪
- It was my brother's show,
And that's the reason we were there.
It was just like a really good energy, you know?
It felt really good. Like, everybody was happy.
Good things were happening.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Opus 22 was a very good night for us.
Everybody loved it.
I couldn't believe it.
I'm like, wow, we actually did this, you know?
So I'm getting off the stage, and everybody's
Patting me on my back, saying great job,
When my cell phone rang.
So I went outside to pick up my phone.
♪ ♪
I kind of walk down the street.
And as I looked back towards the door,
I see one of my friends being pushed outside.
♪ ♪
- We were basically done. We'd left the place.
We were going to the car, and we heard a gunshot.
[gunshot]
- Everybody just starts screaming,
Running out of the club.
[screaming]
- So I went to ask the security guard, what happened?
And then I heard the second gunshot go off.
[gunshot]
I fall down.
I tried to move, and I couldn't move,
And I tried to say something, and nothing came out.
I was just laying there.
My brother gustavo came up to me.
We made eye contact for like a second.
♪ ♪
And then I heard another shot.
[gunshot]
And he fell on my chest.
♪ ♪
He died on top of me, yeah.
♪ ♪
- As julian and his brother lay on the street,
Yeison gets a good look at the gunman.
He's one of the bouncers at the club.
- That's when I see the security guard, you know,
He was just getting away, so I was just like,
Oh, let me just stop him.
And I grab this metal cash box,
And I hit him over the head with it.
He turned around and started shooting at me.
♪ ♪
And the gun jammed.
So it gave me time to run a little further away.
And then the next second, I got shot in the back.
It just felt like I got the wind knocked out of me.
It was just like--
Like, my arms opened up like this
Because the bullet went in the back.
♪ ♪
- In my mind, I was dying.
My daughter was like, almost five,
And my son was literally months.
And I just remember, like, asking god to protect my kids.
And that that was it for me.
In my mind, I was gone.
♪ ♪
- Detective chris breslin and officers
From the 10th precinct just a few blocks away
Respond within minutes.
- As soon as I arrived, it was pretty chaotic on the scene.
You know, patrol cars everywhere.
There are people everywhere. And I knew I had four victims.
One that was deceased, covered up under the blanket
On the street.
The three that were wounded, I knew they were critical.
There were several witnesses that said
That it happened to be the bouncer
That actually did the shooting.
And then he just walked off.
♪ ♪
He was not on the scene at the time,
But we know he has a gun on him,
And we were trying to locate him as fast as possible.
♪ ♪
- I got a call.
It was a frantic call.
My ex-girlfriend.
She was right outside of the nightclub.
And I could hear all the commotion,
The running sirens.
She was telling me that both of my brothers had been shot
And gustavo passed away.
For me, it was everything I ever knew
Was kind of gone at that moment.
♪ ♪
- I woke up in the ambulance, didn't know where I was,
Why they were cutting all my clothes off
And everything.
They didn't want to tell me about gus,
And I could feel it in the air.
♪ ♪
And then, that's my-- like, my best friend.
So it's like, why is gus not here?
Where is gus?
And finally, you know, they said,
Gus didn't make it,
And that was painful, man.
That was very painful.
Gustavo was my best friend.
He was like one of my brothers, you know?
- My brother gustavo was a happy person, energetic.
You know, fun. He loved music.
And he was an ambitious person.
- Gustavo was going to kent university,
And he was studying business.
And he was working at ups and just became a manager.
Gustavo was very good at motivating us to do
Whatever we wanted to do.
He had that energy, which I believe he was
Able to share with everybody.
And gustavo was actually the one who
Pushed me to go to the studio.
And like right there, we started
Making plans for the future.
So one second we're, like, living our american dream,
And the next second, it's being taken away.
♪ ♪
- Hours into the investigation,
Detectives finally get a name of their suspected shooter,
A member of opus 22's security team.
- The name of the bouncer we got was stephen sakai.
♪ ♪
When we found that he lived in brooklyn,
The team headed out there right away.
I was still at the club doing interviews,
And we were told that the team out in brooklyn
Was able to grab the subject heading to his apartment.
♪ ♪
The decision was made to bring him back to the 13th precinct
To conduct interviews with him.
♪ ♪
When I got to the precinct, I was determined
That I was going to be doing an interview
With detective mcneely from the homicide squad.
Before that night, I've never heard
The name stephen sakai before.
He was a male black with a bald head.
He had like a little fu manchu mustache.
As far as I knew about him, he was from brooklyn,
Born and raised.
But he's talking with an accent,
Like an asian accent.
At first, we were just trying to get him talking.
You know, just trying to talk to him
About normal everyday life things
Prior to just jumping into what had transpired that night.
He would talk about cambodian cage fighting,
Chinese star throwing.
Every once in a while, he would break character,
And he would talk normally,
And then he would go back to the asian accent.
I have no idea if any of this was real or not.
♪ ♪
We were going back and forth for a while.
And at first, he was acting like he wasn't
Even there at the scene.
We were telling him, we know he was at the club.
You know, we have several witnesses
That pointed him out.
- Suddenly, the interview takes
A completely unexpected turn.
- Mr. Sakai made a comment about a homicide in brooklyn.
Me and billy kind of looked at each other like,
What exactly is he talking about?
And then he started telling us about different homicides
In brooklyn.
♪ ♪
One of the statements he said was a friend of his
Was bad at business, so someone shot him.
And, you know, you're sitting there in the room,
And you're trying to keep a straight face.
So a bunch of bosses outside or detectives outside
Got on the phone to brooklyn to find out
If these homicides even did happen in brooklyn
And if this guy is actually telling the truth.
- Sure enough, on the other side of the door,
Detectives on the phone are learning from their brooklyn
Counterparts about three very real unsolved murders
Of nightclub bouncers in their borough.
♪ ♪
The brooklyn detectives are eager to conduct
Their own interviews with sakai.
- They called us, the 9-0.
And at that point, we responded to the 13th precinct
Where he was being held.
- I immediately got dressed and headed into work.
- Sometimes you show up and they refuse to talk to you,
But I was hoping that it was going to be fruitful.
♪ ♪
- I think that night, police had no idea how dark and evil
This case was going to get.
- Coming up...
- Through my career, I've worked
On many, many homicides, but this one
Was a real serial killer.
- It stated, "for me to succeed,
I have to be a monster in the most positive way."
- The body had been there for a few days,
So it had started to decompose.
- I looked through the peephole.
I just saw blood.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- At the 13th precinct in manhattan,
Bouncer stephen sakai denies involvement
In the mass shooting that just hours before
Took the life of gustavo cuadros
At the opus 22 nightclub in chelsea.
Instead, sakai hints he has information
About separate, unrelated, unsolved homicides,
All of them bouncers in brooklyn.
♪ ♪
- My case was to find the killer
Of gustavo cuadros and who had shot his brother
And his friends.
I didn't know about any of the homicides in brooklyn,
But I knew that a lot of other people
Had a lot of other questions.
- At that moment, racing into manhattan to interview
Stephen sakai is detective anthony spencer
From brooklyn's 7-2 squad.
- At this point, it's been now approximately seven months
Since the case first started.
- Spencer's involvement began more than seven months
Before the opus 22 shooting,
On November 16, 2005.
♪ ♪
- In this case, the victim was found by a manager of the club
That he worked at.
This guy was a bouncer.
And the manager had come to the apartment
Because he hadn't been heard from for a few days.
He found that the door was closed but unlocked.
He stepped in.
The manager then called 911.
♪ ♪
We met with the medical examiner.
They went into the apartment, found the body.
♪ ♪
The victim was a male hispanic, 220 pounds,
6-6'2" tall.
His name was irving matos.
♪ ♪
Mr. Matos was found sitting on a couch
In a comfortable position.
The tv was still on.
Nothing had been disturbed in the apartment.
There was no signs of a struggle.
His phone was still there.
His wallet was still there.
♪ ♪
But the medical examiner found a bullet
Lodged in the victim's mouth.
They explained that it was a close contact wound
To the right side of the back of the head.
The bullet traveled through the head,
And it lodged in the tongue right
Behind the victim's teeth.
♪ ♪
We called crime scene to come,
And they were able to find one shell casing,
Which we then sent to the lab.
♪ ♪
- While the nypd's ballistics lab determines
Whether the shell casing matches ones from other crime
Scenes, detectives work to figure out who
Would want irving matos dead.
- The owner of the building was the victim's brother.
He was distraught.
He was a little bewildered as to what
Possibly might have happened.
He didn't know of his brother having any enemies.
Because we saw no signs of any forced entry,
We figured that it had to be somebody that he might have
Let in or that he had known.
♪ ♪
Victor matos said mr. Matos had recently
Been a bouncer at the sweet cherry club,
Which was in sunset park, brooklyn.
♪ ♪
As a detective, I have been called to sweet cherry
For cases involving robberies, for assaults,
Things of that nature.
Not only were they strippers, there were sex parties,
There were drugs going on there.
Prostitution.
- Detective spencer heads to the club to find out if anyone
Had a beef with irving matos.
- Everybody was surprised.
The other bouncers said he was a great guy to work with.
He was somebody that you could depend on.
- But spencer learns irving didn't only
Work at sweet cherry.
- Mr. Matos had been working for other people
That had security companies.
One guy we later came to be daniel fishback.
This gentleman would employ mr. Matos.
He would employ other bouncers at sweet cherry club
As part of his security team to do other jobs.
While I was interviewing people at the club,
I was told that a week before mr. Matos was found that he
Was supposed to have a meeting with mr. Fishback
About some job they were supposed to be doing.
And then they were supposed to be meeting
With another security guard that worked at the club
By the name of stephen sakai.
♪ ♪
After this meeting, people had said
That they had reached out to irving matos,
And they had not heard from him.
So our thought was, ok, what happened after this meeting?
♪ ♪
- Spencer tracks down fishback and brings him
To the 7-2 for questioning.
- So we asked him when was the last time
He had spoke to mr. Matos.
He said, you know, it was over a week ago
When he spoke to him about meeting.
- Fishback claims that he and bouncer stephen sakai
Were on time for the meeting, but matos never showed.
- Fishback says he wanted to confront him as to why he
Stood him up on the meeting.
But he hadn't heard from him.
He didn't know anything that might have happened to him.
He hasn't spoken to mr. Sakai, you know, for a couple weeks.
So at that point, it sort of put us
In a pattern of thinking, oh, these are two guys
That we need to speak to a little bit more,
I need to investigate a little deeper.
♪ ♪
- Two weeks later, the nypd's ballistics lab
Comes through with the news on the shell casing found
At the matos crime scene.
♪ ♪
- They had a match to another homicide case
That occurred after the murder of mr. Irving matos.
♪ ♪
It was a match to a gun
That was used in the 90th precinct.
♪ ♪
- I was the case detective in the 9-0.
We were told that the ballistic evidence that we recovered
Matched a homicide that occurred in the 72nd precinct.
- And the other precinct, the same mo,
Shot in the back of the head.
- We have identical ballistic evidence.
We have the same gun that was used in both cases.
♪ ♪
I swear to god, the hair went up on my arm.
It was that crazy.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Hours into his interrogation,
Bouncer stephen sakai remains
Adamant that he is not responsible for the shooting
That killed gustavo cuadros at a manhattan nightclub.
But detectives from brooklyn have started
Arriving to follow up on his references
To other murders in their borough,
Including the 9-0's jimmy bodnar.
♪ ♪
- I was driving in to work.
I was listening to 1010 wins radio.
- This is 1010 wins.
- And all I'm hearing is this big shooting that took place
In chelsea at the opus 22 lounge,
Which was one of the places stephen sakai was
Working as a bouncer.
And I know that that's my case.
- Bodnar's case began six months earlier
In williamsburg, brooklyn.
♪ ♪
- It was still early morning hours.
A call came over central radio that a person
Was shot at manhattan avenue.
♪ ♪
The building is a four-story apartment
Condo-style building.
I went up to an upper floor where the crime scene was.
♪ ♪
The victim was on the floor, face down,
With a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Very close contact.
It was a straight-up execution.
♪ ♪
Our victim was basically a medium-sized male hispanic.
His driver's license said that his name was edwin mojica.
I spoke with the victim's girlfriend, diana,
Who was in the apartment.
She was quite shaken and really visibly upset.
- He never introduced himself as edwin.
It was always eric.
Eric owned a security company called untouchables,
Where he would provide bouncers.
He probably had up to 25 guys
That worked in different clubs.
On Sunday, someone had called him
To come look at a venue to be able to see if they
Could hire his company.
♪ ♪
- I could see kind of when his jeep pulled in around 3:45.
I did hear him coming to the door,
And I did hear him put the key in the bottom lock.
♪ ♪
And that's when I heard the gunshot.
[gunshot]
It just was so loud.
I ran to the door,
And I just looked through the peephole.
And...
I just saw blood.
♪ ♪
I was scared.
I didn't know who was out there.
I didn't know if they were still there,
I didn't know what to do.
So I immediately called the police.
[sirens wailing]
[radio chatter]
Once I saw the police lights, I went out,
And I laid next to him, and I wrapped my arm around him.
He wasn't there.
Like, it just--
I didn't feel him anymore.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
Eric was a light that walked in the room.
He just always had that presence, that confidence.
People gravitated towards him.
He had an amazing spirit.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
- After speaking with diana, we walked through everything
With crime scene unit.
There was a shell casing on the floor by the victim.
And when I exited the building,
I noticed that there was a live round on the sidewalk.
- The round is the same caliber as the shell casing
Located at the crime scene.
Also on the sidewalk, right beside the round,
It looks like someone spat on the concrete.
- There was saliva that was left there that was still wet.
I had crime scene collect that.
All that stuff is now sent to the police lab.
So we were hoping for a ballistics match,
And we're hoping for a dna match
From the saliva sample that was left there also.
♪ ♪
- The dna sample will take some time to process,
But on December 12, 2005, the nypd ballistics lab
Determines the shell casing found
At the mojica crime scene matches
The one from the matos murder.
♪ ♪
It's clear that mojica was killed with the same gun
That took irving matos' life.
Now my guys from two different precincts
Had to work together to connect the dots.
- We got together with detectives
From the 90th precinct.
We gave them some information about our case,
They gave us information about their case.
- And he informed me that they have a deceased male,
Irving matos, that was in the security industry
Just like our victim, edwin mojica.
So it's gotta be somebody that's in the same industry
Or swim in the same water.
We need to start looking at who irving matos knows,
And who edwin mojica knows,
And who that common person is
That's friends with both of them.
[dramatic music]
- Hoping to find the missing link,
Detectives turn to diana.
- They were just asking me if he
Had any issues with anybody, but I didn't ever really know
Of anyone who disliked him.
He had his security company for about 12 years.
Did work out of new york mainly.
One of the latest accounts that he had gotten was opus 22.
♪ ♪
But eric had mentioned that a few weeks earlier,
He had gotten into some little argument
With one of his bouncers.
I didn't know his name.
I just know that the way he introduced himself was sakai,
I believe.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[police siren wailing]
- In December of 2005, the name of bouncer stephen sakai
Surfaces in the two seemingly unrelated
Homicide investigations of irving matos and eric mojica.
- Conferring with the detectives over in the 7-2,
We realized stephen sakai was a common name that came
Out that knew both victims.
- We were going to go and pick mr. Sakai up.
We responded to his residence.
We told him that we need to interview him in reference
To a case that we had.
♪ ♪
Stephen sakai spoke in a very monotone manner
With an asian accent, which I found a little strange.
And I asked him, is either your mother or father asian?
He said that growing up, he spent a lot of time
In cambodia where he learned martial arts.
- Hoping to keep him cooperative,
Spencer doesn't yet want to alert sakai that he's also
Considered a person of interest in the mojica
Homicide investigation.
- We inform him that we're investigating the murder
Of mr. Irving matos.
He said he knew him.
He said that they only had a business relationship.
He had worked for him on a few jobs before.
The day that mr. Matos was found,
Stephen sakai says that he was at the sweet cherry club,
And he heard about it, and he was shocked.
- Hoping to compel a telling reaction,
Spencer comes right out and challenges sakai.
- And I said, I just have to ask you,
Did you shoot mr. Matos?
And he says, "I don't use weapons.
When I fight, I use my hands."
♪ ♪
- Spencer now believes his best chance
To determine whether sakai murdered matos is to find out
If he also murdered mojica.
Spencer remembers the killer's dna
Was found at the mojica crime scene,
So he comes up with a plan.
- He asked for a cup of water at the time.
We were finished with the interview.
He got up, and he left.
And he left the cup in the interview room.
♪ ♪
At that point, I knew that I really needed
To get his dna to see if there were any hits
To the 90th precinct case.
So we took that cup and sent it to the lab.
♪ ♪
We found out that we got a positive hit on a dna match.
- The sample from sakai's water cup
Is the same as the dna in the saliva found
By the eric mojica murder scene.
And ballistic evidence suggests
That whoever executed mojica
Also killed irving matos.
Stephen sakai now becomes the prime suspect
In both homicides.
- That's when we started saying,
Ok, well, we need to get our cases together,
We need to bring this guy in.
But in a case like this, any little thing can be
A technicality to get him off.
So we wanted to make sure that we had a solid case.
♪ ♪
As we were getting our ducks in a row in a sense,
As far as the investigation to bring him in,
Then we hear about the shooting in manhattan.
[sirens wailing]
And of course, that's when we all converged in the precinct
In manhattan.
♪ ♪
When I arrived at the 13th precinct,
There were a number of detectives that wanted
To talk to mr. Sakai.
- Spencer is not surprised to see bodnar there.
He knows he's hoping to interview sakai
About the murder of eric mojica,
But he is surprised to find two detectives
From yet another precinct,
The 7-3 in brownsville, brooklyn,
Also waiting to talk to sakai.
- I'm like, the 7-3?
We hadn't heard of anything in the 73rd precinct, you know.
So we said, ok, well, what's going on in 7-3?
♪ ♪
- The name of stephen sakai was not on our radar
Until we were able to get notified that there was a dna
Match between our homicide and the homicide
In the 72nd precinct.
♪ ♪
- Eight months earlier, the victim was discovered
After his landlord asked officers
From the 73rd precinct
To conduct a welfare check.
♪ ♪
- The landlord had served an eviction notice
On one of his tenants there.
And I guess he was getting no response.
The victim was identified as wayne tyson,
A black male aged 56.
- Mr. Tyson worked at sweet cherry, a strip club.
He was found next to his bed laying face up
With slash wounds to his neck and multiple stab wounds
To his torso.
♪ ♪
Found that there was blood on the toilet in the bathroom,
Blood in the sink, and blood on the mirror in the bathroom.
- We were able to determine that there
Was other dna at that scene other than our victim,
Wayne tyson.
♪ ♪
- It's this dna that matches to sakai's water cup
And to the dna found on the sidewalk outside the apartment
Where eric mojica was murdered.
- All these victims know this one individual.
He's the only consistent person in this case.
- It appeared to myself and the other detectives
That stephen sakai killed people that he knew,
Killed people that he worked with,
Shot some innocent people at a club.
Through my career, I worked on many, many homicides,
But I believe this one was a real serial killer.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[police siren wailing]
- In late may of 2006, while brooklyn detectives
Await their chance to interview stephen sakai about a slew
Of unsolved cases, detective chris breslin's interview
About the opus 22 shooting in manhattan
Seems like it's drawing to a close.
- After a couple hours, all of a sudden,
It was like somebody poured a bucket over his head.
Sweat started coming down his face.
And that's where he made a comment like he doesn't
Want to come off as a monster.
He's not a monster.
And that's when he started telling us everything
That happened that night.
♪ ♪
He was saying that he got into an altercation
With three or four gentlemen.
He was escorting him out.
There was some pushing and shoving.
When he got them outside, somebody threw something
At him and set him off.
And that's when he pulled out the gun.
[gunshot]
[screaming]
♪ ♪
He had shot one subject,
And I believe another subject came at him,
And he had shot him.
There was a third subject there.
He wound up shooting him, and I believe one subject was
Actually running away, and he was able to turn
And fire and hit him also.
[gunshot]
And then he said he just left.
♪ ♪
We asked him where the gun was, and he actually
Said he left it on the train.
♪ ♪
Sakai dictated the entire statement word for word,
And he signed it at the end.
He was then charged with attempted murder
And charged with murder.
I knew my case was over and done with,
But the brooklyn detectives had showed up,
And now they wanted to interview him
Personally on their cases.
- First up, detective hunter looks for a confession
In the murder of wayne tyson.
- We asked him if he knew wayne tyson from sweet cherry.
♪ ♪
He said he had a close friendship with him.
- Stephen sakai told us that he had
Gone to visit because wayne was having
Problems with his landlord, he was being evicted.
Sakai was trying to help them out.
Sakai said that as they were talking,
Tyson became more agitated, and as the agitation grew,
Wayne tyson attacked sakai with a knife.
♪ ♪
Stephen sakai went on to say that he
Was struggling over the knife.
Sakai said that he had stabbed wayne tyson in order
To prevent him from stabbing and killing him.
♪ ♪
- It appeared he was trying to make a self-defense case,
But the amount of stab wounds to mr. Tyson,
I didn't believe his story at all.
♪ ♪
Sakai said he had nothing further to say.
♪ ♪
- I looked at my partner.
We said, let's go in and speak to him
About the edwin mojica homicide.
He sat there, very calm, just very reserved,
And started answering questions.
And told us that he was looking to take over
Edwin mojica's security business.
It could be quite lucrative, this type of work.
It was out of greed.
Mr. Sakai gave a full confession
And admitted to everything that he did.
Explaining that he walked up to him and shot him.
♪ ♪
- Detective spencer from the 7-2
Then heads to interrogate sakai
About the murder of irving matos.
It's been weeks since their first and only interview.
♪ ♪
- He looks up at me, and he says,
"oh, detective spencer, I guess you think I killed irving.
Yeah, I did. I shot him in the stomach."
♪ ♪
I said, "mr. Sakai,
I know that you've been here overnight."
I said, "do you need to rest,
"or you need to smoke a cigarette?
"if so, do that because I don't want to rush this thing,
"I want to sit down and get the real story
"as to what happened
Because we both know he wasn't shot in the stomach."
♪ ♪
He started telling us the story about how
He was in the apartment with mr. Fishback and mr. Matos.
And then he starts telling us a different story
That it was mr. Fishback that shot him.
♪ ♪
[gunshot]
After, you know, this whole seven months investigation
And what I had uncovered, I didn't believe
That statement at all.
At the time, he had gave a statement
To two of the other homicides.
Why are you going back and forth with this one, you know?
So that's what puzzled me at the time.
But he was kind of a strange individual.
♪ ♪
- Hoping to locate the murder weapon to strengthen all four
Cases, detectives obtain a search warrant
For stephen sakai's apartment.
♪ ♪
- That was something out of "silence of the lambs."
There was hardly any light in the place.
- We go in the back of his apartment.
There's spackle buckets in the apartment with urine in them.
There had to be six to seven spackle buckets.
♪ ♪
The odor was horrendous.
There was also dog feces all throughout the apartment.
♪ ♪
- There were stacks and stacks of martial arts magazines
And kung fu magazines.
There were martial arts practice swords.
But we didn't find any knives or murder weapons.
- However, in the apartment, we found a list of items
In a notepad, and it looked like a shopping list
For a serial killer.
♪ ♪
He wanted a .45 caliber firearm,
Rubber gloves, a mask, a bulletproof vest,
Rubber boots, a chainsaw.
And in the notepad, it stated, "for me to succeed,
"I have to be a monster in the most positive way!
Sakai."
In his handwriting.
We already known that he possibly killed four people.
Based on what he was writing, we thought he might
Have killed more people.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- In may 2006, stephen sakai seems
To have come clean about every murder he's been
Suspected of, except for one.
In the irving matos homicide case,
Sakai claims it was his business partner,
Daniel fishback, who pulled the trigger.
- I re-interviewed mr. Fishback.
He said they had a meeting in opus 22
About some job they were supposed to be doing.
Mr. Fishback hung out in the car.
Mr. Sakai and mr. Matos went into the club.
- Apparently, the club's manager
Refused to hire matos because he
Was drunk during the meeting.
- They came back out of the club.
They then went to the victim's house.
Mr. Fishback and the victim were sitting on the couch.
Mr. Sakai was standing up.
And he then walked in the back of the couch
To go to the bathroom.
And mr. Fishback says he hears a gunshot.
♪ ♪
[gunshot]
And he sees mr. Matos slumped forward.
And mr. Sakai just said,
"that guy is always causing problems."
Mr. Fishback apologized for not being forthright,
But he said he was afraid for his life.
- The da felt daniel fishback was
Telling the truth about why he hadn't come forward.
They elected not to prosecute him and treat him solely
As a cooperating witness.
- I felt that, you know, he was believable.
And I have to confer with the da's office.
They felt that he was an eyewitness to this incident,
So he wasn't arrested.
♪ ♪
- The trial begins in December 2007
For the three brooklyn murders of wayne tyson,
Eric mojica, and irving matos.
♪ ♪
- Sakai was found guilty in the murders of tyson and mojica,
Not in the case of matos,
But he was sentenced to 50 years to life.
- He wasn't found guilty because the jury
Didn't believe the eyewitness, mr. Fishback.
I mean, I always found a little taken aback
That he wasn't found guilty in my case,
But I was just satisfied that, you know,
He was no longer on the street.
If he hadn't have been stopped,
Who knows how many other bodies might
Have been attributed to him.
♪ ♪
- In December 2008, sakai goes on trial
For the manhattan nightclub shooting
And the murder of gustavo cuadros.
The jury finds him guilty of second-degree murder
And attempted murder, and sakai is sentenced
To an additional 90 years.
♪ ♪
- I was in shock.
Because we knew him.
He was working for eric.
He lived nearby.
And I knew that he called him often for work.
It wasn't just an account that he took.
He took eric from us.
An amazing person, all for an account.
I wrote the goodbye to him.
Eric, the love of my life,
I didn't even get to say goodbye.
I miss that beautiful smile.
You will always be in my heart.
I just loved him a whole lot.
He was just too young.
♪ ♪
- I just think about all those things that could have been.
You know, there's just so many moments
That you wish you could share with somebody that you can't.
- Gustavo and I, we were close, you know?
I guess the positive is that I survived.
I'm in a wheelchair, but I don't think about the reason
Every day that I got shot.
I was able to raise my kids.
Every day is a challenge, but we all got challenges.
This is mine.
- [rapping in spanish]
- I didn't get to say goodbye to gus.
The shootings happened right after the performance.
We even had this one song called "last chance" where,
In the lyrics, he's talking about,
It's my last chance to make it and everything.
So it was very prophetic.
It's tough not to have that--
That guy next to you rooting you on, you know?
And it's like, man, I miss that.
I miss that so much, man.
I miss that.
♪ ♪
[police siren wailing]