Analysis: Kevin Cooper is on Death Row, but is he Guilty?

I am an avid listener of podcasts. The first thing I do when opening Spotify, is to go on podcasts. Recently, I heard an episode of ‘The Daily’ which is a podcast by The New York Times.

Recently, they released an episode entitled, “Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder?” I was immediately intrigued. I enjoy watching crime shows, reading crime books, and listening about crime.

It starts off by giving some background history of the case. It kicks off in 1983, where a father, Bill Hughes, decides to go pick up his son, Chris, from a sleepover. He arrives at the family’s home where he looks through the glass door and saw red. When police arrived, it was discovered that the mother, father, daughter, and Chris were killed. The younger son, Josh Reyn, who hosted the sleepover, had his throat slit; however, was still alive.

When Josh was asked about how many people were in his home, he squeezed the detective hand three times to indicate that there were three different white males in his home. However, Kevin Cooper was at the wrong time at the wrong place and also has a different skin color; Kevin Cooper is African-American.

That same night, Cooper escaped from jail and hid in a unoccupied home in the same area that Josh lived in. Thus, allowed the police to disregard what Josh had said.  The Reyn’s car was taken by the killers; however, once founded by the police, they eventually planted Cooper’s DNA.

Was Kevin given a fair trial? More likely than not due to the convection being placed on death row.

Catch up with the whole story here.