VIII: The Star Witness: Read the most thorough, brilliant report on the Central Park Jogger case!

VIII: The Star Witness: Read the most thorough, brilliant report on the Central Park Jogger case!
Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

[“I. Preface”;

“II. The Crime: April 19, 1989”;

“III. Harlem Goes Bonkers”;

“IV. Harlem Says They’re Innocent”; and

“V. The Harlem Spokefolks Materialize”; and VI. Three Detectives Remember

VII. “A Prosecutor Remembers.”]

VIII. The Star Witness

Cheerleaders for the Jogger Five have a big problem: their star witness, Matias Reyes, is crazy. He’s a psychopath. He’s totally nuts.

Reyes lived with his father in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico from the ages of 2 to 9. In a thirteen-page report by examining psychologist Dr. N.G. Berril, Mr. Reyes recollects a sexual assault visited upon him by two homosexuals when he was seven years old: “Two guys threw me in the river, beat me and had sex with me.” Two years later Reyes went to live with his mother on East 102nd Street in New York City. He quit school forever in the ninth grade. At age 15 he returned to Puerto Rico.

At about this time Matias Reyes said “that a tragedy had occurred.” In fact, Reyes had gotten drunk and raped his own mother. He insists that he doesn’t remember the assault. “My aunt in New York told me this . . .I never saw my mother afterwards, maybe one time at the welfare office in Puerto Rico. I asked her about that night. She wouldn’t tell me.” Added Reyes of his family: “They always said I needed psychiatric help.” By age 17 Reyes was back in Puerto Rico’s northern province: New York City. He worked at a bodega on 102nd Street.

While handcuffed in the Psychiatry Clinic in Manhattan Supreme Court, Reyes said, “I have no problems . . .I’m not violent, I never wanted to hurt anybody, I always say no to violence.” He’s a Puerto Rican echo of Norman Bates in the closing moments of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In the same calm detached tone of voice in which he recalled his rape of his own mother, Matias Reyes recalled: “I was arrested. . .charged with murder in the first degree, rape, sodomy, robbery and burglary.” Mister Reyes had confessed to slaughtering a pregnant woman, stabbing her 14 times in front of her three horrified children. A decade from now they’ll still wake up screaming.

Reyes confessed to raping three women. He would stab them repeatedly around their eyes while repeating the words, “Your eyes or your life.” While locked up, Matias Reyes cut himself repeatedly “to see my blood . . .I wanted to let some stress out.” He was enthralled with what the examining psychologist called “grandiose fantasies.” Reyes told the mental health professionals that he desired to become “a superhero one day like Ice Man.” When the psychologist asked him if he really believed that this was possible, Reyes replied, “Yeah, I’m really not crazy” and he began laughing. Reyes said he wanted to be “president or king.”

The man is crackers. His IQ is a mere 76. He had problems reciting the alphabet and counting backwards from 20. The report describes Reyes as an “infantile, impulsive individual . . .prone to viewing the world in a peculiar fashion. . .marked by ‘monsters, blood, and dead animals.’” He is “demanding, particularly with his need for respect and attention.”

In other words, Matias Reyes is a pathetic, amoral, mental low-watt who desperately craves attention, respect and recognition. He participated in the savage assault on the jogger. Now he wants all attention focused on himself; he wants us to believe that all of the horror of that long-ago night was his doing; he wants us to recognize his power. Now that the statute of limitations has run out and he can no longer be prosecuted for his attack on the jogger, Matias Reyes can say any preposterous thing he wants without fear of any legal consequences. When Matias Reyes says “I’m a monster,” he is not expressing shame or regret; he is likening himself to monsters such as Godzilla, monsters worthy of fear and respect. For a pathetic loser such as Matias Reyes, the title “monster” represents a much sought-after empowerment.

Lawyer Richard Siracusa, who represented Reyes at his murder trial, said, “He’s really a psychopath. There’s no rhyme or reason to what he does. I don’t believe he has a conscience.” Reyes says he confessed to the jogger rape because he found religion in prison. His lawyer is skeptical. Siracusa remarked, “I don’t think he found religion. Maybe he wanted the publicity.”

I. Preface
II. The Crime: April 19, 1989
III. Harlem Goes Bonkers
IV. Harlem Says They’re Innocent
V. The Harlem Spokesfolks Mobilize
VI. Three Detectives Remember
VII. A Prosecutor Remembers
VIII. The Star Witness
IX. His Story Stinks
X. The Confessions
XI. How Guilty is Harlem
XII. The Forgotten Victim
XIII. Update to the Central Park Rape Case
XIV. The Victim’s Doctor Breaks His Silence
XV. The Jogger Rape Saga Continues
XVI. Thursday, December 5, 2002
XVII. The Matias Reyes/Kharey Wise Connection
XVIII. Don’t Be Fooled
XIX. The End Game
XX. Here Comes the Judge
XXI. Is Nancy Ryan Trustworthy?
XXII. Nancy Ryan’s Twisted Vision
XXIII. Twisted Justice


Additional Material

Stix: “‘It Was Fun’—Robert K. Tanenbaum vs. the Central Park Five, 25 Years Later”; and

Stix: “Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five: The New To Kill a Mockingbird—Fiction Designed to Induce White Guilt.”

(N.S.: These were not the first reports I wrote on the Central Park Jogger case. I’d already written many, going back at least to 2000.)

“The Report That Ken Burns Doesn’t Want You to Read: The Armstrong Report on the Central Park Five’s Many Violent Crimes, and Matias Reyes”