One Minute Remaining - Stories from the inmates

By the time Traveontaye Berry's case reached trial in February 2015, he had already faced a choice most teenagers should never have to make: accept a plea deal or roll the dice in a courtroom.

He chose to fight.

In this episode, Tray walks us through what that meant. The deal he turned down. The prosecution's case against him. His defence. What it felt like to be 16 years old, sitting in a courtroom, watching a jury make a decision that would define the rest of his life.

He talks about the trial process itself: the evidence presented, the witnesses who testified, the arguments made on both sides. And he talks about his own experience of it all. The fear. The hope. The reality of watching a jury deliberate for less than two hours before returning a guilty verdict.
Six counts of First-Degree Murder. Fifty-two years.

This is Part Nine of Traveontaye Berry's story: 52 Years in Just 2 Hours.
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Over the past seven episodes, we’ve examined the physical evidence gaps, the witness contamination, the unrecorded photo lineup, and the investigative decisions that led to Traveontaye Berry’s conviction.

But what does a professional murder investigator see when he listens to these police interviews?

In this episode, we sit down with Steve Keogh, a former Scotland Yard Detective Inspector with 30 years in the Metropolitan Police and 12 years investigating homicides. During his career, Keogh investigated over 100 murders across London. He’s written extensively on how murders are really investigated, consulted on major crime cases, and now examines murder investigations for television and his media work.

We played him the police interview recordings from the Traveontaye Berry investigation. We asked him to assess the interview methodology, the witness handling, the procedural decisions, and the investigative approach that shaped this case.

What Steve identified is a masterclass in how not to conduct a murder investigation. From leading questions to witness contamination, hear how a veteran detective works.

This is Part Eight of Traveontaye Berry’s story: 52 Years in Just 2 Hours.

Check out Steves podcast here
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Over the course of this investigation, a name keeps surfacing. Multiple times. Multiple witnesses. In interviews with police, in statements given in the hours and days after Carl Green Jr. was shot, three separate people mention this individual in connection with the crime.

According to witness accounts, this person was present that night. This person allegedly had a weapon. And perhaps most significantly, this person had previously threatened Carl Green Jr.

So why was Traveontaye Berry the only person arrested?

In Part Seven, we examine what investigators knew about this alternative suspect, what they chose to investigate, and what they chose to ignore as they built their case against a 16-year-old boy.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

I need to be really clear about something. No one other than Trae has ever been arrested, charged, tried or convicted for the murder of Carl Green Jr. The other people mentioned in these interviews have never been charged with anything in connection with this case, and some have denied any involvement.
What we're examining here is what investigators considered, what witnesses said, and the choices police made in directing their investigation toward one suspect whilst potential leads involving others went unexplored.

This is Part Seven of Traveontaye Berry's story: 52 Years in Just 2 Hours.
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In Episode Five, we heard how police brought two eyewitnesses into the same room and had them confront each other about conflicting accounts. Now, in Part Six, we examine something equally troubling.

Myleka Avery, the prosecution's only eyewitness, spent her first two police interviews stating she did not know Traveontaye Berry. She had no idea who had fired a gun in her home that night.

Then came the photo lineup.

But here's the problem: it was never recorded. The officer conducting the identification procedure failed to document the moment Myleka allegedly picked Tray out of a lineup. Instead, the recording only begins after the fact. We hear the officer ask: "Now I just showed you a photo lineup and you picked someone out. Who did you pick?"
The witness identification is one of the most critical moments in any criminal investigation. A recorded lineup protects both the witness and the accused. It prevents suggestion. It prevents influence. It creates an objective record of exactly what happened.

This didn't happen. And the witness who couldn't identify Tray two interviews earlier suddenly could identify him in a process that was never documented.
This is Part Six of Traveontaye Berry's story: 52 Years in Just 2 Hours.
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In 2013, 16-year-old Traveontaye Berry was arrested for the murder of Carl Green Jr. in Freeport, Illinois — a crime Trae has always maintained he did not commit.
In Part Five of 52 Years in Just 2 Hours, we hear a crucial moment in the investigation as police bring the two eyewitnesses together.

Their accounts of what happened that night do not match. Now, investigators put them in the same room in an attempt to resolve those differences — and, in particular, to get one of the witnesses to change her version of events.

We hear what happens when the women come face-to-face, what police are trying to establish, and what the encounter reveals about the evidence that would eventually be used against Trae.

This is Part Five of Traveontaye Berry's story, 52 Years in Just 2 Hours.
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