AP NEWSBREAK: DETROIT HIT MAN SAYS DAVONTAE SANFORD IS INNOCENT, WILL TESTIFY
Taminko Sanford center, mother of Davontae Sanford, with his family outside court July 29, 2010 Photo by Diane Bukowski
By ED WHITE
http://www.twitter.com/edwhiteAP
January 30, 2012
IONIA, Mich. — A Detroit hit man in prison for eight murders said
he’s willing to publicly take responsibility for four more to help clear
a young man who claims he’s innocent of the slayings and confessed at
age 14 only to satisfy police.
Vincent Smothers
Vincent Smothers’ testimony would be the most crucial evidence yet to
try to persuade a judge to throw out Davontae Sanford’s guilty plea and
free him from a nearly 40-year prison sentence. In an interview with
The Associated Press, Smothers declared: “He’s not guilty. He didn’t do
it.”
Smothers said he never used a 14-year-old accomplice – blind in one
eye and learning disabled – to carry out his paid hits, mostly victims
tied to Detroit’s drug trade. Ironically, there’s no dispute that
Smothers confessed to the so-called Runyon Street slayings when he was
captured in 2008, but prosecutors have never charged him and never
explained why.
“I understand what prison life is like; it’s miserable. To be here
and be innocent – I don’t know what it’s like,” Smothers said of
Sanford, who is now 19. “He’s a kid, and I hate for him to do the kind
of time they’re giving him.”
Told about the AP interview, Sanford’s attorney said she soon would ask a judge to bring Smothers to court.
Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy has adamantly refused to drop charges against Davontae Sanford
“If we can get Mr. Smothers up on the stand, it would be awesome for Davontae,” Kim McGinnis said Monday.
Smothers, 30, spoke over a phone Saturday at the Michigan Reformatory
with a glass window separating him from an AP reporter. He’s 130 miles
west of Detroit where he unflinchingly killed people on streets, inside
homes and even while he talked on a cell phone. He finally was arrested
in an alley in 2008 while holding his daughter.
Smothers quickly confessed to a series of murders, including the
execution-style shooting of a Detroit officer’s estranged wife for $50.
He says he was paid $60,000 over a two-year period. He eventually
pleaded guilty to eight slayings and was sentenced to at least 52 years
in prison.
Davontae Sanford in court three years after his conviction
Sanford, meanwhile, has been fighting to get out of prison. A Wayne
County judge soon is expected to decide whether to throw out his guilty
plea to four killings on Runyon Street in 2007. McGinnis has worked to
discredit the police investigation. She discovered major holes,
including Smothers’ confession and the fact that a gun used in the
murders was found at the home of an accomplice who, like Smothers,
hasn’t been charged.
Prosecutors, however, have refused to back away from Sanford’s guilty
plea. At times, they have acknowledged that Smothers may have been
involved but they won’t rule out a role for the younger man.
“There is no link between me and him,” Smothers told the AP. “I never knew him.”
McGinnis has been desperate to get Smothers on the witness stand. He
invoked his right against self-incrimination last year but was willing
to allow his attorney, Gabi Silver, to testify about what he told her
about Runyon Street. The prosecutor, however, objected and courts said
no.
Listen to Nancy Lockhart’s interview with Davontae’s mother Taminko
Sanford and his attorney Kim McGinnis by clicking on link below:
“I’ll testify if possible and answer all questions truthfully.
Anything I will say will be the truth,” Smothers told the AP. “I don’t
lie.”
The prosecutor’s office had no comment Monday about Smothers’
willingness to testify. Silver said Smothers has “always wanted to right
this wrong.”
“It’s too bad that a kid who didn’t have anything to do with this
crime is sitting in prison. That to me is a tragedy,” Silver said.
With short hair, clear face and a thin build, Smothers looks much
younger than his 30 years. He smiled often during the interview and
expressed dry humor, especially when he described odd jobs – drywall,
plumbing, roofing – while a student at Detroit’s Kettering High School
and later a factory job in Warren.
“You sound surprised,” Smothers said of his resume.
He declined to talk about why he became a hit man but said, “I understand people think I’m a monster.”
“Over the course of my young adulthood, I developed a hard heart
where people didn’t matter … When you grow up in the city there’s just
certain facts of life,” Smothers said.
Ed White can be reached on Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/edwhiteAP
Read more here:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2012/01/30/1807085/apnewsbreak-detroit-hit-man-says.html#storylink=cpy
Click on http://www.change.org/petitions/new-trial-for-davontae-sanford to sign petition for a new trial for Davontae.
