What the Witnesses Said Before They Saw JJ

Nine people, no physical link

Nine people were present when retired NYPD officer Albert Ward was killed during a robbery inside the illegal Harlem gambling joint he operated. Five were interviewed within hours; four were located later. With no physical evidence tying JJ to the scene, the prosecution would depend on what these witnesses remembered and how police conducted the identification process.

The first descriptions

Robert Jones described two Black men and later gave a detailed account of a light-skinned Black shooter with braids, facial hair, and a bright yellow-orange coat. Phillip Jones described a light-skinned Black man with reddish hair. Dorothy Canady described a light-skinned Black man in a knit cap. Matty Alex said she kept her eyes closed and could not identify the shooter. Lorenzo Woodford described a light-skinned Black man who may have had braids. Other accounts likewise described the first visitor as Black, and one specifically reported braided hair protruding from a cap.

Witness conditions mattered

The robbery was sudden and violent. Several people were on the floor or looking away. Some witnesses were elderly. Woodford and Augustus Brown had been engaged in a drug transaction; Woodford used heroin immediately afterward and did not approach police. Brown left and returned to street activity before police located him three days later.

Derry Daniels

The day after the murder, Phillip Jones selected Derry Daniels as the darker-skinned robber. Daniels was arrested, identified in a lineup, and indicted. He denied involvement and did not name JJ when first questioned. During a later sworn plea allocution, however, Daniels said that he had planned the robbery with JJ and that JJ was the gunman. Prosecutors did not call Daniels at JJ’s trial; the defense later maintained that the two men did not know one another. A complete account has to preserve both the initial silence and the later sworn accusation.

Augustus Brown and the photo search

After hours viewing a very large collection of arrest photos, Brown selected JJ. Brown had not previously said he recognized either robber, and his initial description identified the shooter as Black. His selection was the first evidence police used to connect JJ to the crime.

The photo array and lineup

Dorothy Canady did not select JJ from the initial photo array. On February 2, JJ voluntarily appeared with counsel and sat in the second position of a six-person lineup. The legacy campaign record describes three positive selections, one viewer who first chose another position and then expressed uncertainty about JJ, another who chose someone else, and Canady selecting no one. The 2016 appellate opinion summarized Brown and three other witnesses as having positively identified JJ in separate lineups. This archive reports the six-viewer results because the difference between an immediate positive selection and a later qualified identification matters.

The New York Appellate Division’s published decision preserves the state court’s account of the identifications and its 2016 decision denying relief. The later exoneration record, summarized by the National Registry of Exonerations, identifies mistaken witness identification as a contributing factor.