EP 49 | Shawn Drumgold, Roxbury, Massachusetts: The Sonoma Street Alibi (part two of the Tiffany Moore Murder)

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EP 49 | Shawn Drumgold, Roxbury, Massachusetts: The Sonoma Street Alibi
Part two of the Tiffany Moore murder case. In August 1988, Tiffany Moore was shot three times in what police would call a rival gang turf war on Humboldt Ave in Roxbury. The streets were not safe, Tiffany's own mother sent her away to keep her from the violence that was taking over their neighborhood, only for it to take her back in the cruelest way possible. The city was outraged and put pressure on the Boston Police to solve her murder and do something about the violence. Her death was covered nationwide and would symbolize the disorder that ruled the streets, the kind of chaos that elicited fear among those who were outside looking in. Police targeted a low level drug dealer named Shawn Drumgold, painting him as a savage gang member. This episode is about a murdered child, drugs, gang violence, witness intimidation, police and prosecutorial misconduct, wrongful convictions, and a still-unsolved crime.

There is no justice in putting innocent people in prison.
The New England Innocence Project: newenglandinnocence.org

October 2 is International Wrongful Conviction Day
Learn about the Exoneree Network: newenglandinnocence.org/exoneree-network

JusticeforSeanEllis.com
Trial 4 is the Netflix documentary about Sean Ellis's wrongful conviction
Watch the trailer

Two core sources (more will be listed in show note at crimeofthetruestkind.com)

Doubt Cast Over Tiffany Moore Verdict by Dick Lehr, Boston Globe, May 2003
Thanks to Dick and The Globe's great reporting or Shawn Drumgold might have died in prison.

Coming Home by Chris Wright, Boston Phoenix, Dec 2003

CrimeoftheTruestKind.com
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Transcript

Anngelle Wood: 0:00

Well, hello, my name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. My name is Anngelle Wood and this is Crime of the Truest Kind. If that is what you are looking for, you are in the right place. If you are brand new here, welcome. This is a true crime, local history and storytelling podcast. I write about crimes, yes. I set the scene, I connect story themes, I talk about things that happened here - in Massachusetts and New England. More often than not, my dogs start barking as soon as I start recording.

Anngelle Wood: 0:55

This episode is about a murdered child, the drug trade, gang violence, witness intimidation, police misconduct, wrongful convictions and a still- unsolved crime. This is episode 49 and part 2 about the murder of Darlene Tiffany Moore. She is the 12 year old little girl who was murdered in the summer of 1988 while sitting on a mailbox on Humboldt Ave in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Now, if you have not listened to episode 48, please do that. I will refresh your memory a little bit, but the previous episode sets up this whole story. Thank you to all the Patreon patrons. I will thank you during the course of the show. This is season number 3, episode 49. Shawn Drumgold and the Sonoma Street Alibi, in direct relationship to the murder of Darlene Tiffany Moore, Roxbury Massachusetts. Darlene Tiffany Moore went by Tiffany.

Anngelle Wood: 2:16

On Friday night, August 19, 1988, a call came into 911. A woman on the line said that a little girl had been shot on Humboldt Ave. It was Tiffany. She was 12 and in the final days of her two-week visit to Boston she came to see her mom and her older brother and to get a checkup at Children's Hospital for a heart murmur. She was headed back to her new hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, on Sunday to prepare for her first day of seventh grade at Lakeview Middle School.

Anngelle Wood: 2:51

On that Friday night, Tiffany's last night alive. Her mother, Alice Moore, allowed her out after dark. Now it was against her better judgment. She had sent her daughter to live with her own sister, Tiffany's aunt, to escape the violence that had ruled over the city streets. Alice didn't want to say no. That night Tiffany was leaving soon. The apartment was stuffy and the fan didn't work, and Tiffany had been waiting for a phone call from her father that he promised, but a phone call that never came. So Tiffany left the apartment, walked up the street two blocks to see her friends. Her mother's final words to her daughter don't stay out too late and come back and finish packing.

Anngelle Wood: 3:38

Kids were being shot and kids were shooting at each other, and Roxbury hasn't ceased to make headlines since there have been a rash of shootings. Now that reminds me of that old Boston ban rash of stabbings. Anyone Children continue to get shot in the city. Some data I found on Analyze Boston through Boston. gov, has 1,898 entries for shootings in Boston. This data is not separated by neighborhood. It's not separated by age of victim or offender or whether the shooting was fatal, and these entries date back to January 1st 2015. What is that figure? Annually, 1,898 divided by eight years, that's 237 shootings per year on average.

Anngelle Wood: 4:28

There is an epidemic of gun violence in this country. That is not new. To go back further, to October 1988, one year after Tiffany's death, and during the time when the city was turned upside down again looking for a mystery gunman. After Carol DiMaiti Stuart was shot in her car leaving a birthing class on Mission Hill. A story from the New York Times reported on the state of the streets. This report helps to illustrate Boston's street violence during a time of heightened tensions. Within the previous two months before Carol DiMaiti's shooting, eight people have been shot to death. After the Stuart case broke wide open, Boston police responded by stopping and frisking, something the police called stopping and searching. Either way, the Black community was targeted and it led to more violence. The number of shootings in Boston is small, that's compared with the rate of violent crimes in other cities its same size. So, if I may put that into perspective, In a report from fall 1988 on crime statistics in the nation's 34 largest cities, the FBI ranked Boston 18th with 93 murders in 1988. Washington, roughly the same size, ranked first with 369 murders.

Anngelle Wood: 5:57

Enter Dick Lehr, former member of the Boston Globe spotlight team, professor of journalism at Boston University, author of nonfiction and fiction, including the New York Times best seller Black Mass, Whitie Bulger, the FBI and A Devil's Deal. It became a movie. Maybe you've heard of it. In May of 2003, Dick Lehr wrote a piece in the Boston Globe about Tiffany Moore's murder and the man or the men who was responsible or was thought to be responsible. It's a front row seat, no, the VIP section to the Tiffany Moore murder case and a snapshot of the drug trade in 1988.

Anngelle Wood: 6:41

How Humboldt Ave was heroin alley, the nerve center of Roxbury's traffic. It looked like it. One side of the street was nice, the other overgrown yards, shattered windows, banged up vacant houses with who knows what going on inside. Well, we know what the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. They were the caretakers, the slumlords of the blown out properties, a blight on struggling neighborhoods. It's tough to look at that stuff every day and think anyone is looking out for you. Today there was new housing built along the Shawn Drumgold once where once lived, across from where Tiffany was shot.

Anngelle Wood: 7:22

Crime skyrocketed. It was drugs that supply and demand. Crack became an epidemic, especially in city streets. But just say no right, Drugs are really excellent. Listen to episode 48, if you have not, that will make more sense to you. Gangs were not new, but they thrived in that atmosphere where they police themselves in the streets. Gangs and mobs, same thing. Castleg ate, a narrow street off Blue Hill Ave, and Humboldt's own crew. Their existence terrified people in the neighborhood, especially Humboldt. As a Boston police investigator told Lear for his story, Humboldt was a bulldozer at the time. "You kill their dog, they kill your family. There will be no more killing dog talk, I promise you.

Anngelle Wood: 8:14

According to a report on Boston crime stats from Boston University, murder rates in the city dropped sharply in the 1990s, the year Tiffany was killed 1988, 93 murders, with the highest rate in 1990 with 143. It has dropped steadily since, with a low of 31 in 1999. The COVID pandemic was deadly in a number of ways. Illness, yes, but people were forced to quarantine. That added a great deal of strain for people in violent relationships. For example, In January 2022, a peace and Commonwealth magazine talked about the all-time records for homicides across the US in 2021. But Boston stood out as an exception among large cities. In 2020, Boston recorded 56 homicides, hanging around the five-year average of 51. In 2022, that number fell to just 40. For perspective, if I may, Baltimore had almost 10 times more murders with nearly 100,000 less people. That's 337 in 2021, and I watched the wire. That's a lot of numbers, I know.

Anngelle Wood: 9:33

How does gun violence stack up now? Kids have guns. I will leave a majority of the statistics in the show notes, but a major factor the availability of ghost guns, Ghost guns that are made from kids. The shootings dashboard from data collected by Analyze Boston that contains information on shooting incidents where a victim was struck by a bullet, either fatally or non-fatally, that occurred in the city of Boston. In 2020, it was 274. In 2021, 197. 2022 was 180. So far in 2023, 123 shooting incidents in the city of Boston. That's not just Roxbury, that's all of the districts, all of the neighborhoods combined.

Anngelle Wood: 10:28

Tiffany died on August 19th. It was a Friday night. Three bullets hit her small body, one to her head, just days before she was scheduled to return to Greenville, South Carolina, where she was going into the seventh grade. That was an exciting time. She'd be 13 soon. After her Boston funeral, Tiffany did get to return. It was when she was laid to rest and rest in the Memorial Gardens.

Anngelle Wood: 10:57

Her accidental death accidental on her part, as she did nothing to deserve this fate. It elicited anger, rage, fear and the desire to put an end to this chaos on the city streets. Despite the movie mentality of street violence, where someone watches half of I don't know boys in the hood and everyone you see as a gangbanger, the neighborhood is home to many regular working folks and families, and Roxbury residents were fed up. Tiffany's own mother sent her away from the neighborhood, only for it to take her back in the coolest way possible. Her murder would symbolize the disorder that ruled the streets, the kind of chaos that elicited fear among those who were outside looking in on the action of these neighborhoods. The people who were us versus them, them, those people, those kids on the streets. There is a great piece in the Boston Phoenix Archives by Chris Wright called Coming Home. It's about Shawn Drumgold's story.

Anngelle Wood: 12:03

There was a sense of something approaching mob fury in the hunt for her killer. Police wanted someone arrested and punished and they were not willing to wait. A 23-year-old man by the name of Shawn Drumgold took center stage in the investigation into Tiffany Moore's murder. Supporters of Shawn Drumgold's well, they knew it was driven by law enforcement's need to make an arrest and quell the public's desire for revenge, To show the world that they too didn't want that kind of thing on their streets. Shawn Drumgold's mother, Juanda, lived a block from where Tiffany was killed and she said from the first moment that her son was being railroaded. Well, that's something. I will begin this way - did Shawn Drumgold have angel wings and carry old ladies' groceries up three flights? Well, maybe, maybe he carried bundles, but he was no angel. He had a record and he had done time and cops leaned into that. There were other possible suspects in Tiffany Moore's murder. The lead homicide detectives in Tiffany's case were veterans of the force, Richard Walsh and Paul Murphy.

Anngelle Wood: 13:27

On Monday, August 29th, Shawn Drumgold appeared at his arraignment, with a black jacket tripped over his head shielding his face from photographers. His wife and his infant daughter sat just feet away in the courtroom. The judge in his case set bail at $250,000. This was after hearing John Canavan from the Suffolk County DA's office deliver a laundry list of past crimes, including numerous drug and weapons offenses. That is when Shawn Drumgold relocated indefinitely to the Charles Street Jail.

Anngelle Wood: 14:07

Two days later, police picked up suspect number two Terrence Taylor, also 23, of Dorchester. They went to his girlfriend's apartment on Sonoma Street in Roxbury where six police officers busted into the apartment just after 10 pm while they were watching TV. I wonder what they were watching. It was a Wednesday night after 10 o'clock. China B each? Miami Vice was Friday night. Come on, it was the 80s. But Taylor went quietly. Prosecutors maintained that Taylor and Drumgold were tight and part of the Castleg ate gang, even though Shawn Drumgold lived on Humboldt Ave at the time Tiffany was killed. Sonoma Street, where Terrence would often stay with his girlfriend, was about an eight-minute walk. Castleg ate is about the same distance in the other direction across Blue Hill Ave.

Anngelle Wood: 15:06

At Taylor's arraignment just days after Drumgold's, things got even trickier. When he went before the judge. He got a $750,000 bail, exceptionally high, higher than Drumgold's and higher than what prosecutors had asked for. They had this on the word of several witnesses to the shooting. Many were teenagers who identified Taylor as one of two masked men who came up upon a group of kids standing together at the corner of Homestead and Humboldt's and fired into the crowd.

Anngelle Wood: 15:41

There was some confusion, though, about suspect number two. Investigators didn't know whether Taylor is the same guy known on the streets as "ountry Country they had learned accompanied Sean Drumgold to New York City the weekend after Tiffany was shot. It was when he was supposed to meet detectives for that interview about Tiffany's shooting. They had gone to the apartment of Drumgold's ex-girlfriend, whom he had two kids. With Information the girlfriend offered to the Boston Globe, Drumgold's and his friend Country arrived at her house on Friday to celebrate their son's third birthday. Taylor, by the way, different person went by the nickname Lug, Now Country, that was somebody else Antonio Anthony, Sean Drumgold, Terrence Taylor and Antonio Anthony all had records and were often seen together. Was Antonio the suspected third masked man who was maybe seen by the kids on Humboldt's? Hard to know, seeing as they were problems almost immediately upon the arrest of these two guys for Tiffany's murder.

Anngelle Wood: 16:54

What 14-year-old Van Trell, Trell McPherson, saw that night was terrifying. Trell was standing next to Tiffany as she looked over her shoulder. Two or three masked men One in a Friday, the 13th, Jason mask were running toward them across the grass in front of the brick Edison building that was behind them. They were screaming, pushing and shots fired. Kids scattered and ran. Tiffany was hit with three rounds. She didn't stand a chance. Trell plays a greater role in this story and we will get to that.

Anngelle Wood: 17:34

Investigators decided almost immediately that the shooting was payback by a rival gang after learning that a few weeks earlier a Castle gate was targeted by the Humboldts With no physical evidence. They didn't retrieve any casings, no mask, no guns, no nothing. They had to rely on what witnesses said, and they were mostly kids there that night. Some said that they saw Drumgold and Taylor leaving an apartment across the street earlier that evening. Both of them were known in the neighborhood as dealers. In interviews Lehr did with two unnamed veteran investigators, Drumgold and Taylor were not gang-affiliated. They were freelance truck dealers the gig economy in 1988. Shawn was dealing in peace, not bothering either gang, said one of the investigators who worked in Roxbury at the time, but other investigators on the case were gambling on a beef with a rival Got it. Here's another thing Cops were known to keep a record of names of gang members and anyone who may have ties. Drumgold and Taylor were not listed in the Castle gate book or on any gang list, and there were other possible suspects, but they remained focused on these two. And maybe more importantly, Shawn Drumgold lived on Humboldt, across the street from the Edison building where Tiffany was shot. Why would he be a member of Castle Gate if he was living on Humboldt?

Anngelle Wood: 19:22

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Anngelle Wood: 20:06

Boston Homicide did not get a five star rating when it came to legwork. An anonymous source Lehr story said so they would get something and run right to the grand jury. What's that saying? The grand jury would indict an eggplant parm. No, that's not it, I just want eggplant parm. A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. They didn't corroborate. They did that later. There was so much heat on the case, public and political they wanted to call or someone and put the pieces together later and that is unfortunately what they did.

Anngelle Wood: 20:47

The grand jury testimony was riddled with red flags, with two witnesses total unheard of for a case of this magnitude. At no point were any other actual witnesses whose supposed testimony could indict Shawn Drumg old and Terence Taylor. None of them were in front of the judge or the grand jury. Instead of having witnesses to the crime, witnesses whose testimony was going to get someone thrown in prison for a long time, the detectives testified about what the witnesses told them. I mean, I'm no lawyer, but isn't that called hearsay?

Anngelle Wood: 21:28

Detective Walsh gave a summary of the evidence. A Boston Globe review of his testimony, other records and new interviews suggest portions of that account were misleading. In it, Detective Walsh described questioning Tracy Peaks, a teenage girl on Humboldt that night, who said she'd seen two men running from the Edison lot after Tiffany was shot, claiming to have recognized one as drum gold. The men were wearing black Adidas suits matching exactly the descriptions given by the teenagers at the crime scene. In her testimony, Peaks flatly denies that statement. I told them black sneakers, she said of her discussion with detectives Adidas sneakers and black jeans. She was asked did you ever tell the officer that you saw Adidas suits? She said no, though it fell flat after she said she saw drum gold near the scene of the shooting.

Anngelle Wood: 22:33

During the grand jury presentation, Detective Walsh testified that some of the most incriminating evidence obtained against drum golds came from country. Remember him, the pal who went to New York for the baby birthday? Yeah him, the detectives said he and his partner met with country at the Roxbury police station on August 31st. That is when Terrence Taylor was picked up and one whole week before the grand jury session In a taped interview, country said he was with drum gold and Taylor. Early in the evening of August 19th at the Humboldt Avenue apartment where drum gold mostly stayed, Antonio country. Anthony said drum gold had told them that there was some trouble coming, maybe even that night A potential turf war. Then drum gold showed his 22 caliber pistols. They, drumgold and Taylor, left the humble department and dropped country at the Dudley Tea Stop. Country said in this testimony he did not see them for the rest of that night. It was impactful testimony for sure from the detective.

Anngelle Wood: 23:47

But Antonio "ountry Anthony would recant parts of what he told police From the old colony correctional center in Bridgewater live. From the old colony correction center in Bridgewater, Antonio country Anthony. I'll get serious now. From the old colony correctional center in Bridgewater where Antonio country Anthony was serving a seven year prison sentence for unarmed robbery. He confirmed in the Globe interview parts of what police said. He told them that he was with drumgold and Taylor at the Humboldt Ab apartment early that evening in that they were packing pistols. But Anthony said he was never dropped off at the Dudley Tea Station. He said that never happened. He also said that he felt pressure to tell the police what they wanted from him.

Anngelle Wood: 24:42

What did happen, Antonio country Anthony would tell the Boston Globe, is that it started to get dark. He, Drumgold and Taylor and another man left the Humboldt Avenue apartment and drove to 23 Sonoma Street so that he and Taylor could see their girlfriends. Taylor was upstairs with his girlfriends, Anthony was in the hallway with his girlfriend and drumgold was hanging outside. About an hour later they hear about a shooting. He said that Drumgold wanted to head back to Humboldt's. He was worried that his sister might have gotten shot. But he added there was no way he could have done that killing. I know for a fact because I was with him and lug on Sonoma Street when the shooting happened.

Anngelle Wood: 25:28

When the transcripts and that interview with police in 1988 were reviewed, the discrepancies became clear. The cops didn't want the truth in Anthony. They wanted him to back up their story, the story they had written about Shawn D rumgold and Terrence Taylor that they did the shooting. Anthony, nervous he'd be charged, did what they wanted him to do. He was a dumb puppet in there. And that's a quote. The Boston Globes request for interviews with Detective Walsh and others at the Boston Police Department were denied given the ongoing appeals. Remember this was in 2003. Questions about the case were referred to the Suffolk County Prosecutor's Office. Deputy District Attorney Joshua Wall declined to comment.

Anngelle Wood: 26:17

The Sonoma Street alibi meant nothing to the detectives. Anthony would have told the grand jury the same if he was called to testify, which he was not. In separate interviews three former Sonoma Street residents told the Boston Globe they saw drumgold with Taylor and Anthony on their street at the time Tiffany Moore was shot. Two of them never came forward or cooperated with police at the time In a third, 19 year old, Olisa Graham. She lived in the third floor apartment at 23 Sonoma Street. She told detectives but she backed off after she started feeling intimidated by them. She knew the three men were not out on Humboldt Ave to shoot Tiffany. You can't be in two places at once, she said. She came home around sunset on the night of the murder and ran into Anthony and Taylor in the building. She saw Drumgold walk out of the next building and into another one on Sonoma. Within 15 minutes people started coming up saying there was a shooting on Humboldt. That's when Shawn Drumgold came back out, crossed the street and stood in front of 23 Sonoma with Anthony and Taylor. Then they took off.

Anngelle Wood: 27:35

Olisa Graham gave this information to investigators when they questioned her in her family's apartment. She said she was willing to testify. That was until a detective called her with a warning she had a shoplifting warrant. If she was to testify there was the possibility she would be arrested after her testimony. Court records show that Grimm had an outstanding arrest warrant for shoplifting at the time, a charge that would be dismissed in 1999. She was not contacted again, but she would have testified if given the chance, and still would at the time of this piece in 2003. And word traveled about Olisa Graham's threatening phone calls.

Anngelle Wood: 28:16

So others in the neighborhood, or they, clammed right up when authorities went public with the arrests of Sean Drumgold and then Terrence Taylor. They were villains. They were being accused of killing a little girl. Like the many things we learn about this case, nothing stopped the cops from telling the media about bad guy Sean Drumgold 10 days after Tiffany was killed that he was a drug dealer and a member of the Castle Gate gang. Well, part of that is true, and the Boston Herald lapped it up using the headline "Tiffany Killer, Jailed Roxbury gang member charged in the murder of 12 year old girl, and showed Drumgold handcuffed on the perp walk over the New York post say gang banger, busted for cap and kid and drug feud or something not far off. And I definitely did not Google that, I just made it up. This case was a problem from John. The investigation was rife with assumptions, questionable methods and wrongdoing on every level of the investigation, a pattern of intimidation. It was high profile, the story was national, only to be outdone by the Stewart case the next year when the rich white lady got shot and I mean no disrespect to Carol D'Amity and her baby son, that's who gets on the news.

Anngelle Wood: 29:40

Shawn Drumgold was an easy target. He was hustling drug deals on the street, known for drug hustling. He had shot at people and been shot. He had a bullet lodged inches from his spine, a source of near constant pain, A gift he received in 1984. It happened as he approached someone who'd owed him money. Shawn ran up on him and the other guy had a gun. They fought, fell down some stairs and well, the reminder remained Drumgold had an alibi for the time of Tiffany's shooting, An account he definitely would not be proud of.

Anngelle Wood: 30:18

In an interview with the departed Boston Phoenix from December week 2003, written by Chris Wright, Drumgold said that the whole day he stayed in the house, claiming to have spent the first part of the day with his baby daughter, changing diapers, doing feedings, dad stuff. That night he met some friends. Friends we Terence " are Terence Taylor and Antonio Country Anthony. I will get back to them. They went riding around, ended up back at Taylor's girlfriend's place on Sonoma Street. They headed back to Humboldt when they learned someone had been shot.

Anngelle Wood: 30:50

This differs from some testimony. Stay with me. Once at Humboldt they see a girl on the ground. Drumgold was concerned it might be a sister, because a week earlier Drumgold had said he shot a Jamaican dude named Eric. Rumors swirled in the neighborhood that they were feuding, so when Drumgold saw a girl on the street he thought someone shot his sister because they couldn't get to him. All of this made Drumgold a great perpetrator of Tiffany's murder on paper. When he was arrested for Tiffany's murder, he was already in trouble for new drug offenses in the order of possession with the intent to distribute 26 bags of heroin. Yikes, that would have sent him back to jail and left his new family without him, His baby girl and a woman he said he loved deeply. They sure did lose him, though.

PNW Haunts and Homicides: 31:44

Hey creepy people. This is PNW Haunts and Homicides. I'm Caitlin and I'm Cassie. Together, we explore stories of the paranormal and true crime throughout the Pacific Northwest. For each episode, we do a tarot reading to help us gain some insight on the topic, as we share the facts of the case and our interpretations. You can find our episodes featuring true stories from infamous cases such as the misdeeds of Boeing, as well as lesser known true crime cases like the murders in Tunnel 13, as well as our spooky stories from Pike Place and Raven's Manor, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else you'd like to listen.

Anngelle Wood: 32:26

Drumgold didn't know he was being charged with Tiffany Moore's murder. Initially, in his arraignment for heroin possession, he heard someone say the word murder. He thought that meant to make an. Eric was dead. Nope, Jamaican, eric was okay, Shawn was not.

Anngelle Wood: 32:45

The trial of Drumgold and Taylor versus the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began on Monday, October 2nd 1989. It was a high-profile trial, swimming in media. It lasted 11 days and involved 47 witnesses. What played out was information constructed from a cast of characters who, we would learn much later, were all bullied, paid off, lied to, threatened or coerced into testifying. The Commonwealth presented the meat of their case. Shawn Drumgold and Terence Taylor, acting as henchmen for the Castleg ate Raiders gang, fired shots into a crowd of kids, but hit a girl and not the intended target. No witness placed Taylor at the crime scene. So three days into the trial, the judge declared insufficient evidence had been presented to charge Terence Taylor with first-degree murder. He was acquitted. Shawn Drumgold, though, was to stay and face charges alone. To convict him, in the absence of any physical evidence, prosecution had to rely on a handful of witnesses whose testimony put Drumgold at the scene.

Anngelle Wood: 33:58

15-year-old Trell McPherson didn't have much to offer police initially. In her first taped interview with police. She said she and Tiffany Moore had walked by Drumgold and Taylor hours before the shooting. That was it. But four months later, when she took the witness stand, there was more. Trell McPherson now said Drumgold and Taylor seemed to be in a hurry when she and Tiffany saw them. A brand new narrative presented itself Now. Trell said she heard the two men talking, taylor saying you know we gotta do this. What that was? She did not have an answer for Years later Trell recanted her testimony about Taylor. It was false. She had no memory of the two of the men saying anything at all and she had little memory of her own testimony because she had been intimidated so badly during witness preparation. A member of the prosecution team who she was left alone with screamed in her face until she cried.

Anngelle Wood: 35:03

One key figure was a trial witness named Ricky Evans From Roxbury, who detectives found three months before the start of the trial. He had been dishing on another murder and cops decided to see if he could be useful in the Tiffany Moore case. Oh, when he delivered, ricky Evans, according to the Roxbury District Court records had a stack of pending charges to include at least four criminal cases: trespassing, car theft and possession and selling cocaine. Given that list, he was looking at up to 10 years on the inside himself. But as fate would have it, things turned around for little. Ricky Evans, once he signed on to deep six D rum gold and Taylor, that laundry list of outstanding warrants melted away. Most were continued without finding Ricky Evans, we would come to learn, got money from the cops for his cooperation.

Anngelle Wood: 35:58

Another key witness that, if the jury had known more about, may have changed the outcome was a woman named Mary Alexander, 22, living in an apartment at 72 Homestead Ave with her mom and kids. Detectives knocked at her door one week after Tiffany was killed. She said she remembered two men walking past after Tiffany was shot. They were putting what she believed to be guns in their pants. According to a police report, mary could not identify either man. When given photos to review, mary Alexander would look at them several times before saying she couldn't ID any of the men she saw. Mary Alexander wouldn't make her first positive identification until 13 months later. It was after seeing the heavy media coverage and images of drum gold as the alleged shooter. Mary Alexander took the witness stand and she confidently identified drum gold as the man she saw, saying I'll never forget those eyes, compelling testimony for sure. Jurors said as much when they were questioned for the Boston Globe piece. What they didn't know about young Mary Alexander is that she had brain cancer in 1988. And, as a result, had no capacity to remember who the men were or what they looked like. This was never disclosed to the defense or the jurors and once cops got to her they didn't leave her alone. Her mother, lola, said as part of the globe piece that she thought that they were trying to culture what to say? Even prosecutor Philip Bouchin did not know Mary Alexander had terminal brain cancer until the Globe interview. Mary Alexander died four years after her testimony at the Chondrum Gold trial.

Anngelle Wood: 37:48

Despite all of this, sean Drumgold was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Darlene Tiffany Moore. Life in prison. Detectives could pat themselves on the back. Foot patrols had been ramped up on Roxbury streets. Commissioner Mickey Roache and Mayor Flynn could be leaders who got shit done.

Anngelle Wood: 38:10

Drumgold's legal team jumped headlong into his appeals process and then, on April 2, 1990, Drumgold sought a new trial on the basis that comments allegedly made by a court officer had disparaged an alternate who was hoping for a mistrial in the case. The court officer didn't want the case to languish or to be retried. In transcripts released in July 1990, at least four of the jurors heard a court officer's possibly prejudicial remarks. Drumgold's team asked a judge to determine whether the jury's deliberations might have been tainted by the remarks. According to the transcripts, at least four jurors two of whom ended up deliberating Drumgold's fate said they heard remarks a day or two before the jury started its deliberations. The court officer had referred to one alternate juror saying "Jesus Christ, I hope to God she is not on the deliberating jury or else this trial will be dragged on, and it's already costing the state too much money. That same alternate juror had triggered the inquiry after Drumgold's conviction, claiming to have been intentionally eliminated from the deliberating jury of 12, and made one of three alternates instead.

Anngelle Wood: 39:30

According to the transcripts, some of the jurors found that juror quote difficult and moody, complicating the court officer's job. It was the court officer's perception that the juror wanted a mistrial, a result that would mean the case would have to be tried again. The alternate said their remarks were misrepresented by fellow jurors and the court officer. What that says to me is that particular juror was not allowed to sit on the deliberating jury because they thought Drumgold was not guilty of the crime. And also, aren't the jurors not allowed to talk about it? And the court reporter? I don't know, I'm no lawyer, but that sounds fishy. It went on to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and in July of 1996, his murder conviction was upheld, saying that despite some errors some errors by police and prosecutors he got a fair trial. The extensive article I referenced throughout the story is by former Boston Globe investigative reporter, dick Lear, from May 2003. It opened a veritable Pandora's box for prosecutors and law enforcement. For years Drumgold's appellate attorney Rosemary Scapicchio, unsuccessfully pursued appeals in state and federal courts, but in July 2003, a hearing was held in Superior Court on whether Drumgold was entitled to a new trial with a sent from Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. That simply means the DA's office approved.

Anngelle Wood: 41:16

Several of the witnesses who helped convict Drumgold to life in prison recanted their stories. So much recanted testimony. Star witness Ricky Evans also recanted his testimony. In 1988, ricky Evans was a homeless 18 year old. He was looking to get off the street. He was facing some pretty serious charges himself, so he cooperated. It was believed that police were funneling him money all along. He revealed that he had been put up in a Howard Johnson's indoor chester. This went on for about seven or eight months. Who was foot in the bill for that room? He'd eat in the hotel restaurant for free, sometimes even bringing his relatives. He also testified to the fact that he would get cash $30, sometimes $50, sometimes for expenses. This is all in exchange for helping them get a conviction in the Tiffany Moore murder and putting Sean Drumgold away. So in turn, they housed him, fed him and wiped his criminal record.

Anngelle Wood: 42:26

It was during this testimony, in which Drumgold was trying to get a new trial in 2003, that Ricky Evans claimed that he tried telling detectives that word on the street was that Castle Gate gang member Theron Apple Davis was the shooter. Officers who'd first contacted him about the murder of his cousin were in having it. Davis's name had come up many times in the case of Tiffany Moore. In fact, when the ate gang was busted in a federal racketeering case in 1998, at least two Castle Gates said Davis shot Tiffany, one of the Castle Gate guys, angelo Perkins said Apple went on a hit but didn't know how to shoot and shot the wrong person. It was common knowledge among the gang that Sean Drumgold was not the person who shot Tiffany. Oh, and it kept coming.

Anngelle Wood: 43:20

During the hearing, the judge heard evidence pointing to what the Globe described as strong indications of police and prosecutorial wrongdoing A police report regarding a viable suspect filed 13 months after the fact, false characterizations of Drumgold gang activity, questionable interview circumstances, bank-rolling key witnesses and outright threats. Finally, suffolk County prosecutor David Meyer filed papers stating that Sean Drumgold's conviction was open to question. For its part, the Office of Suffolk County District Attorney, daniel Connolly, issued a 30-page report that concluded with this line the testimony and exhibits introduced at the motion hearing in 2003 led to one inescapable conclusion that justice may not have been done. Boop. Here is the timeline of what followed In November of 2003, suffolk County prosecutors finally say they believe that Shawn Drumgold was wrongfully convicted in the shooting death of Tiffany Moore On November 6, 2003, Shawn Drumgold was allowed to leave prison and walk free. The trial court vacated Drumgold's conviction. Prosecutors would not retry him.

Anngelle Wood: 44:48

June 3, 2004, Drumgold's attorneys filed a lawsuit in US District Court against the City of Boston, Boston Police, former police commissioner Francis Mickey Roach and three police officers who they believe withheld evidence that could have cleared him and also for pressuring key witnesses to give false testimony at his murder trial. The suit alleged that the officer's misconduct resulted in his false imprisonment and he sought an unspecified amount in damages. March 4, 2008, drumgold's civil rights lawsuit goes to trial. The case hinges on whether two now retired Boston police , T imothy Callahan and Richard Walsh, violated Drumgold's civil rights, leading to his wrongful conviction. April 10, 2008, a federal jury finds that Callahan violated Drumgold's civil rights and claim one of 11 claims Concealing that the detective gave a crucial prosecution witness a substantial amount of money before the witness testified at the murder trial. April 16, 2008, a US District Court judge declares a mistrial after the jury deadlocks over Drumgold's claim against Callahan.

Anngelle Wood: 46:10

September 10, 2008, the retrial in Drumgold's civil rights claim begins in federal court. October 21, 2008, a jury awards Sean Drumgold $14 million plus interest. That is $1 million for each year he was in prison for first-degree murder. The final settlement came up to be about $5 million. You have to ask yourself the question is that worth 14 years of freedom? But that is the happy part of the story.

Anngelle Wood: 46:42

When Shawn Drumgold got out of prison he was homeless. He had no money, no means to support himself. He couldn't live in public housing. Now there are exonery programs like the Exonery Network through New England Innocence Project. It's a program for people just like Sean Drumgold. Sean Ellis is the executive director. Their stories are not dissimilar.

Anngelle Wood: 47:06

Sean Ellis spent 22 years in prison for the murder of Boston detective John Mulligan. Mulligan was shot five times in the face in the early morning hours of Sunday September 26, 1993. He was asleep in his Ford Explorer outside of 24-hour Walgreens in Boston's Roslindale neighborhood. Sean Ellis' story is featured in the Netflix documentary Trial 4. Sean Ellis was tried three times before he was ultimately convicted, at the age of 19, to serve life in prison, without the chance of parole, for the murder of Boston detective John Mulligan. Sean Ellis' story is deep and it's dark and it requires a great deal more research.

Anngelle Wood: 48:00

After being released from prison, sean Drumgold lives a relatively quiet life until 2011. When he was arrested and charged with drug possession. A Roxbury Municipal Court judge acquitted Shawn Drumgold of drug possession charges in a bench trial ruling that the investigation by Boston police did not directly link to crack cocaine and heroin found in the kitchen of a Roxbury house in January 2011. And the judge did not mention Annie Dookhan, the former state chemist whose mishandling of drugs at the state lab jeopardized thousands of drug cases and ended up getting a lot of drug offenses wiped and people released from prison. I bring that up because attorney Rosemary Scapicchio tried to make a link in the testing done to Annie Dookhan. After the trial, Drumgold and Scapicchio insisted that his arrest was an act of harassment by Boston police. A little payback, maybe. Who knew that Shawn Drumgold had won a multi-million dollar jury verdict in 2009 against former detectives? The last time Shawn Drumgold made the news was last summer.

Anngelle Wood: 49:20

On July 11th 2022, Shawn Drumgold died. He suffered an aortic aneurysm. He was 57 years old At the time of his passing. He was working on a nonprofit foundation, a community outreach for troubled kids. He called within reasons. Let's be sure to remember the first victim, in this case, Darlene Tiffany Moore. Tiffany would have undoubtedly gone on to do great things. Life after Tiffany for her mom, Alice Moore, was difficult but she did go on to advocate after her daughter's death. She was a board member of the Living After Murder Program, or LAMP, and a general member of Parents of Murdered Children and several other groups dedicated to victim assistance and violence prevention. Alice Moore died on February 10th 1994, after a long illness. Friends and advocates would gather to honor her and the then- Lieutenant Governor, Paul Salucci, proclaimed March 29th 1994 as Alice Moore Day in Massachusetts.

Anngelle Wood: 50:31

In 1989, the City of Boston breathed a sigh of relief. Tiffany Moore's murderer was caught, prosecuted and going to prison for life. And then we learned that Shawn Drumgold was wrongfully convicted. So, what that means is Tiffany Moore's murder is unsolved 35 years later. Was it Apple the Castleg ate bad shot? I don't know. Someone out there knows. Thank you for listening. My name is Anngelle Wood. This is Crime of the Truest Kind, Massachusetts and New England crime stories. Thank you to Patreon patrons. Brand new welcome Wicked Cool, Brandee, Superstar Executive Producer Lisa McColgan,

Anngelle Wood: 51:21

A couple things before I get out of here. Thursday, November 9th, OffCabot, Beverly Mass, our very first live crime night. Tickets are available and linked Everywhere. Follow at Crime of the Truest Kind. I have some merch packs prepared for mailing and, on the live crime night tip, I plan on doing more. So tell me where you are and maybe we can coordinate a night sometime soon. All right, thank you for listening. Lock your goddamn doors.