obviously guilty. the defense attorney. not proven. one way or the other. the fbi agent in charge. guilty of two double homicide. sheila baltazar. he could have killed all of them. the supreme court justice. not proven. the witness. guilty. camille bell. innocent but stupid. that first task force detective. no maybes, ifs. guilty. the right man for those homicides is in jail. the original audience verdict, guilty. 69%. innocent 4%. innocent 4%. not proven either way, 27%. captions by vitac www.vitac.com
camille hid her own fear from her children. and you ve got to hold them together so you can t act as scared as you are. the body of yusuf bell was found in an abandoned schoolhouse. his body would not turn up for another month. yusuf bell had been strangled. all of the what could have been, should have been and probably would have been was taken away, and we ll never know now, because somebody decided that it was all right to just kill a little kid because they wanted to. for a long time, the 3-year-old would look for yusuf every time it was a foggy day. and we d go out into the fog and she would go as far as she could into the fog. and i d say, come back here. and she d say, i got to go find my brother. and she said, the clouds came down, so yusuf can come down!
wanted to believe a serial killer was loose in the city, even when bob buffington spotted a disturbing pattern. there had been a sharp increase in the number of children under the age of 14 who had been killed. when he told his boss at homicide, the major threatened to transfer him. and i truly think that they were afraid that there would be a panic. it was this mother, after the loss of her 9-year-old son, who finally forced police to listen, but not until almost a year after her boy died. camille bell and her children lived in these project apartments. poor to the eye, but rich in mind and spirit. yusuf bell was an honor student in the gifted program at school. on a warm october sunday in 1979, he walked away on an errand to buy snuff for an
elderly lady downstairs. he went barefooted in a pair of brown shorts. he got to the store. he bought the snuff. he started back home. less than half a block from this store, yusuf bell stepped off this curb and vanished. and nobody saw anybody do anything or anything. but they did see him come back across the street. and that s the last that we saw him. camille bell called the police. they came and said they d write a report. that s all. days went by. camille waited with two older children and yousef s 3-year-old sister. and so she is terrified. if he can go to the store and they can steal him, then she doesn t want to leave the house. she doesn t want to do anything.
but without trials, the mothers were left without a verdict, one way or the other, in the deaths of all of the children. camille bell. even if it takes 30 trials, i don t care. you know, prove it. the prosecutor s answer, it would serve no purpose. you can only serve one life sentence. just ahead a new alibi that backfires. he was out that night, no question in my mind. he was not at home. he was out and about. and after all these years, new dna evidence. it probably would exclude 98% or so of the people in the world. [ male announcer ] frequent heartburn? the choice is yours.