2 men cleared in 1994 killing that sent them to prison for decades. New DNA tests cast doubt
Brian Boles and Charles Collins served decades behind bars before they were paroled; Collins in 2017 and Boles just last year. They're now free of the cloud of their convictions in the death of James Reid, an octogenarian who was attacked in his Harlem apartment. A judge scrapped the convictions and the underlying charges.
Boles "lost three decades of his life for a crime he had nothing to do with,' said his lawyer Jane Pucher, who works with the Innocence Project.
Collins' lead lawyer, Christopher Conniff, said Thursday's court action righted 'a terrible injustice.'
'While today's order cannot return to him the 20-plus years he spent in prison, he is happy that his name is finally cleared,' said Conniff, who's with the firm Ropes & Gray.
A message was sent Thursday to a possible relative of Reid's to seek comment on the developments.
A maintenance worker found Reid, 85, beaten and apparently strangled with a telephone cord, after noticing the man's apartment door was open, according to a New York Times report at the time. The apartment had been ransacked, according to the newspaper.
Boles lived in the same building, and Collins was staying with him. The teens came under suspicion after they were arrested in a robbery about a week later.
Collins and Boles gave confessions that their lawyers say were false and prompted by heavy-handed and threatening police interrogations. Boles recanted his admission before his trial, but he was convicted of murder; Collins subsequently pleaded guilty. Both were 17.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office now says the purported confessions were contradicted by witness statements indicating Reid was alive hours after the teens claimed he had been killed.
The men's trial lawyers and courts never got to see those statements. Nor were they given a lab report that undermined a detective's testimony linking Collins to a footprint found at the crime scene.
Bragg, a Democrat who wasn't in office at the time, demurred Thursday when asked about officers' conduct, instead faulting 'the systems that were in place decades ago.' All the police and prosecutors who worked on the case likely retired or changed jobs years ago.
While these old pieces of evidence proved to be problematic, new technology blew another hole in the case when prosecutors and defense lawyers reinvestigated it. A new round of DNA testing, using techniques unavailable in the 1990s, found that genetic material on Reid's fingernails didn't match Boles or Collins.
It's not clear whose DNA it is, and Bragg said for technical reasons, the sample can't be fed into law enforcement databases to search broadly for a match there. But it could prove very helpful if a lead is developed in some other way, he said, urging anyone with any information to come forward.
'The injustice had many dimensions,' Bragg said. 'Mr. Boles and Mr. Collins — decades in prison. And a family that does not have closure. And a society that has someone at large amongst us for decades for a homicide that remains unsolved.'
Boles, 48, took college classes in prison, earned a sociology degree this May and is building a career in working with marginalized people, his lawyers said. Lawyers for Collins, 49, didn't shed light on his pursuits.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
25 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Hunter Biden Is Unrepentant
About two hours into the Gen Z influencer Andrew Callaghan's interview with Hunter Biden, I had a moment of piercing clarity: Here is a Democrat you could put on Joe Rogan's podcast. Joe Biden's surviving son became MAGA world's favorite punching bag because of his suspect business dealings in Ukraine, his infamous laptop, and his presidential pardon for tax and gun offenses. But in temperament and vocabulary, Hunter is MAGA to the core. During last year's presidential campaign, Donald Trump's interviews with Rogan, Theo Von, and Logan Paul resonated with many young men. I can imagine that same audience watching Hunter tell Callaghan about his crack addiction and thinking: Give this guy a break. One of the most upvoted comments on the YouTube video is from a poster saying that the interview prompted him to go to rehab. Since their crushing loss in November, Democrats have wondered how they can win the battle for attention and reach voters who find them weak, remote, and passive. Their elected officials have been tiptoeing toward using the occasional cuss word in their public appearances, like teenagers cautiously puffing a joint for the first time and hoping not to cough. Hunter Biden, by contrast, went straight for line after line of the hard stuff. Donald Trump is a 'fucking dictator thug,' and Democrats should fight against his deportation agenda because 'we fought a fucking revolution against a king, based on two things in particular: habeas corpus and due process. And we're so willing to give them up?' Hunter's cadences and mannerisms are eerily reminiscent of his father's, except where Joe would say 'malarkey,' Hunter says: 'I don't have to be fucking nice.' At times, he sounds like his father's id, saying the things the ex-president would like to say but cannot. Clearly, Republicans have not cornered the market in gossipy aggression, although in both their and Hunter's cases, most of that aggression is directed toward the Democrats and the media. In the Callaghan interview, which was released on Monday, the younger Biden has no time for James Carville ('hasn't run a race in 40 fucking years'), George Clooney ('not a fucking actor'), or CNN's Jake Tapper ('completely irrelevant'). His greatest animus is reserved for his party's anti–Joe Biden faction, such as the men behind Pod Save America, who are 'four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago, living in Beverly fucking Hills.' If you grew up in the pre-Trump media era, your response to this might be: Hunter, you have also made money off of your association with a president. But America has long since passed the point where allegations of hypocrisy are a useful political attack. Most voters now think that all politicians are hypocrites, but at least some of them are open about it. Everything that was bananas about Hunter's interview by old media standards—the insults, the frank discussion of drugs, the weird segues, the desire to lean into controversy—had previously been embraced by the Trump campaign. Last year, Trump's most human moment was talking with Theo Von about his brother's death from alcoholism, an exchange that also featured Von, who is now sober, joking about the low quality of cocaine these days and Trump nodding solemnly, as if this were something his tariff regime might address. In the interview with Callaghan, Hunter Biden talks about how making crack requires only 'a mayonnaise jar, cocaine, and baking soda.' Then there's the open shilling for sponsors. In Trump's preelection interview with Logan Paul, bottles of the YouTuber's energy drink, Prime, sat prominently on the table in front of the hosts, and Paul did an ad for them right after the section on Gaza. Callaghan pushes the self-promotion even further. He interrupts his Hunter Biden interview with inserted segments in which Callaghan faces the camera and pitches his other work, including a documentary on adult babies. (Don't make me explain. It's exactly what you fear.) Even more bizarrely, Callaghan surrounds these ads with questions to Hunter about their subject matter. 'Some days I identify as a baby,' Hunter responds, gamely, before suggesting that his host should ask the adult baby-diaper lovers if they vote Democrat or Republican. Then he hints at the conspiracy theory that Trump wears a diaper, a cut so deep that even Callaghan doesn't get it. You don't have to like it, but this is the media world now—podcast chats like this are where elections are won and lost, just as much as at the televised town hall, on the front page of the New York Post, or in the stately sitdown with 60 Minutes. The minimum bar for the next Democratic candidate for president should be the ability to react, live on camera, in a plausibly normal fashion, to the existence of adult baby-diaper lovers. Hunter Biden is on something of an 'I was right' tour. Callaghan recorded the interview last month in Delaware. The former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison also released an interview with Hunter on Monday, covering many of the same topics. According to Original Sin, the book by Tapper and Alex Thompson on the last days of the Biden presidency, the president's son wanted to do an interview tour to promote his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, about his grief over the death of his brother, Beau, and his drug relapse. Hunter 'planned to do a book tour through South Carolina, stopping at famed Black churches to talk about his crack addiction, but Biden's advisers pushed back,' Tapper and Thompson write. 'Hunter relented.' I now wonder whether Hunter's instincts were correct for once. He shows Callaghan the bullish charm of the narcissist. Bad things happen to him. Bad things might also happen to those around him, but, in his telling, he isn't really their cause. That portrait is hard to square with the available facts. Many people manage to grieve for their brother without starting an affair with his widow, or introducing that widow to crack. Many presidents' children have wrestled with the inevitable allegations of nepotism that their careers have created; few have so obviously traded on their father's power as Hunter did with the Ukrainian company Burisma, for which he lobbied when his father was vice president. (His defense for this is that Burisma wasn't a big deal, that he also worked for many charitable organizations, and that in any case the Trump sons and Jared Kushner are worse.) He plays dumb on the criticisms of the inflated sales price of his paintings, feigning disbelief that anyone would buy one to curry favor with the president. And while constantly stressing his status as a son, brother, father, and grandfather, Hunter never mentions his treatment of Navy, the little girl whose conception he cannot remember and whom he initially refused to acknowledge or financially assist. In American Woman, a history of first ladies, the journalist Katie Rogers reports that many staff members in the Biden White House were upset by Joe and Jill Biden's unquestioned backing of their son when he refused to support Navy without a paternity test. 'Their devotion to keeping Hunter safe, people close to them said, was worth enduring the onslaught of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats,' Rogers writes. From the January 2025 issue: The 'mainstream media' has already lost Hunter's perpetual refusal to be held accountable is clearly a character trait that many people are prepared to overlook. But then, when did a populist ever accept responsibility for anything? He has understood that to succeed in the modern media environment, you should throw out intimate details about your life in a way that looks like total, raw, unfiltered honesty while glossing over the raw, unfiltered details that reflect poorly on you. If you really screw up, then promise to atone in a fashion that does not inhibit your life or career—rehab, not a jail sentence. Just look at Hunter's interviewer for more evidence that this works: In 2023, Callaghan was accused by multiple women of overstepping their sexual boundaries. He thanked his accusers for speaking out, said he had 'always taken no for an answer,' pledged to attend a 12-step program, and carried on with his life. Americans love someone who has been born again, and the younger Biden is charming enough to attribute all his past behavior to the Bad Old Hunter, while spinning a yarn about how, when he met his second wife, Melissa, she simply told him to stop smoking crack—and because of his love for her, he did. The long podcast interview works so well for public figures—or at least, the ones able to master its idiosyncrasies—because hearing anyone's life story usually puts you on their side. When Hunter describes his 'public humiliation,' even a minimally empathetic viewer will reflect on how horrifically his privacy was invaded, and how none of us would react well to our worst moments being splashed across the internet. Incredibly, Callaghan manages to turn the laptop saga into yet another ad, cutting away to promote Incogni, a service that removes people's information from data brokers: 'So, obviously Hunter here is somebody who's dealt with a complete lack of privacy in the past couple years, but you don't need to be the president's son to have your data leaked,' he tells viewers. 'In fact, it's most likely happening to you right now.' Funnily enough, the pioneer of the endless-interview podcast, Joe Rogan, doesn't do personalized ad reads like this. Maybe that's because he doesn't need to—his first Spotify deal was reportedly worth more than $200 million —but maybe it's also that he's 57, and remembers a world where content and ads were divided by a holy wall. In almost every other respect, though, Callaghan is one of Rogan's children. This is not an adversarial interview; at one point, he tells Hunter, 'I'm on your team.' In three hours of conversation, Callaghan barely interrupts. When Hunter wants to go off on a digression about the Dred Scott case or the anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he is allowed to do so. The most decisive, and probably irreversible, shift in the post-Rogan American political conversation is evident in how both Callaghan and his guest talk in conspiratorial terms: the 'Christofascist incel,' in Hunter's words, who gave the laptop hard drive to Rudy Giuliani; the Mossad's alleged intelligence about the October 7 attack before it happened. Yet Callaghan also points out how profitable online conspiracies are for everyone involved. He says that he believes that 'most mainstream conspiracy theories, flat earth, chemtrails, QAnon, all that stuff is deliberate misinformation to convince dumb people that they're doing important research and keep them away from the truth.' Callaghan goes on, 'So maybe the conspiracy isn't, you know, Russia telling people what to do and how to think. It's just profit-incentivized content creators farming outrage through these ridiculous conspiracies.' He's spinning out a meta–conspiracy theory. But if this argument can't deradicalize the extremely online, nothing can. Headlines about the interview have focused on Hunter's dead-ender defense of his father's candidacy. He admits that his father underperformed onstage at the catastrophic June debate, but he blames it on Biden's staff giving him an Ambien the night before. (Oh, look: another Biden with no apparent agency over bad decisions.) Denial is not just a river in Egypt, but the fluid coursing through Hunter's veins. 'He flew around the world, basically the mileage he could have flown around the world three times,' the younger Biden said of his father in his interview with Callaghan. 'He's 81 years old. He's tired as shit.' So advanced age does affect someone's ability to undertake a grueling presidential campaign? Good to know. 'We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party,' Hunter told Jaime Harrison. 'That's my position.' This is a ridiculous position; voters were already worried about Biden's age, and the debate merely allowed the elites to act on those fears. But who is going to judge a son for refusing to admit his father's flaws? Helen Lewis: Finally, someone said it to Joe Rogan's face So far, more than 2 million people have watched the interview with Callaghan on YouTube, and many more will consume it through extracts on social media. Maybe clips of a president's son defending habeas corpus and mentioning a crack dealer named Bicycles is what the attention economy demands. Perhaps the Democrats, instead of spending another $20 million on their 'man problem,' should find a candidate who has less baggage than Hunter Biden, but can attack Republican policies with his level of straightforward, pummeling aggression. Maybe someone who was only addicted to one of the more genteel drugs, or only slept with their cousin's widow. But also someone who can talk about the creepiness of Stephen Miller, and who can attack the greed of the Trump sons ('They're selling gold telephones and sneakers and $2 billion investments in golf courses, and selling tickets to the White House for investment into their memecoin') without fretting about being accused of hypocrisy. Maybe even one who can say that they believe in a two-state solution in the Middle East—but also that if Benjamin Netanyahu really did slow-walk the release of hostages for his political gain, that would make him a 'monster.' But don't just take my word for it—behold the conservative activist Christopher Rufo. 'Might be an unpopular opinion, but I find Hunter Biden to be an utterly compelling anti-hero,' he posted on X after watching the interview. 'He is honest about his own flaws and sees right through the corruption and artifice of the elite Dem milieu.' Mike Solana, the author of the anti-woke, tech-focused Pirate Wires newsletter, agreed. 'If this were a trump son he'd be a MAGA folk hero,' he wrote on X. This is true. Personally, I would prefer that Hunter Biden show some regret for his actions and how they undermined his father's presidency, and how that helped return Trump to office. But I would settle for Hunter going on Joe Rogan's podcast to show MAGA-curious voters that the person at the center of so many conspiracy theories is a real person, not a shadowy villain.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Sicko Bryan Kohberger delivers grim 3 word response as he refuses to explain Idaho slaughter
Bryan Kohberger will keep his secrets. The sicko killer refused to speak during his sentencing, uttering only three words — despite demands from his victims' families and even President Trump to explain why he butchered the four roommates in Moscow, Idaho in 2022. This means the world may never know his motives. 3 Bryan Kohberger refused to speak when given the opportunity during his sentencing Wednesday. AP 'I respectfully decline,' was all Kohberger said when a Boise judge asked if he had any comments during the hearing Wednesday. Those were the most words the world has heard the convicted killer speak since his 2022 arrest – at his plea hearing earlier in July, he said nothing more than 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Guilty.' And during his sentencing, he said nothing beyond declining to speak. That cold comment came after nearly three hours of heart-wrenching victim impact statements from the friends and family of his four victims — Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Ethan Chapin, 20. Those statements moved numerous people in the courtroom to tears – the judge himself was seen wiping his nose at one point. Prosecutor Bill Thompson became emotional while speaking – but Kohberger remained cold as ice as he stared down the people whose lives he destroyed. Whether Kohberger would speak and explain his actions before he was sentenced was at the front of everyone's mind Wednesday. While a plea deal he accepted earlier in July landed him with four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, he was not required to offer a motive for the killings – and so far, no explanation has been revealed. The family of Goncalves was particularly outspoken about wants Kohberger to be made to explain himself, while Trump even weighed in with similar sentiments. 3 Kohberger murdered four university of Idaho students at their home in 2023. 'These were vicious murders, with so many questions left unanswered,' Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. 'I hope the Judge makes Kohberger, at a minimum, explain why he did these horrible murders.' But Judge Steven Hippler said people begging for answers from Kohberger should think twice. He said trying to get the truth out of Kohberger played into his hands, allowing him to cling to the power that he clearly wants. And there's also no guarantee he'd tell the truth, either, the judge added. 'Even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, how could anyone ever be assured that what he speaks is the truth?' Hippler said. 3 'I respectfully decline,' he said when the judge asked. AP 'Do we really believe after all this that he is capable of giving up the truth, or some piece of himself to help the people whose lives he destroyed in the first place?' He added that the killer's '15 minutes of fame' were now over. Hippler then handed down the sentences, and hit Kohberger with about $200,000 in restitution fines for the families of his victims.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Putin kept claims Hillary Clinton had physical, ‘psycho-emotional' problems under wraps because he thought she would win 2016 election: Gabbard
WASHINGTON — Russian intelligence obtained damaging information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's health amid her 2016 presidential campaign — including evidence that she had 'psycho-emotional problems' that were being treated with severe sedatives — but Vladimir Putin chose not to release it before that year's election because he thought the Democrat would win. The astounding revelations were contained in a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report which reviewed purported Russian influence on the presidential contest and was declassified and made public Wednesday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Russia's intelligence service 'possessed DNC communications that Clinton was suffering from 'intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression. and cheerfulness,'' the report stated. Advertisement A 2020 House Intelligence Committee report detailing Russia's knowledge of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's health amid the 2016 Presidential election was released Wednesday. Getty Images 'Clinton was placed on a daily regimen of 'heavy tranquilizers' and while afraid of losing, she remained 'obsessed with a thirst for power.'' Moscow's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, also 'possessed a campaign email discussing a plan approved by Secretary Clinton to link Putin and Russian hackers to candidate Trump in order to 'distract the [American] public' from the Clinton email server scandal.' Advertisement Putin chose not to release this information as he believed Hillary was sure to win the 2016 election. The revelations, which were taken from emails hacked from Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee accounts, even found that the Russians concealed details about Clinton shaking down religious organizations for campaign donations by pledging more favorable treatment by a future Democratic State Department. The Post reached out to the Clinton Foundation for comment.
