The Government's Witnesses

Ms. Lorraine Hill, a purported uninvolved eyewitness, was the prosecution's key witness. She remained steadfast about what she saw that morning while on her way to work. But, be that as it may, her testimony left many unanswered questions as well as a puzzling mosaic of her own behavior.

The Commonwealth refused to accept the notion that out of six, young Black men, that only one of them would have malice in his heart. However, they were quick to embrace their witness Lorraine Hill's assertion that there had been three dark-skin ned assailants. She told the police that while one stood in front of the victim, that the other two sat one on each side of him. Her version meant that the Commonwealth had to come up with two other men and place them one on each side of the victim, Mr. Janke; hence, Reid and Carlton Bennett. Why them? Because they were the only ones left up for grabs after Dajuan Bennett and brothers - Richard King and Tyrone Mackey gave statements and became government witnesses .

Another factor that made Giovanni Reid and Carlton Bennett the two most likely to be bagged, was the fact that they were the two who had been walking closer to the end of the block to where the lone contemplator of the crime, Dwayne Bennett, stood with his victim. When government witness Richard King was asked by an interviewing officer in the homicide division, "Why have you come forward to the police with this information?" In a reference to Dwayne, he answered, "cause I knew what was going to happen when he started telling the whole world; I didn't want to get blamed for something I didn't do." And, since the government was unable to implicate all six males in this heinous crime, they had to settle on the two that were left. Besides, having only one assailant to prosecute would have smeared the pictorialization of the six-man-boogeyman, robbery pack. At least this way the government could get a possible slam dunk on three out of the six. Vicarious sufferings?

I asked Reid about the type of association that he held with the guys he was with that morning. He answered that he knew them from his neighborhood and that he and one of Carlton 's brother's were friends and classmates. Nevertheless, it was a loose type of neighborhood association as indicated by the government's witness, Richard King. (When he was asked during his police interview, "Who are Carlton , "Gee" and Wayne ?" King responded, ""Gee", is Giovanni, that's all I know him by; Tyrone knows where he lives." The officer's question came after he asked King to write down on a police-drawn map the names and the positions of each person present at the time of the shooting.)

Though Dajuan Bennett had initially agreed to be a witness for the government, he would later refuse to testify. You see, not only did the government want him to testify against his friend Giovanni Reid, but they also wanted him to testify against his cousins - Carlton and Dwayne. All three cousins - Dajuan Bennett, Carlton Bennett and Dwayne Bennett - shared the same household with their mothers and other family members. From the very beginning, police interview records support that Dajuan, his cousin Carlton and the other three who had been present when the shooting occurred, all without hesitation identified Dwayne as the lone robber and killer of Mr. Janke. However, this was not a bone of contention; what was however, was whether or not Mr. Reid was a co-conspirator to robbery and murder.