The Killing Zone | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

in washington d.c a notorious drug gang threatens an entire neighborhood witnesses are intimidated or killed even as the police and the fbi build a case against the killers the body count continues to climb drug sales skyrocket as a neighborhood becomes a virtual war zone now the fbi must find the key to destroying a deadly gang known throughout the city as the k street crew [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the 1990s the war on drugs was in full swing the front lines were often america's inner cities where gangs use violence and murder to rule their empires i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office when gang violence exploded in washington d.c the metro police and the fbi fought back using high-tech surveillance and tough new laws they set out to destroy the gangs from the inside out [Music] washington d.c in this city of monuments and museums lies the heart of american justice the supreme court the department of justice the federal bureau of investigation [Music] but even our nation's capital is not immune to crime march 22nd 1991 20 year old wendy york returns home after running errands she shares an apartment with her cousins tarita and theresa lucas teresa is in the living room lying on the couch her face is covered with blood oh my god wendy runs from the apartment and calls 911 an emergency dispatcher directs units to the scene [Music] dc metro police arrive at the apartment within minutes teresa lucas has been shot through the head [Music] in a back bedroom they find another body and a child the second victim is teresa's sister tarita she's also been shot in the head her child is unharmed police discover another baby terrified but also unharmed it's teresa's child it seems both children have been alone with the bodies for hours [Music] a short time later the victim's mother arrives at the apartment renee brown finds the building surrounded by police my mind was racing and i was trying to get in the police were holding me back they said you can't get and i said this is my house i have to go in that was the most horrific day of my life i will never forget it they were very devoted and dedicated mothers they loved their kids and they didn't deserve to die crime scene investigators process the apartment they find no signs of forced entry nothing in the apartment appears to be disturbed no valuables have been taken there is nothing that suggests a motive for the brutal slaying detectives suspect the victims knew their killer detectives asked renee brown to check the apartment the grieving mother is willing to do anything she can to help renee notices something missing from teresa's bedroom the first thing i noticed was that a poster-sized picture that was there the previous night had disappeared from off the ball a frame is found but a photo of teresa's boyfriend sam carson is gone and i told the detective then i said i wonder where that picture is and we looked in the trash in the back and it was nowhere in the trash so i said whoever has that picture is the murderer police contact sam carson to ask him a few questions he denies being in the apartment the night the two women were murdered night although carson is a likely suspect police have no physical evidence to tie him to the murders detectives interview people in the neighborhood although gunshots were fired in the lucas apartment neighbors claim they heard nothing about that i don't i don't you having to know the women no no two young women have died and yet nobody is willing to talk about it the double homicide catches the attention of law enforcement across the district including the fbi special agent vince lissy is shocked by the brutality of the crimes right here we got the photos agent lissy often works undercover and must protect his identity it was horrific the police had very few leads to go on they struggled and struggled with the investigation for some time but there were no real witnesses to it without a witness police cannot identify a suspect without a motive they cannot catch the lucas girl's killer and without evidence the double homicide will become a statistic yet another unsolved murder in a city plagued by the violence the epicenter of that violence is greenleaf gardens a housing project on k street the drug trade has reduced the neighborhood to chaos according to detective steve kirschner crack cocaine hit the city hard in 85 86. along with that came a lot of violence the homicide rate went sky high i believe it started out mostly from jealousy of who was making the most money they were kidnappings assaults just led to very violent there buyers many of them from the suburbs made the dealers on k street rich [Music] the area provided few economic opportunities so the lure of easy money proved a powerful recruiting tool it was a huge money maker form it was pretty hard to tell a 14 or 15 year old kid hey listen go to school do all the right things whenever they can go out on the street sell crack and make a thousand dollars a day they could buy all the things that they didn't have before because they live in an impoverished time with millions of dollars in easy profits at stake competition between dealers grew fierce streets became borders as gangs battled over sales turf the neighborhood was a powder keg according to metro homicide detective tony brigadini the area was deadly numbers that we have compiled over the years of the investigation showed that this was probably one of the most deadly areas in the district of columbia it's very close to some of the government buildings in southwest washington which was interesting in that there's an incredible amount of crime going on in a small area so close to a downtown business district the fbi and d.c metro police form the safe streets task force their job is to clean up a neighborhood that has become a war zone [Music] agents canvassed the streets looking for information on the gangster investigation [Music] residents are too afraid to talk or even be seen speaking with investigators if you walk up to somebody's door and you knock on their door and ask to speak to them in about three minutes everybody in that neighborhood is going to know that the police are there frustrated by the lack of cooperation agents try a different approach sometimes we follow people to work we try to get them away from a neighborhood we try to do whatever we can so that the people in the neighborhood don't know their witnesses at least it slowly the residents open up they talk about drug dealers who have taken over the neighborhood the k street crew the gang is led by vincent hill a ruthless sociopath who seems to thrive on violence [Music] if somebody came up and irritated him for any reason whatsoever he had no problem grabbing a baseball bat a hammer anything he could and hit them with it kill's money and his brutality make him the most powerful man in the neighborhood according to metro detective neil trugman he compared himself to a big-time mob figure there was no fear according to fbi sources vincent hill runs the k street crew with an iron fist still gang members respect him vincent hill had a reputation for being a bully but at the same time others looked up to him because they saw that he had money he had nice clothes he had fancy cars while he's manipulating them into selling drugs they would see him beat somebody up for not giving him enough money so all of these things kind of led the others to look to him as somebody that you didn't want to mess with you didn't want to challenge but at the same time he was a way that they could make money the distribution of crack cocaine carries severe penalties a conviction could get vincent hill and his crew off the streets permanently agents launch an investigation into the gang's crack dealing but hill's group is already one step ahead before the fbi can bust the k street crew on cocaine charges the gang suddenly shifts to selling marijuana they realized when they were selling crack cocaine you're looking at stiff time selling marijuana was a misdemeanor more than likely you wouldn't get any time for it [Music] the demand is huge buyers pour in from the suburbs maintains its profits minimizing the risk of jail time it just took off like a rocket everybody was making money you know people were making three four five thousand dollars a day just by selling marijuana thwarted by the gang's move the task force regroups as the dealers grow even bolder i would drive by and unmark cars and they would hold bags of marijuana up three for twenty three for 20. and then when they finally got close enough to realize your cop they would run the dealers simply abandon their stashes until the cops leave minutes later the dealers returned to the exact same spot with a new stash and set up shop again as business expands the violence escalates sometimes involving innocent victims [Music] on august 29 1992 travis ross and two friends are mistaken for rival drug dealers ross is killed instantly both of his friends are critically wounded police interview the survivors they say they have no idea who shot them or why their reluctance to answer questions is understandable police believe the k street crew has already murdered a dozen people who cooperated with authorities what they don't know is how the gang is able to identify these potential witnesses in 1995 bruce spencer is shot five times at point-blank range by a k street crew member somehow he survives he is willing to identify the man who shot him the task force immediately places spencer in protective custody he's registered at a dc hospital under the name john doe [Music] while spencer recuperates agent lissy and other investigators scour greenleaf gardens looking for the men who tried to kill him on k street agent lissy and detective trugman find themselves face to face with vincent hill the gang's notorious leader he said look all your witnesses are going to die everyone even your buddy who's in the hospital under the name john doe in room and he told me exactly what room it was and i shook my head as if i didn't know what he's talking about but i knew exactly what he was talking about they wanted to let us know that it was their business to locate witnesses and silence them investigators are even more determined to protect their witness but word of hill's threat reaches spencer fearing for his life the witness refuses to help investigators everything's working out almost not the task force is frustrated having lost another battle in their war against the k street crew in the 1990s greenleaf gardens in the southwest section of washington dc is a neighborhood under siege a gang calling itself the k street crew has claimed the housing project as its base of operations and turned it into a killing zone metro police working closely with the fbi struggle to link the gang to a rash of killings investigators know it will take more than individual murder convictions to stop the widespread violence they need a strategy that will take down the entire gang the joint task force decides to use ricoh a federal racketeering statute that will allow them to prosecute the k street crew as a single corrupt organization that sells drugs and commits murder to protect their interests homicide detectives re-examine dozens of cold cases that were once attributed to the random violence of the projects they search for anything that will link the k street crew to murder according to detective tony brigadini [Music] some of the cases that we were investigating were eight years old 10 years old we would have to go back and research case jackets try to find evidence that had been collected eight or ten years earlier try to locate crime scene photographs things of that nature yeah there here it is see this car is that the same so in trying to build a strong case we were dealing with with very little information in the meantime agents launch a covert surveillance operation to gather evidence on the gang's growing drug business special agent vince lissy we wanted to show the conspiratorial nature of these guys how they operated on the street how they took turn selling drugs who supplied who and we thought that if we could have undercovers introduced to the group that we could accomplish this fbi agents set up a stakeout in an apartment overlooking k street the landlord offers it to them free of charge like most of the residents of greenleaf gardens he's sick of the drugs and the violence we got some camera equipment video and still photos and we would sit up there and watch them and try to get the people on k street's patterns down we would see vincent hill out there and see how he operated investigators watch the area for weeks once they've established the gang's patterns they develop a plan most of the drug transactions on k street are conducted with buyers and cars to get closer to the dealers they'll need a vehicle [Music] we decided the best approach was to use a pickup truck we got the oldest dirtiest pickup truck the fbi had we bought some toolboxes and put tool boxes on the back of the truck to make it look like a construction truck the truck is rigged with surveillance cameras and microphones two metro investigators joe abdallah and jim scheider are recruited from another precinct as outsiders they will not be recognized by gang members they will pose as construction workers to make drug buys metro investigator joe abdallah so me and jimmy had a pre-range if i was in the trouble where i felt my my safety was in jeopardy i was going to run for that truck and depending on the situation jimmy was going to take off with me jumping in the back of that truck or he would get out with his firearm the main target of the surveillance operation is vincent hill the undercover officers expect they will have to make several buys before they can make contact with the gang leader five cars carrying two-man teams form a perimeter around the neighborhood they stand by on their radios awaiting lissy's orders we had all this in place we had the car situated throughout the neighborhood and we said okay let's go let's try it nobody moved until i said as the officers attempt their first undercover buy jim scheider knows he is heading into dangerous territory as soon as we turned the corner my heart started racing we knew that no turning back at that point abdallah and scheider looked for a dealer any dealer to buy from then on a street corner they spot vincent hill flanked by his lieutenants [Music] the k street crew is out in force [Music] abdallah doesn't think twice he gets out of the truck and i had asked if i could get two bags for 40 which meant two bags of marijuana which were fifty dollars but if could i get them for forty dollars a piece an individual to my left side ran to go get them from a stash which was on the fence line vincent hill said no you'll take two for 50. i put the money down and then i walked away the surveillance team documents the entire transaction they now have the leader of the k street crew on videotape personally selling marijuana to undercover officers joe got convincing hill the first time and we said wow this is too easy within 30 seconds the deal was done jim and joe rolled back to the office and we were just amazed the task force has been prepared to wait weeks even months to make contact with hill but it happened in less than a minute the fbi presses their advantage over the next six months they continue to buy marijuana directly from hill gradually increasing the quantity each time the sale is carefully photographed he was there through the undercover buys investigators discover that hill controls everything that happens on the block this becomes clear when abdallah and scheider try to make a purchase from someone other than hill and we were getting ready to make the purchase and there was someone hollering down the street when we looked back it was vincent hill we went back down into the block met with vincent hill and bought from him and i think he had that kind of power in that block for months the buys go on like clockwork abdallah is doing more than making purchases he's building a relationship slowly he gains hill's trust and tries to get information i try to get any conversations i could from him and there were times when i try and draw a conversation from him where he would say look if the police come in the block i have a place to run to you don't so tell me what you need let's get it over with and there were also times when i had a conversation with them about setting up weight purchases or you know more than the 20 bag what we would call wholesale quantities like quarter pounds abdallah begins buying in bulk moving from ounces to pounds he tells hill he is selling marijuana at the construction site where he works there were occasions when he would actually front me drugs which would mean he'd give him to me for free for payment at a later date we had that kind of trust and he even gave me good advice on when buying the weight he would supply me with the smaller 20 bags he gave me packages of those at some points and he would tell me how to juggle it or i mean break it down and sell it in the quantities to my friends and he gave me helpful hints on how to do that for six months the operation runs smoothly then a routine buy puts everyone on guard at one point when i made a buy from him i got back into the truck and jimmy was driving and i was in the passenger seat and jimmy said hey he's he's waving at you and he was motioning like to roll the window down so i rolled the window down and he said hey look these guys over here they're saying that your buddy's a police officer he said i know you're okay but he said those guys are there to kill you tell me what's going on police yo i know you all can be played like that right and it it it threw us off a little bit and then when we started to leave the guys that he was pointing to had like hoods over their faces and put their heads away from us it does not appear to abdolla and schneider that hill suspects they are cops so they continue the operation a week later the two detectives pull into k street vincent hill is there hill was cold to me he didn't want anything to do with me he said he didn't know where they sold marijuana didn't know what i was talking about and it was it was very confusing because even when he was angry and sold he was just in a hurry he said what do you need hurry up and get out of here but on this day he's like i don't have anything i don't know what you're talking about you can go somewhere else hill sends them to another dealer down the block that night abdallah meets the dealer in an abandoned house [Music] the officer prepares for a confrontation the gentleman walked into a vacant house called me in safe up here the gentleman tried to give me like a sandwich baggie full of lawn mower clippings it wasn't real marijuana so it was that point we knew something was wrong abdallah knows their cover is blown with backup cars at least two minutes away he slowly talks his way out of the building [Music] the undercover operation is over after six months of drug buys the task force still does not have enough evidence to put vincent hill and his gang in prison once and for all had we charged him with the drug conspiracy alone it might have gotten them ten years maybe five years and what's even worse they wouldn't have been held accountable for all the violent crimes they committed so we still needed to investigate the murders and the robberies and the kidnappings and all the violent crimes that were associated with that group investigators still have a lot of work to do in the meantime the streets rage with violence in washington dc a lengthy undercover operation has begun to produce results investigators have videotaped the infamous k street crew selling drugs but now they must find evidence of the gang's more violent activities [Music] in 1995 a brave young woman steps forward so what would you like chrissy gladden is 19 years old that you can share with us as a single mother she's worried about her neighborhood we know you're scared chrissy tells police that jerome martin and antonio knight are responsible for a drive-by shooting she overheard martin talking about it although she doesn't know the victim's name her description of the crime leads investigators to an unsolved murder six months earlier travis ross had been killed in a drive-by shooting near k street [Music] two of his friends were critically wounded chrissy wants to testify against the gang she knows they are the reason her neighborhood is so dangerous [Music] still she's afraid she tells investigators that if she speaks out against the k street crew they will kill her chrissy gladden and two other women finally agree to testify but only if the fbi places them in the witness protection program special agent vince lissy we finally convinced chrissy as well as these other female witnesses that we would work with them we would try to keep them safe and make sure nothing happened to them we stressed upon them not to tell people where they lived not to take people to their new apartments chrissy's cooperation pays off crew members jerome martin and antonio knight are indicted for murder all right hold the slide up to your bicep [Music] lissy believes they have enough evidence to get a conviction though one witness is recanted two others including chrissy are still willing to testify it's not a big deal the week before the trial of jerome martin we're constantly reinterviewing witnesses talking to them getting them ready to testify we want them to know what questions they're going to be asked if they take the stand to testify the week before we had christie in the u.s attorney's office we got it ready she pretty much knew what was going to be expected of her she wasn't an eyewitness to the murder but she did fill in certain gaps four days before the start of the murder trial vince lissy receives a call from one of the witnesses i'll set it up she was frantic screaming crying telling me they killed christy they killed chrissy chrissy's dead and i couldn't believe it and then whenever i realized what she was talking about it was like to me punch me in the stomach agent lissy drives over to the southwest [Music] district at the crime scene metro police tell them what happened get that marked right away according to witnesses chrissy attended a party on 37th street at the home of antonio knight's girlfriend as she left the party two gunmen appeared and opened fire by the time police arrived chrissy was already dead not surprisingly investigators are unable to find a single witness willing to identify chrissy's killers the message from the k street crew is clear talking to the police is a death sentence [Music] chrissy thought that everything was fine she trusted her friends she trusted the people in that neighborhood thought she could go back there nothing was going to happen [Music] that was probably the worst i've ever felt in this job it's hard it's hard to keep going sometimes when that happens still the task force pursues their case against jerome martin and antonio knight the trial is a disaster the case had lingered in the system so long in dc we said we got to go and we went forward with it and we did the best we could some witnesses were just physically unable to testify they were just distraught but you know we went forward and we lost jerome martin and antonio knight are acquitted due to lack of evidence to the k street crew witnesses like chrissy gladden are a minor inconvenience it was really something to see these guys go free and at that point they won the battle they were happy they won the battle and then i told myself you can't sit back and let them continue to win these battles chrissy gladden's death and the acquittal of martin and knight are major blows to the investigation the task force refuses to give up somehow they will find a way to bring the k street crew to justice in washington dc the k street crew is terrorizing a neighborhood with drugs and violence investigators spent months working with 19-year-old witness chrissy glatton who agreed to testify against them on october 5th she was gunned down outside a party [Music] even without witnesses detective steve kerstner is determined to find her killers we stayed on it trying to find a break in that case and we did everything we could we printed up flyers offered a reward it it really crushed the investigators on the case uh special events it's horrible it's just you know part of you says what more can i do that's it you want to wave the white flag but the other part of you says wait a minute i'm not going to give up you know i'm not going to give in to their ways of justice it's not the way it's supposed to be [Music] less than a month later the fbi and dc police get an unexpected break in the case robert butchy smith a senior k street crew member is arrested for drug dealing in an effort to get smith to talk about the gang the fbi tells him he faces federal racketeering charges [Music] they're building a ricoh case that will tie the gang's drug business to a series of murders [Music] the tactic works smith finally agrees to talk tell us what you know smith reveals that the gang uses private investigators to identify people willing to testify against us they also use the freedom of information act to obtain court documents to target potential witnesses smith gives investigators leads on several unsolved kidnapping shootings and murders according to metro detective tony brigadine back to the house he had very specific protected information of the crimes and the business dealings that the members of k street crew participated in smith specifically mentions a triple homicide that his nephew william sweeney told him about him sweeney along with sam carson and james montgomery are fellow members of the k street crew smith said sweeney and carson were in las vegas when ryan pierce another drug dealer won big at the tables the two men decided to rob pierce when he returned to d.c on november 17 1996 sweeney carson and james montgomery waited outside his home pierce arrived late that night along with three friends the k street crew made their move [Music] what's up man what's this man wave money in no way get over here pierce told the gunman he had already put his winnings in the bank there was no cash in the house man this is crazy man sweeney killed both men one woman tried to flee was shot to death another woman managed to hide until the killers left [Music] according to butchy smith the k street crew usually kills people in response to a threat but pierce's murder was different this time it was all about greed my nephew sweeney investigators hope that smith's inside information is the break they need to finally bring down the gang at that point then we knew okay now we can start to get the framework of an indictment ready so that we could go and start to prepare charges against these guys for crimes other than the drugs smith agrees to become an fbi informant in exchange for [Music] if anyone finds out he's talking to authorities vincent hill will have him killed technicians analyze a single fingerprint found on a screen door at the murder scene [Music] it matches sweeney's prints corroborating butch's story what also helped us was we got william sweeney's cellular telephone records and some of the people working the case began to go and investigate that and they contacted the cell phone company and found out that the cell phone was used near the scene of the triple murder at the time of the murder investigators moved quickly to neutralize sweeney in april 1997 he is arrested on unrelated charges while awaiting trial in jail sweeney receives a copy of his own arrest warrant from his attorney an unnamed source is listed as an informant against him two months later just when it looks like the task force is about to put an end to the gang's operation robert butchy smith is gunned down in broad daylight the fbi informant has been shot a total of 13 times mostly in the head when butchie got killed it brought back all these uh feelings and the memories and you know it's hard it's hard to keep going sometimes when that happens much like chrissy's murder we there were no leads there were although many people were out on the street and saw it that day nobody would come forward nobody talked butchy smith's murder threatens to unravel the case against the k street crew investigators have lost their only informant the brutal killing scares away other potential witnesses after butchie's murder all right well we sat around looking at each other like what do we do now where do we go from here it really took a lot of the wind out of ourselves we had to figure out how we can continue with the investigation where were we going to go we thought okay we can follow up with the leads but you gave us but still we needed somebody on the inside and we no longer had butcher to give it to us we had to gather around and tell ourselves we can't let this get us down we can't stop in 1997 the fbi's case against the notorious k street crew was in trouble the only informant had been murdered gunned down in cold blood other potential witnesses are terrified they'll meet the same fate before he was killed fbi informant butchy smith told investigators that james montgomery was one of the men responsible for a triple homicide [Music] montgomery is arrested and brought in for questioning mr montgomery interesting special agent vince lissy pressures the suspect to talk about the triple homicide and the rest of the gang's crimes montgomery is already facing a long prison term for the murders in the end he decides to cooperate montgomery admits his role in the triple homicide he also confesses to seven murders including that of cooperating witness chrissy gladden lissy presses for more leads on crimes committed by the gang montgomery reveals that crew member sam carson killed informant butchy smith then he drops a bombshell he told me do you remember when the two girls got killed and i asked him which two girls and he said the ones back in the early 90s i knew exactly what he meant montgomery is referring to the unsolved murders of teresa and territo lucas and he began to tell me about it and i just couldn't believe it what do you want sam i just want to come in and talk to you for one or two minutes according to montgomery sam carson had stashed a bag of guns at the home of his girlfriend teresa lucas when he asked her to return the guns theresa claimed she didn't have them she didn't want them around her children so she threw them away [Music] carson was furious he decided to confront teresa one final time [Music] carson hid his handgun in the bathroom [Music] he tried to calm teresa's fears by showing her he was you know what this is unarmed i want my guns theresa he began again to ask her where's my gun i need my gun where did you put it i want him right now she gave him an answer that wasn't satisfactory you want me to go right i get out he went back to the bathroom retrieved his gun i killed her sam walked into the bedroom and as territo was waking up and starting to sit up in bed he shot and killed her [Music] according to montgomery carson got rid of any evidence that linked him to the crime scene took his time when he was satisfied that he had removed any photos wiped all his fingerprints he walked from the apartment got in the car and left investigators asked montgomery how the crew had discovered the identities of two undercover police officers joe abdallah and jim scheider montgomery admits that someone from the other side of town recognized them as law enforcement and told vincent hill oh although hill didn't believe it at first he soon became suspicious according to investigator joe abdallah on a subsequent buy we made after that day they followed us in the truck as we left and followed us back to the fbi building where was our our meeting spot after the buys took place and that's the date they quit selling to us lissy isn't taking any chances with this witness he decides to move montgomery out of state for his own protection in the fall of 1997 montgomery pleads guilty to seven murders as part of the plea agreement the court seals details of his sentence and whereabouts fbi i have a word for your arrest put your hands on your head now police arrest sam carson and charge him with the murder of teresa and tereta lucas william sweeney already in jail on unrelated charges is indicted for the triple homicide [Music] [Applause] with montgomery safely hidden law enforcement begins to dismantle the k street crew's infrastructure jerome martin sean coats and gang leader vincent hill are arrested in the summer of 1998 a federal indictment charges the gang with 13 murders 87 counts of racketeering drug distribution kidnappings and robberies the federal judge permits recorded testimony from chrissy gladden and robert butchy smith to be introduced at trial even in death the gang's victims point a finger at their killers in 2001 every gang member charged with murder is convicted they receive life sentences without the possibility of parole gang members not accused of murder plead guilty to charges ranging from kidnapping to drug trafficking there's no doubt in my mind that if these guys stayed on the street they would have continued doing what they were doing that was their life they knew how to sell drugs how to rob people how to kill people thanks to the tireless efforts of both the fbi and dc metro police k street is now a safer place to live [Music] you

Channel: The FBI Files

Views: 651,599

Rating: 4.6528525 out of 5

Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail

Id: Iwd_BaRXvD8

Length: 49min 23sec (2963 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021