The Central Park Five Were Convicted Of Matias Reyes's Crime: A Timeline

Updated July 25, 2022 17 items

On the night of April 18, 1989, Trisha Meili was brutally attacked while jogging through Central Park. Her attacker sexually assaulted her and nearly battered the life out of her. Meili's case immediately became a subject of outrage, and pressure built on police to make arrests. Under such muddled circumstances, the NYPD quickly found five teenage suspects to put on trial.

Four of the five confessed, but under dubious circumstances, and with little other evidence. Meanwhile, murderer and rapist Matias Reyes was left unquestioned about the crime. Through racial bias and a rush to convict, justice was miscarried and the true attacker slipped through the cracks for more than 10 years.

Many myths still exist about the Central Park Five case. The circumstances that led to five young men being convicted of a crime that evidence later showed they could not have committed are complex. Ava DuVernay's Netflix series When They See Us - which dramatizes the case of the Central Park Five, from the crime itself to the exoneration - became one of the streaming service's most successful offerings. What follows is a timeline of the events as they played out - an ordeal that lasted a decade and a half.

April 19, 1989, 10:30 pm: Raymond Santana And Kevin Richardson Are Arrested
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
Around 9 pm on April 19, 1989, the NYPD began to get reports that a large group of teenagers was moving through Central Park. Their behavior included various acts of assault, robbery, and vandalism, and the NYPD dispatched a large group of officers to deal with them. At around 10:30 pm, five arrests were made near the park, with Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson among those apprehended.

The officers began questioning the boys at the Central Park police station, and used their testimony to develop a list of 33 teenagers said to be in the rampaging group that night.
April 20, 1989: Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, And Korey Wise Are Brought In For Questioning
It wasn't until about 1:30 am on April 20 that two construction workers found Trisha Meili badly injured in a ditch in Central Park. She was rushed to the hospital and a search began for her attackers.

The police ended up bringing in more than 30 people for questioning, including Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise. Over days of interrogation, authorities eventually extracted at least partial "confessions" from five boys between the ages of 14 and 16: Santana, Richardson, McCray, Salaam, and Wise. These interrogations were not recorded and have become the focus of much scrutiny and suspicion that they were abusive or misleading.

All the boys soon after retracted their statements.
August 5, 1989: Matias Reyes Is Arrested For An Unrelated Sexual Assault
Photo:
The Central Park Five/Sundance Selects
On August 5, 1989, 17-year-old Matias Reyes was captured following his sexual assault of a woman in her apartment. Police and prosecutors were soon able to attach Reyes to eight additional crimes, including more sexual assaults and a murder. One took place in Central Park, just two days before the attack on Trisha Meili.
The detective involved with the case, Mike Sheehan, later said of Reyes: "This guy was a frightening guy. He was capable of doing anything. He’s very manipulative."
October 9, 1989: DNA Evidence From The Crimes Is Reported As Inconclusive
Photo:
Micah Baldwin
Flickr
CC BY-SA 2.0
Several DNA samples were recovered from the crime scene, but the use of DNA in court cases was still new. New York did not have a DNA databank until 1996. Samples needed to be both large and very uncontaminated to produce a usable result. Therefore, the bodily fluids found at the scene were not able to conclusively rule in or rule out any suspect in 1989.

It would be more than a decade before the DNA was retested with more sophisticated techniques.
June 25, 1990: McCray, Salaam, And Santana Go On Trial
Photo:
The Central Park Five/Sundance Selects
The five boys were split into two trials, with McCray, Salaam, and Santana being tried first. Faced with limited physical evidence, prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer relied largely on videotaped confessions by Santana and McCray. She also tied the attack on Trisha Meili with the crime spree that a large group of teens committed in Central Park that night.

However, none of the other seven victims of assault that night were ever able to identify any of the Central Park Five as their attackers.
July 31-August 1, 1990: Salaam Takes The Stand In His Own Defense
Photo:
The Central Park Five/Sundance Selects
Salaam was the only one of the five to never put any police statement on paper or videotape. Frustrated by the poor performance of his lawyer, Salaam pushed to take the stand in his own defense.

Over the course of two days, Salaam protested that he had been threatened by police and inappropriately separated from his family, as he was younger than 16 at the time of his arrest.
August 18, 1990: McCray, Salaam, And Santana Are Convicted On Various Charges
Despite the weak evidence against them, the first three boys to go to trial were convicted of rape, assault, robbery, and riot. They were all sentenced to five to 10 years in juvenile detention. All three boys spent approximately seven years imprisoned.

Even after being set free, they were required to register as sex offenders.
October-December 1990: Richardson And Wise Are Tried And Convicted
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
The second trial began shortly after the first, with Richardson and Wise appearing in court together. Wise's confusing, contradictory videotaped confessions and his learning disability made the allegations of coerced confessions more believable to the jury. One juror later admitted she did not want to find Wise guilty, but was pushed to do so by other jurors. In the end, both boys were convicted.

Like the others, Richardson was sentenced to five to 10 years in juvenile detention. Wise, however, was tried as an adult. In addition to serving his sentence in prison, he received a longer sentence than the others: up to 15 years.
November 1, 1991: Reyes Accepts A Plea Bargain And Is Sentenced To 33 Years In Prison
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
Meanwhile, Matias Reyes's case had slowly been proceeding through the courts. He finally agreed to accept a plea deal, pleading guilty to rape and murder in exchange for a 33-year prison sentence.

Reyes was said to have terrorized the Upper East Side for months and threatened to blind or slay his victims so they could not identify him.
November 7, 1991: Reyes Is Given A Life Sentence
At Reyes's sentencing, he became angry and hostile. When he was offered a chance to speak, he cursed the judge and his defense lawyer. Reyes then attacked his lawyer, Richard Siracusa, punching him to the floor before being pulled away by court officers.

Judge Galligan reneged on the plea bargain, saying that if Reyes was ever freed, "The civilian population would be at risk."
2001: Reyes Apologizes To Wise In A Prison Yard
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
Reyes and Wise actually met early in Reyes's sentence on Rikers Island prison complex. They got into a fight over who would control the television. Years later, in 2001, Reyes met Wise again and realized he was still imprisoned for the same crime. Reyes claims this realization filled him with guilt and he felt the need to apologize to Wise and admit his responsibility for the crime.

Others feel Reyes was simply looking to curry favor with Wise, who had become an important figure in a prison gang. Still others, like documentarian Ken Burns, feel that Reyes was seeking credit for his crime or just playing for attention.
2002: Reyes Admits He Acted Alone In The Attack
At Wise's insistence, Reyes took his confession to corrections officers. After some time, they passed the information on to city officials and the news spread like wildfire through the media. The NYPD began reinvestigating the case and made at least two major discoveries using modern genetic testing methods.

First, they discovered that the two hairs found in Richardson's clothes did not match Trisha Meili, as they initially suspected. A sock found at the crime scene with genetic material on it was also found to be a match for Reyes, and Reyes alone.
August 2002: Lawyers Of The Five Petition For Convictions To Be Dismissed
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
Once they were aware of the news about Reyes, the Central Park Five immediately began to push hard for exoneration. By August, lawyers representing the five men petitioned for their convictions to be dismissed.

The District Attorney's office initially put up a fight, offering a theory that Reyes had jointly committed the assault with the five boys or happened upon the crime scene after they left. Many prepared for a new trial.
August 12, 2002: Wise Is Released From Prison
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
Wise was the only one of the five who had not been freed by 2002. He was still serving the 13th year of his 15-year sentence.

In light of the new evidence, Wise was released early.
December 19, 2002: All Five Are Exonerated
Photo:
When They See Us/Netflix
Under pressure, and after several extensions, the Manhattan district attorney finally made a decision regarding the Central Park Five. The legal office recommended the men's criminal records be swept clean, an act that occurred on December 19, 2002.

Their convictions were vacated, and their names were removed from the sex offender registry. After a long battle, the five men were now considered innocent by most.
September 5, 2014: The City Of New York Settles A Lawsuit With The Five For $41 Million
Photo:
The Central Park Five/Sundance Selects
Shortly after their convictions were vacated, the Central Park Five sued the City of New York for $250 million, saying they had suffered "malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress." Court battles raged for more than a decade, with city lawyers under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg insisting they would win the case if it went to trial.

While campaigning, mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio said he was interested in settling the suit, and after his 2013 election, he followed through. On September 5, 2014, the city settled for a payout of $41 million.
A Sixth Teenager Charged In The Rape, Steven Lopez, Is Exonerated In A Related Case
Steven Lopez, a sixth teenager charged with raping Trisha Meili, is lesser known than the other defendants because he pleaded not guilty to the assault. He also faced charges of robbing a male jogger in Central Park on that same night in 1989. At the time, Lopez signed a statement saying he was at the site of the incident, but did not say that he was involved with the rape. He eventually entered into a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to the robbery to avoid the rape charge, even though no evidence tied him to either assault. He spent three years in prison.
In 2021, Lopez, who was not featured in the Ava DuVernay film, asked the Manhattan district attorney's office to review his case. The district attorney agreed, and a judge tossed out the robbery charge on July 25, 2022. District Attorney Alvin Bragg told the court that Lopez "was charged and pleaded guilty in the face of false statements, unreliable forensic analysis, and immense external pressure.”