48 Hours - Death Wish

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

The death of Jeffrey Locker was like nothing veteran New York City cops had ever seen before. When the successful suburban family man was found dead inside a car in Manhattan, police investigated several theories. Was it a botched robbery? A murder for hire? Or was it even a murder at all? "48 Hours" correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 9/7/2013. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

Need a 25 unit for 30 Paladino Avenue, 30 Paladino Avenue one, regards to the DOA in a vehicle. A man is found dead inside a car in Manhattan. Registered owner is Jeffrey B. Locker. Jeffrey Locker was a man who had on the surface the American dream. There is no such thing as failure. There's only learning opportunities and chances to reinvent. He lived in one of the most affluent neighborhoods of

suburban New York. Most of the people who live there are millionaires. He had this Facebook site that had pictures of nothing but the happy, perfect American family. Lois called me and she said, Jeff's been murdered. And I said, no, no, no, this can't be, you know, this just can't be. I mean, he was somebody that was a really kind, generous, loving, integrity-filled person. Jeffrey Locker created a wonderful personal industry for himself as a highly demanded motivational speaker. I can get everything in this world that I want if I'm willing to help enough other people get exactly what they want first. Jeffrey Locker was found in one of the roughest, most difficult parts of New York City in Harlem. My name is Murray Weiss. I was working at the New York Post as

their criminal justice editor on the day Jeffrey Locker was found dead in East Harlem in his car. The initial idea was that it was some type of robbery. But you had the ligatures, you had the stab wounds, the hands tied behind the back. It just seemed like a lot going on for a simple street robbery. And if it's not a simple street robbery, what could it be? This particular victim was reported missing by his family the night before. He called his home at one point, and he told his wife that he had a flat tire and that some people had come to help him. But then we started looking at the car. It didn't appear to me that he got a flat at all. I'm starting to think that there's something wrong here.

We went out to his house, his wife was there. Then we had to tell him we found her husband's body where it was that he had passed away. The reaction of the kids and her, I couldn't put my finger on it right then and there. People handled grief differently, but to me, something was not right. The initial investigations in any homicide

is to canvas to see if anybody saw anything. At first, I seen him circle. I was a couple of times. You know, I said, what do you want? And then he told me. Do what needs to be done when it needs to be done without taking no front answer from anyone, especially from yourself.

I said, you're out of your mind. You're out of your mind. I mean, every case is different. This pretty much takes the cake. No, completely impossible. You know, I've covered 30-a-thousand-thousand homicides. There's never been a story like this one. Never.

Strange that he would end up down there. huh? Well, absolutely was. New York City police detective Robert Stewart started noticing all sorts of strange things when Jeffrey Locker was found here stabbed to death in front of a Harlem housing project

in July 2009. Jeffrey Locker was an upper middle class individual with a nice home in Long Island. Locker was 52, the father of three, his Facebook page filled with those

images of a tight-knit family. And there was a reason it looked like he was a victim of a robbery. His ATM card was not amongst his belongings. Poor guy comes in from Long Island. Next thing you know, he's slumped dead out his steering wheel. To New York Post reporter Laura Italiano, it fit a pattern every New Yorker has seen before. Jeffrey Locker was in the wrong place at the wrong time and trusted the wrong people. Your typical suburban cautionary tale, you know, lock your doors when you drive through some of these neighborhoods. But then a witness told police Locker bought condoms in a local store, and detective suspected he was looking for a prostitute. The double life story is a much better story.

He was respectful and a faithful family man. Steve D'Nunzio knew Jeff Locker for almost 30 years, and he had news for the reporters and the cops. There was no way Locker was in Harlem to visit a prostitute. Locker was devoted to his wife, Lois. My wife told me this morning I can't even say hello in 15 minutes. One of the last things he said to me, when the last time we were together is,

Lois is my best friend. Just a few weeks before Jeff was killed, DeNunzio was at a family celebration in honor of Lois and Jeff's daughter. It seemed like a gala event. One of the most loving families I ever met. The police theories were collapsing. Despite what that witness said,

police could find no evidence that Locker bought condoms or was looking for sex or drugs. But police did know Jeffrey Locker had no business being in that neighborhood. His business usually took him far from Harlem closer to Wall Street. Life is all about timing. That's where he became a very successful motivational speaker, specializing in the insurance industry. How do we keep our existing clients known we love and appreciate them while we're fishing for new prospects?

My image of Jeff is a well-dressed guy who always, who is success. Insurance executive Robert Miller says Locker seemed to know how to encourage insurance salesman, who he says frequently feel underappreciated. Be a giver. Be a resource. Help people first. He was very self-confident. He had a good presence. In the early 90s, Al Broadbeck hired Locker as his personal business coach. He'd go over various activities, what he felt I was doing right, what I could do better at. A few years later, Broadbeck didn't need Locker anymore, and he lost sight of the man who seemed for so long to be a rise.

star. But Locker still had that house in this expensive suburb on New York's Long Island when NYPD detectives went to tell Locker's family he was dead. It's never easy to tell somebody that just lost the family member, but it's part of the job. Detective's Kevin Flynn and Jeff Hirschman brace themselves for what is almost always a highly emotional, traumatic meeting. But they needn't have bothered. They don't think Mrs. Locker got very emotional. Nor did the kids when the detectives watched her break the news to them. They didn't seem to take it as a shock.

I remember the daughter saying that she's going back to bed. It was like we were telling them something they already knew. And then we walked out the door, Jeff looked at me, and I looked at Jeff. I said, are we in person? our world. Unless this is the way to handle grief, which could very well be possible, I'm not making any judgments. That was weird. It was just weird. They told other detectives about their visit with the lockers, but the case started moving quickly. Surveillance cameras caught pictures of a man entering Locker's car around the time police believe Locker was killed and

leaving shortly after. And then, police heard from Locker's bank. about that missing ATM card. We received at least five different locations in which someone accessed the victim's ATM card. Whoever it was got $1,100. And it was all caught on security cameras. The police quickly got these videos from corner stores and small businesses all over the neighborhood.

At each location, it was the same individual using the ATM card. We had stills made of the pictures, and eventually somebody said, no, that's Kenneth Minor. Kenneth Minor. That's correct. They hauled in Kenneth Minor.

It was not his first brush with the law. He had a record of drug violations and a robbery, a sad profile that fits many murderers. But Kenneth Minor had a story unlike any other murder suspect. Nobody wanted to believe me. It all started when he met Locker on a street corner in Harlem. What did he say?

He said that he was looking for a gun. A gun? Yeah. I asked him, what do you want it for? And he was quiet for a second. And then he told me, I want you to shoot me. He said it just like that. Just like that.

They came in all gung-hole, murder, one robbery. We got you. You just killed this. rich man and I just sat there with a smirk on my face like you know you have no idea you know this is not what happened for more than 10 hours Kenneth minor sat in the interrogation room telling police essentially nothing I mean how do I broach the situation how do I even start to open up and tell him who would believe the story he wanted to explain that Jeffrey Locker had asked in fact practically begged to be killed.

Finally, he found what he thought were the right words. This was a Kovorkian. He had said that this male wanted to do a Kvorkian. Detective Robert Stewart was one of the detectives talking to Minor. A Kovorkian? Like Dr. Kovorkian? Yes. The suicide doctor.

Exactly. I said, do you know what that means? He said, yeah, suicide. I said, okay, there you go. Now I have a seat. He was ready to tell his story. It began on that street corner in Harlem. I had a real drinking problem, and I needed to make a couple extra dollars,

so I was buying drugs and reselling them at a higher price, and then Mr. Locker pulled up. Locker got out of his car. You could tell by his body language that he wanted something, but he didn't know how to act for it. So I approached him. What do you want? Locker, he says, wanted someone to get him a gun.

That's when I told him to get out of here. Get away from me. You gotta be police. Get it out of here. He jumped in the car and he left. And then what happened? He came back, which impressed me. At that point, Kenneth says he leans into the car. And Jeffrey Locker tells him, I want you to shoot me. I want you to shoot me to kill me.

He said that? Yeah. Jeffrey Locker says to Kenneth Minor, shoot me? Mm-hmm. So... I mean, in your 37 years as a detective, have you ever had anybody say something? Quite like that?

No. No, this was the first. Do you remember how he said, I want somebody to shoot me? Do you remember what tone of voice he had? It wasn't quiet, like it was eerie. Eerie? Yeah, it was... I thought he was pulling my chain.

But he got my attention. Miner says he wasn't interested in shooting locker just yet, but he thought he might make some money if he could sell locker a gun. So he tells him to give me $60 and your phone number. and I'll go see if I can find somebody to help me. He came up with the $60 pretty quickly. Yeah.

There you go. Kenneth Miner tells him, I'll call you. Kenneth Miner knew just where to go to spend his newfound money. He headed straight for an acquaintance's apartment. And by all accounts, Kenneth Miner buys crack, gets high. Were you able to get him again? No. He says that he calls Jeffrey Locker.

I told him that it don't look good right now, and, um, well, let's meet up. and I'll tell you face to face, I don't want to say it over the phone. I wasn't all the way sure of his intentions. I wanted to see you, you know, see if I can finagle a few more dollars without, without having this turn bad. On the way out of the apartment, he says he ripped a section of phone wire from the wall. I was a little paranoid at the time and a couple people saw me use that.

Use the phone. I was drinking heavily. I might have done a few drugs. So I wasn't thinking clearly. Seemed like a good idea at the time. It seemed like a perfect idea at the top. To take the phone wire. Looks like I wasn't here.

Miner got back into Locker's car. At first I was just trying to explain to him about not being successful and getting what he wanted. And then hold on, he took a phone call. Oh, my people are calling me. Who is calling? I think it was his wife. He's like, I got a flat tire.

It's being taken care of. Some guys were helping him. I found it kind of amusing that he was lying. Minor was starting to worry about what Jeffrey Locker would ask him to do now that he could not get him a gun. That's when he said it again, I want you to kill me. I said, well, don't you just go and jump in the river? It's right there.

And what did he say? I needed to look like a robbery. And he explained to me why. Miner says Locker wanted his family to collect millions of dollars. from his life insurance policies. If he committed suicide, there would be no payout. So it had to look like he was murdered. Locker apparently believed he was worth more dead than alive.

He started explaining to me that he got caught up at some Ponzi scheme. They had all kinds of lawsuits against him and he was losing everything. And to him, that was like death in itself. Losing his money was like death. Losing everything, you know, not being able to support his family to work. way that they were custom to. To him, it was like, this is it. If you don't do it, somebody else will. Like, this is getting done. That's what he said. This is getting done. Did he seem scared? No. Sad?

Maybe a little sad. Maybe a little sad. Because I knew, you know, that he loved his children, you know what I mean? He kind of reached me in that car, just talking to me, you know? just like, you know, I'm just like you. Just, I'm a different side of the train tracks. Did he show you a picture of his kids? Yep. What'd you think? I don't know.

There was no talking about him off the ledge at that point. Miner says Locker promised if he helped him he could clean out his bank account. So Locker gave Miner his ATM card and the pin. I still know the number. What was the number? 1322. But according to Minor, killing Jeffrey Locker was not easy. He couldn't find a gun, so he tried to strangle Locker with that phone wire.

But that didn't work either. The wire pop. The wire broke? Yeah. So Miner says Locker told him to take a knife out of the glove compartment and hold it against the steering wheel. He says that Jeffrey Locker and then lunges up. forward four times into the knife.

Then Jeffrey Locker tells him, move it to the right side where my heart is. So then Kenneth Miner said that he moves the knife to the right side, and he lunges forward into the knife two more times. So wait a minute. He's lunging forward? Into a knife. This is Kenneth Minor's story. Was he still alive when you left the car?

Yeah, very much so. Still breathing? Yeah. normally or? It was gurgled, but he also turned and looked at me. He just had a smirk on his face. I think I said something to him.

You got what you wanted. You happy now? There was a unanimous gaffa over this story. New York Post reporter Laura Italiano says Miner seemed like just another killer concocting an impossible story to beat the rap. His tale

was good for a laugh, but not much else. And after he told it, Minor was charged with murder. Defendants will say the darnest things when they're trying to save their necks. The guy from Long Island comes into the ghetto shopping for his own murderer. Who's ever heard of this? And the police, who thought they'd heard everything, were about to learn, that's exactly what Jeffrey Locker was doing. He had tried this before. He did. So as crazy as this story is sounding to you, it didn't get any less crazy. It just started to make sense. I couldn't believe what he was proposing. I want you to kill me. I need you to help me out. I absolutely didn't believe it.

Even Kenneth Miner's own defense lawyer, Dan Gottlin, didn't believe his story that Jeffrey Locker wanted Minor to stab him to death. death. My first reaction was this is as likely as there being a new life form on earth. I, you know, I thought no way this could be true. That was before he heard about this man, Melvin Fleming, and his meeting with Jeffrey Locker. I met him at 128th Street and Park Avenue in Harlem. It was just days before Locker's death. It was parked right here. Melvin Fleming asked Locker for a quarter. He gave me five bucks. And I said, hey, thank you. If there's anything that I could ever do for you, just let me know.

Of course, he says Locker did have something in mind. He said, I've been trying to find some gang members to whack me. I looked at him and I said, knock you off. He said, yeah, you know, make me dead. I said, wow, that's a big request. You know, the mob pay a lot of money for doing a job like that. And little kids is double. Melvin says he knew a money-making opportunity when he saw one.

I said, sure, I can help you. And Fleming says that's when Jeffrey Locker spelled out that same bizarre plan, Miner says he talked to him about, arranging his own murder so the Locker family could collect millions of dollars in life insurance. He definitely said to me, it has to look like a robbery, and my body has to be left where it can be found. Do you remember what you thought? I thought that, well, I got a guy here that I could take to the bank.

For two nights, Fleming and Locker drove around Harlem. Fleming says Locker was looking for the best place to get killed. Melvin kind of thought the entire thing was fairly humorous. He knew that he wasn't going to do this. It was Locker's bad luck. He hoped Melvin Fleming was a killer, but he was really just a common. con man. Con man don't go around killing people, they con people.

And Fleming says he conned Locker out of almost $7,000, cash that Locker was carrying around. He really believed me that I was going to do this for him. He says Locker thought this Harlem bus terminal would be a good spot to die. How many ideas did he have for ways that you could kill him? Stabbing him, shooting him, and hitting him over the head here. But by now, Melvin just wanted to get out of him. there with his money. So he told Locker to drive to the nearby housing projects instead, where Melvin promised he would get a gun and kill Locker.

Ask him just to sit there in the car, rode a window down, put the seatbelt on. I'll be right back. Of course, he never came back. He says he left a desperate Jeffrey Locker to find someone else to kill him. And within hours, Locker found Kenneth Minor. Do you believe Jeffrey Locker wanted to die that night? 100%. Do you believe he wanted Kenneth Minor to kill him that night? Absolutely. My first words out of my mouth was, don't believe it.

Don't believe it. Locker's friend, Steve Denunzio, says he was certain Locker would never plan his own murder. That is not something that this person that I knew for 27 years would ever do. But the evidence was starting to pile up. The detectives and the prosecutors began to look into Locker's. Locker's financial history. Murray Weiss is a seasoned police reporter and a CBS News consultant. He says investigators discovered Locker had a lot of financial problems.

Mr. Locker was in debt. He had a very heavy mortgage on his house. On top of that, he was being sued for more than $300,000, resulting from an investment that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. I would say that Mr. Locker was backed into a very bad financial. corner. And I think he saw that there was only one way out for him. That may be why in the months before he died, Jeffrey Locker purchased a staggering amount of life insurance. There were $12 million, a little more than $12 million, actually, $12 million, I think $150,000. $12 million? $12 million?

If you take out an insurance policy, you can't just jump off a bridge the next day and expect to collect. He had to make this look like a... murder. Correct. And Kenneth Minor says it was his strong impression that the locker family knew all about it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Why do you think that? Because the way he told me, he said bye to everybody. I mean, he didn't just say, by, I'm going to work. I'll be back later. He said goodbye as in... He crossed all his teas and dotted all his eyes. And his family knew that he was off to end his life, one way or another. One way or another, he was. He was. He was, he was going to take one for the team. Melvin Fleming says he heard the same thing.

He said his family's familiar with it and they are okay with it and he has to do this. And police found evidence that Dan Gottlin says shows Locker's family may well have known what he was planning. He'll show the jury a text message from Locker's teenage son written just days before Locker's death. It talks about a video that the father is apparently making. He's telling his father to include a special message for his 13-year-old sister and says, remember, you won't be there to give her away. It's an important milestone for a woman getting married to also have her father. So if you could also add in hers that you will be there in spirit giving her away.

Which would lead one to believe that the son must have known that the father was planning something. No one from the Locker family would speak to us for this broadcast, and no one from the Locker family has ever been charged with any wrongdoing in this case. The Locker family's friend, Steve D' Nunzio, quickly and strongly defended them. Is it possible that if there were financial problems that Lois and the kids might, in a weird way, sort of welcome a decision to stage of, a killing? No. Well, I'll always the kind of person say, okay, we have money problems if we have to go bankrupt.

But you don't kill yourself. You don't do that. No, completely impossible. But Dan Gottlin will base Miner's defense on this argument. Locker got what he wanted, his own carefully orchestrated death. It was really suicide. And Miner was just a pawn in Locker's end game. He was taken advantage of.

He was taken advantage of by Mr. Locker. The timing is right, Carpe Diem, you must seize the moment. He was a motivational speaker. What happens to the opportunity? Be motivated my client with enough to convince him to do this for him. You've got to be one heck of a motivational speaker. If you pick on the right person, you do it. Gotland will argue some people pick poison, but Locker picked a person, Kenneth Minor, to help commit suicide and solve all his problems.

I knew it wasn't murder. I knew it wasn't murder. I just happened to be the building that he jumped off. It wasn't murder. It's the defendant who brought us to this point. Kenneth Miner's trial for killing Jeffrey Locker is now underway. He's the one who chose to kill somebody. And even though almost nobody in the courtroom doubts that Locker wanted to die,

he's the one who said yes instead of no. Prosecutor argues Minor is still a murderer. The right thing to do would have been for. for Mr. Minor to tell Locker that I will not be part of your scheme. The right thing to do would have been walk away. Prosecutor Peter Castellaro says Minor could have done what Melvin Fleming did. Melvin heard the same speech. Melvin heard who was offered the same money, but Melvin didn't kill anybody.

Miner says this is a case of assisted suicide. But Casalero says there's one reason Minor killed Locker and it's cash, not compassion. Mr. Miner is going to ATMs within a half hour of that death. That doesn't look so good. That begins to look more like murder for hire than assisted suicide. In a sense, it was a murder for hire, but it was also assisted suicide. Defense attorney Dan Gottlin will argue that his client, Kenneth Miner, spent hours with Locker, enough time to establish a weird kind of relationship.

It might sound a little morbid, but I was kind of privileged to be there. here for like, you know, this is like your last, you know. Nobody else will ever see you again. Nobody. And you chose me. And so Minor says he held the knife against the steering wheel and just watched as Locker threw himself on it again and again and again. Is that possible?

I don't believe so. Detective Robert Stewart. What do you think happened? He stabbed him. No question. I believe that what my client said sounds truthful and as very possibly was truthful. And how many times did Locker lunge onto the night? I think there were six times to an area right near the heart.

Well, how come the horn doesn't go off? Good question. It was one of the first questions Gottlin himself asked, and the answer he believes helps prove his case. Gottlin sent his investigator, Michael Barry, to examine Locker's car, And the horn did not work. I believe Locker just connected it or pulled a fuse. That's how well-prepared Jeffrey Locker was to get someone to assist him in his suicide.

All of which the defense says means the police got the right man, but the wrong crime. This was not murder. You did offer to plead to a lesser charge. Correct. From day one to manslaughter, right? It's a big difference. Manslaughter means a maximum 15 years in jail. Murder could mean life. I've always said, I will pay for what I did.

I will pay for the part that I played. Minor says he helped Locker die, but he did not kill him. I never saw him as a victim, Mom. But he's dead. You know, that was a self-appointed choice. And that is what Dan Gottlin wants the jury to know about Jeffrey Locker. He killed himself. That's what he wanted to do.

Except the medical examiner says it was homicide. All the wounds were in a tight six-inch cluster in locker's chest. Crime reporter Murray Weiss. The medical examiner claimed that the wounds appeared to be coming from one side downward in. That somebody sitting in the passenger seats would be reaching over and plunging a knife in. Slide number 09, that's 261. But Gottlin has his own medical expert. I see nothing here that is physically, forensically, scientifically, scientifically,

inconsistent with Mr. Miner's presentation. Cyril Wecht is Dan Gottlin's star witness. He is a controversial forensic scientist, most famous for insisting there was a second gunman at the JFK assassination. He thinks Locker had minor tie his hands so he wouldn't have second thoughts once he began killing himself. We're going to show with this

collapsible knife, of course, how this could have been accomplished. Wecht agreed to show us how easy it would have been for Locker to throw himself on a knife. So you see, all of that is accomplished in a matter of a few seconds. But if Locker was not in control of his own death and Minor attacked him from the passenger seat,

Weck says Locker would have had different wounds on his body. Joe, pretend that you are going to be stabing me now. You want to stab me, okay? You're trying to get away. Trying to get away. See? It'll a heck of a lot more than that nice six-inch circumferential circle that we have on the chest. I still, to this day, have trouble imagining somebody actually doing that to themselves, hurling themselves onto a knife. Well, and that's because you have never seen what people can do when they make up their minds to commit suicide. But when people, I think, can't get around in this case is the simple fact that stabbing yourself that many times would, to use a technical forensic term, hurt like heck. Yes, it hurts.

It hurts when you go through the skin. When it penetrates the heart and the lungs, there's not much pain. I respectfully disagree. It has to be more painful than that. And it has to be messier, too, says Castellero, who asked why the steering wheel and the dashboard were so clean. How can you have these gaping wounds and not leave a single drop of blood if you're throwing yourself forward again and again and again? His shirt got saturated with blood. I mean, not one drop of it is going to come off and go forward.

Wecht has an answer. He says Locker did not hit major blood vessels. The shirt got soaked with blood afterwards when his wounds continued to bleed. It's really a battle of experts. Who you choose to believe? And that's what the jurors are about to decide. Who to believe and what to believe about Kenneth Minor and his intentions on that night, in that car.

Is the defendant an angel of mercy? No, he's the grim reaper. You think he's a contract killer or somebody who was duped and used by another human being? After a two-week trial, a jury is about to pass judgment on Kenneth Minor.

Don't dignify this by calling you assisted suicide. Call it what it is. Murder, plain and simple. Why did he do it? He did it to earn his fee. Prosecutor Peter Casillaro in his closing argument to the jury says, despite what defense attorney Dan Gottlin argues, Kenneth Minor murdered Jeffrey Locker.

Watching the prosecution, the defense, there's this veneer of truth about everything. For at least one juror, Kurt Markle, it's not so simple. Locker really comes across in a rather unsavory way. That made it easier for the jury to have some sympathy for Minor. He was picked out to do this thing. He didn't seek it out. That's what made it so difficult. The sympathy for the man was enormous.

Why would you do this thing? What could possibly make you want to do this thing? It's not just about greed. These two men in this death spiral, downward, downward, downward. It was unsettling to all of us. The verdict is in, in a moment. a bizarre Manhattan murder case. For such a difficult case, it's surprising that the jury was out just four hours.

The verdict is guilty. The jurors might have sympathized with Minor, but they did not believe him because Markle says, Minor is no Dr. Kovorkian, and this was no assisted suicide. Locker is not physically impaired. His whole reasoning is financial. The jury decided Minor did a lot more than just. just hold the knife against the steering wheel, he stabbed Locker, and that makes it murder.

But Gottlin says there's plenty of room for an appeal because according to law, it shouldn't matter what Miner did, because Locker wanted Miner to kill him. So in your view, if Locker is intent on committing suicide, minor can do anything. Can shoot him, hang him, stab him, throw him under a bus. He can do all of those things according to the statute. if he causes or aids the other person in committing suicide.

The appeal will take a while, but now Kenneth Miner is about to learn his sentence. Mr. Minor, do you wish to address the court before you're sentenced? Yes. This is the first time he's spoken on the record in this courtroom. Only two people in the world know what happened that night. And one of them is not here no more. But he did not want this. for me, for me to lose the rest of my life.

In the end, Mr. Lock is where he wanted to be. Crime reporter Murray Weiss. I actually thought there was probably some truth to that. Jeffrey Locker was where he wanted to be. And Miner was sitting there holding the bag. But in the end, the judge sees it differently. He is sentenced to a term of 20 years to life. I got 20 years.

to think about this every day. To this day, Kenneth Minor says he's still not sure why he did what he did for a man he didn't even know. Two strangers go bump in the night. They just have a connection. Why don't not just hit him over the head and take his money and leave? I don't know what sense of loyalty that I had to a total stranger. And it's like a recurrent tape.

That just keeps playing over and over my head. Locker's widow and his three children were never in the courtroom to hear anything Minor said. They didn't attend any of the trial and have never spoken publicly about the outcome. But their friend, Steve D'Nunzio, is wrestling with his own questions. How could Locker, who seemed to have every reason to live, decide it was time to die? Do you believe in your heart that this was, murder or was it suicide? I don't know. I'm still, you know, the left side of my brain says it was suicide. The rates of my brain says it was murder and I don't think I'll ever know.

And I want to believe in my friend, so I'm choosing to believe that it was murder. Will we ever know the truth? I don't think so. In 2013, Kenneth Miner's conviction was overturned. He later accepted a plea deal to serve 12 years. In 2019, Minor was released from prison.