Beware the wolfpack
Terror grips the city as a young man is killed and a gang flees
The judge described them as ‘predatory beasts’
Growing up, Brian Watkins was a star on the tennis court.
He came second in local championships at 18, and went to uni on an athletics scholarship before teaching tennis at an athletics club.
And he and his close-knit family from Utah, US, often incorporated holidays with watching or playing the sport.
In September 1990, Brian, 22, his parents, Karen and Sherwin, brother Todd, then 25, and sister-in-law visited New York to watch the US Tennis Open.
On a Sunday evening, they waited in the underground for a train.
A group of youths appeared, laughing and shouting. They approached the family, demanding money.
One slashed Sherwin’s pocket with a knife, stealing $200 cash (around £150) and credit cards.
As she tried to protect her husband, Karen was grabbed by her hair, knocked to the ground, kicked.
Instinctively, the brothers stepped between their parents and the mob. But Brian was stabbed in the chest, the blade severing his pulmonary artery. Horrified eyewitnesses watched as the gang fled the station. Incredibly, despite his injury, Brian chased them along the platform before collapsing.
His dad needed stitches on his leg. His mum was treated for a mouth injury.
But, tragically, Brian died in the ambulance.
New York City was gripped by fear. Terrified of so-called ‘wolfpack’ attacks, and the thought that rising violence could explode even in an everyday situation like catching a train.
The police felt pressure to take fast and aggressive action.
Detectives discovered several dozen teenagers had piled off a train onto the platform where the Watkins family were waiting.
Most had headed for nearby nightclub the Roseland Ballroom.
Only, a few didn’t have the money for the $15 (£10) entry fee. So they went back onto the platform, planning to rob someone.
Locksmith Antonio Gonzalez, who’d been outside, had watched them re-enter the station.
Minutes later, a swarm of panicked people had stampeded out onto the street.
When he’d gone inside to investigate, he’d found a bleeding, hysterical Karen.
Officers took Antonio, and the remaining Watkins family to the Roseland.
Antonio pointed out Anthony Anderson, 18, as a youth he’d seen emerging from the underground.
And the Watkins family identified Anderson as one of the attackers.
Anderson was arrested and soon confessed. Based on his statement, and descriptions given by the Watkins family, detectives went back to the Roseland at 4am.
They arrested more suspects as it was closing – Pascal Carpenter, 18, and Ricardo Nova, 18.
They confessed, too, leading to the arrests of Emiliano Fernandez, 17, Ricardo Lopez, 18, and Yull Morales, 19.
All six defendants had the same story – the Watkins family were robbed for money for the nightclub.
Police were confident they’d got their men.
And when another teen, Johnny Hincapie, 18, was implicated by Fernandez, Carpenter and Nova, officers didn’t hesitate.
At 11pm, they dragged him from his bed as his horrified mother looked on.
No physical or forensic evidence linked him to the crime. And while, during a
line-up, Karen Watkins said Hincapie looked ‘vaguely familiar’, she couldn’t be sure he’d been among the attackers.
But the next day, the police said Hincapie had confessed to being part of the gang.
In November 1991, Hincapie was before the courts, where he hoped to deny the robbery and second-degree murder charges against him.
The jury watched his taped confession. Taking the stand, Hincapie claimed he’d been slapped by a detective and shoved to the floor. Repeatedly screamed at, smoke blown in his face, forced to confess.
He said he was promised that, if he admitted a minor role in the robbery, he’d be freed and driven home.
The detective denied the accusations.
Hincapie’s story was that a friend was looking after his cash that night because his tight, designer trousers had no pockets. But as he’d left the station, he’d lost his mate and gone back to look for him. As he’d walked down the escalator, a crowd of people began fleeing the platform. So he’d followed them out, found his friend and continued on to the club.
He said he had no idea a violent attack had taken place until he heard the news the next day.
Across two trials, the seven teens – Anderson, Carpenter, Nova, Fernandez, Lopez, Morales and Hincapie – were convicted of robbery and seconddegree murder.
All were sentenced to 25 years to life.
Morales had brandished the weapon. Yet under New York law, any participant in a mugging is held responsible if a victim dies. Justice Edwin Torres described the defendants as ‘predatory beasts’ who attacked as a ‘wolfpack’. Hincapie maintained his innocence, but over the next 15 years, lost all appeals. Still, he didn’t give up. During a hearing in 2015, lawyers presented sworn affidavits from three witnesses who said Hincapie wasn’t on the platform during the murder. One was from Anthony Anderson, also convicted of the crime. Again, Hincapie claimed an enraged detective had beaten a false confession from him.
‘I was scared,’ he testified. ‘I thought I wasn’t going to make it out alive.’
In October 2015, a judge overturned his conviction.
By then, Johnny Hincapie had spent just over 25 years in jail.
A retrial was ordered, and he was freed on bail.
But in January 2017, all charges against him were dropped, on the grounds that, after 26 years, the quality of evidence had faded.
Later, in April 2018, Johnny filed a lawsuit against the city of New York, alleging wrongful imprisonment.
As he and his family gathered at the courthouse on the day that his charges were dropped, Johnny Hincapie was understandably emotional.
He admitted the case had destroyed his confidence in the justice system and tested his faith in God. ‘I can now put this behind me,’ he said. ‘I can finally move forward with my life.’