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this episode contains descriptions of violence and language that may not be suitable for everyone please use
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discretion When Willy was very young he didn't know anything about his father his mother
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made up a story that his father was in the military this is journalist Fox Butterfield he's
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talking about a little boy named Willie basket Willy basket was born in New York City
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in 1962 and as Butterfield says he didn't know his father if Willie asked about him his mother and grandmother
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would say he's a bad man and you're just like him When Willy was about six years old he
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found out the truth he was in his grandmother's apartment and he saw a picture of a man wearing uh pants that
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would look like part of some uniform and he was lifting weights and Willie said who's that and his grandmother told him
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that's your father that sent this chilled out his spine I'm very excited him and he said well what's he doing
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where is he and she said he's in prison and really said what's he imprisoned for
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and she told him that he murdered two men William basket senior committed the murders during a botched pawn shop
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robbery he was in prison in Wisconsin but then he escaped and ended up on the FBI's most wanted list he was caught and
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sent back to prison where he learned computer programming he put himself through college and became the first
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prisoner ever elected to the academic Honor Society Phi Beta Kappa when he got out of prison he got a job
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with an aerospace company but was back behind bars pretty soon for molesting his girlfriend's daughter
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he escaped from prison again with the help of his girlfriend who pretended to be a prison nurse
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seemed like it was going to work they made it about 900 miles and then police caught up to them there was a shootout
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and William boss gets senior used his last two bullets to shoot his girlfriend and then shoot himself
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he never met his son Willie Willie's mother Laura was pregnant with Willie when William basket was sent to prison
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she's in her mid-70s now she says Willie was the spitting image of his father eggs
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exactly he looked like his father he was tall good looking nicely built and mean
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When Willy was little Laura worked in a candy store and also as a teacher's aide
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at Willy's School but she had a lot of trouble managing him when he was in second grade Willie
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broke into a school's store room and threw a typewriter out the window it almost hit a pregnant teacher three
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floors down when he was about eight years old he attacked his sister Safi their friend
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was there she doesn't want us to use her name he was like I'm gonna shut her mouth once and for all and he ran in the
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kitchen and got the long cooking utensil and he pulled her over she was trying if
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she was struggling and she was fighting with him trying to get away and he held her down held her mouth open
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and he stuck the fork down her throat the school told Willie's mother to take him to the children's psychiatric ward
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at Bellevue the Doctor Who evaluated him called him the saddest little boy she'd ever seen
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not only did Willie's father spend time in prison so did his paternal grandfather
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When Willy was nine years old his grandfather was released from Rikers where he'd been serving time for
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kidnapping and sodomizing a child Fox Butterfield interviewed Willie basket many years later and Willie said
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that after his grandfather got out of prison he raped Willie repeatedly he started skipping school started small
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fires he picked Pockets he stole a car his mother knew that he was out of control and had no idea what to do
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after some prodding from the Department of Child Welfare she petitioned a judge to have Willie declared a person beyond
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the lawful control of a parent the judge said to Willie your mother is worried about you for nine years old
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you're turning out to be quite a problem that roused Willy you're a lying [ __ ] he told the judge you can
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go [ __ ] yourself and I don't need no motherfuckering white lawyer neither spending any time with him at all you
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knew that he was brilliant he could charm anybody he had that magic and I don't know how
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many people said to me people who had worked with him social workers psychiatrists had remarked at the time
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when they were working with Willie he could grow up and become president one of those social workers was Carol
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Darden at wiltwick school for boys over form school that was said to be able to rehabilitate the worst Boys in New York
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City the exact same reform school Willie's father had gone to many years before when he was Willy's age
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it was just a beautiful setting an enormous property a wooded property a lake and with people who were really trying
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very hard to meet a need she remembers meeting Willie when he arrived she did his intake interview he
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just seemed very sophisticated which ordinarily wouldn't set off alarms it was just interesting
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most children coming into an intake interview are not that self-assured they don't know where they
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are what's going to happen next he didn't seem to have those anxieties so he was a child that one would hope
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could be reached because he was obviously so intelligent and the what if of taking that
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intelligence and putting it toward positive expression what if you could do that
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in the 70s wiltwick was known for having a cutting-edge therapeutic program they
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didn't use medication they believed that the boys who ended up there had been in some way or another
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unsupported by their family and by Society wiltbrick wanted them to know that the
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school would be there no matter what the director of Psychiatry was Dr Joel Katz he wrote in a memo shipping a boy
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out means the staff has flunked he felt the problem was that a lot of kids had grown up in families where the parents
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couldn't deal with them and then when at school the teachers couldn't deal with them the principal couldn't deal with
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them and they'd been in other juvenile institutions the institutions couldn't deal with their uh their behavior and so
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would transfer them on to somebody else and what that did was he felt it just created more and more intents and bigger
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feelings of grandiosity by acting out by being aggressive and impulsive and horrible that they would they would be
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transferred on they would they it just it built up their egos Willie learned to read and write it was
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the first time he'd consistently gone to school in his life but he also got into a lot of fights he
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threw a chair at his social worker wiltwick made an exception to their no drug policy and put Willie on Ritalin
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and then Thorazine but it didn't work he stole a van kicked a pediatrician and wrapped a phone cord
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around a nurse's neck Dr Katz wrote that the most disturbing aspect of Willy's Behavior was that he
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seemed to be in control of it at all times and after all of that Wilt Wick did the
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one thing they said they wouldn't they kicked him out I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
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[Music] hi Kari hi Phoebe this is Kari Pitkin a reporter for WNYC radio they have a new podcast about the
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Juvenile Justice System it's called caught Kari you've been reporting this story about Willie for months yes I have
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so what happens to Willie next well Willie spends the next three and a half years breaking the law and being sent to
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juvenile institutions and then getting kicked out and you know in this time there were people who really tried to
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help Willie there was one woman who even wanted to adopt him but nothing seemed to make a difference he was very very
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difficult to manage and then when he was 14 a family court judge ordered Willie to the Brookwood Detention Center in
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Upstate New York Brookwood was a state facility one of two high security juvenile detention
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centers there was no therapy aside from some group sessions you know how I used to feel I didn't
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care about nothing that's actually Willy's voice this is from Alan and Susan Raymond's 1978 documentary film
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Bad Boys the thing is this everybody lives right now right here man hey the staff at
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Brookwood didn't have a lot of training but with Willie they tried something new
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they tried to create incentives to reward good behavior to lead with a carrot not a stick
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here's Sylvia honig she was a social worker at Brookwood all the other boys had to go to school but Willie was given
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a special job even though he was 14 he did not have to go to school I'd be on my own
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if I feel like uh the grass across the road need to be cut I don't have to tell nobody where I'm
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going I just go cut the grass I was over there today driving a oh the riding lawnmower I didn't tell
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nobody where I was going you know I feel free even though I'm locked up I feel free
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Sylvia believed that brookwood's director Tom pottenberg who was six eight was actually afraid of 14 year old
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Willie he didn't like to be alone with Willie And Willie seemed to be calling the shots Tom pottenberg started to push
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to have Willie released and sent to a halfway house but Sylvia was worried so she wrote a letter to the head of the
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state's division for youth saying Willie was still too dangerous to be let go in the end the state did not intervene
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to stop Willy's release do you think this time you can stay out for good yeah I feel you know like since I've been
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working downstairs you know with maintenance I you know learned a lot uh you know I realize now you know that uh
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you have to you know be a man sometime you know and you gotta grow up soon after this interview with
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filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond Willie suddenly smashed the camera in Alan's face giving him a black eye
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Dad don't do that oh [ __ ] Willie was released a few days later in September of 1977 when he was driven
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away in a van one of the supervisors said to Sylvia honig Willie will end up killing someone
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he was taken to a halfway house operated by the division for youth the halfway house was only two blocks from Willy's
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home on 145th Street and after one night Willie just walked out and went home he spent his time riding the subway and
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looking for what he called bums people who are asleep or passed out and easy to Rob
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the subway becomes a real object of Fascination to Willie it was where he could go to see life and have Adventure
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it was kind of his Wild West in March of 1978 Willie was riding the subway home from his grandmother's
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apartment he noticed that a man on the train was wearing a gold watch the man was asleep as the train traveled Uptown
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people got off until eventually there was no one in the car but Willie and the sleeping man
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as Willy told Fox Butterfield the first thing he did was go over and kick the man's feet
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he didn't wake up Willie began to remove his watch then the man woke up and Willie took out a gun and shot him in
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the eye will he shot him a second time in the temple the man's name was Noel Paris
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Willie took the watch and also a ring from his finger over the next 10 days Willie sometimes with his cousin
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Herman's Bates robbed other Subway Riders he shot a maintenance worker in the back and murdered a second Subway
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passenger foreign cops now have two tough kids and two slains on the IRT to use aged 15 and 17
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described by police as real tough guys were arrested yesterday for the late night Subway slains of Two Men and the
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wounding of a third police said the two netted 3.68 in one of the shootings and were so indignant that one of their
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victims was penniless they kicked his body after shooting him I did not think that he could be
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rehabilitated Robert silbering was the prosecutor in Willie's case I think he was the most
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violent Fender that I had ever come across in 25 years as a prosecutor I mean I I you know in all my experience
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I I think that there were certain cases where for the protection of society an individual has to be warehoused I
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thought he was one of those Willie pled guilty to three separate felonies two counts of murder and one of
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attempted murder the judge gave Willy the maximum possible sentence placement in a youth facility for five years
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the tabloids called Willy basket the baby-faced Butcher and mayor Ed Koch called him a Mad Dog
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it was a very specific time in New York City's history police officers circulated a so-called Survival Guide
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for visitors it had a picture of the Grim Reaper on the cover and said welcome to fear City
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it offered nine tips for making it out alive things like don't go out after 6 PM don't leave Manhattan and stay off
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the subway New York's Democratic governor Hugh Carey had come into office in 1975
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promising that he'd help people feel safe a government that does not protect people against violence is a government
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that fails it's very justification for existence [Applause] [Music] every policeman on the beat every
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citizen on the street knows that he is not alone when his life or safety is threatened
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three years after that speech Kerry was running for re-election he was a liberal and he had recently
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vetoed the death penalty and extremely politically unpopular move his Republican opponent started calling him
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soft on crime and right in the middle of all of that came the Willie basket case
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when Governor Kerry learned that Willie basket had gotten the maximum possible sentence and that it was only five years
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he was Furious faith has me outraged I am aroused I feel that it points up the failure of the criminal justice system
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that I've been talking about for three and a half years and then Kerry announced that he was going to change
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the law as far as sentencing is concerned as a practical matter if this person is
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mentally unfit to be in society the person will stay within secure lock up for life
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[Music] New York State changed its law and would now treat kids as adults you know an
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enormous flip-flop from More Than A Century of judicial precedent the juvenile offender Act of 1978 meant
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kids as young as 13 and 14 years old would be tried in adult Criminal Court when they were charged with 14 specific
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crimes some violent and some not like burglary in the second degree it became known as the Willy basket law and
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Governor Kerry won his re-election foreign law passed a New York state many other
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states changed their own laws to punish juveniles more harshly according to the latest numbers from the
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campaign for youth Justice every year between 200 000 and 250 000 Americans under the age of 18 are charged as
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adults 13 states allowed children of any age to be charged as adults it became common after Willy bosque's crimes
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legislators across the country decided that we no longer needed to think about children as individuals but instead we
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should think about them as a class of young people who should be treated with the same kind of harshness and
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severity that is usually reserved for adults who commit crimes Dwayne Betts is a lawyer but when he was 16 he and a
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friend were arrested for carjacking he was charged as an adult and spent eight years in prison remember those laws were
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passed when he was 15 16 years old when they knew that he would be getting out of
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prison nobody even imagined who Willie basket would be when he got out of prison after that first stretch in
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December of 1983 a few days after his 21st birthday Willie basket was released that March he was arrested again for
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assault and attempted robbery he was sentenced to seven years in prison where he set fire to his cell over and over
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attacked guards nine times and attempted several escapes and then while he was being interviewed
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by a newspaper reporter Willie suddenly pulled out a homemade knife and stabbed a prison guard in the back the guard
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survived it was so Random so senseless and stupid the reporter said he didn't even know
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the guard that was in 1989 and Willie basket has been in solitary confinement ever since
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the commissioner of the Department of Corrections said the only noise Willie basket is going to hear is the sound of
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his toilet flushing we don't ask ourselves what amount of Ruin is acceptable for somebody who we
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send in prison and in fact we take that question off the table based on how serious the crime is
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so we don't even wonder who Willy Bosque is today [Music] you know we get up late five four in the
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morning get to the bus station around six we'd arrive about 7 30 it's like an hour and
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a half two hours away this is his niece Danielle she was raised by Willie's mom Laura and when
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Danielle was a kid they would go see him we have to go through a long hallway and
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then once we go past there we would go upstairs a little bit further and then his was like through his secondary cell
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after the special housing unit and then through the another little block and then once we get through that gate he
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was behind another gate and then he would come out of that his room which was locked and then into the special
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cell they built for him visiting the Department of Correction built a Plexiglas cell just for Willie it was
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like a Plexi class with holes in it but even the holes didn't match up so he could hear but he'd never be able to
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stick anything through the glass if he wanted to through the Plexiglas Willy taught Danielle to read and write and
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the names of the 206 bones in the human body I remember you know when it was time to
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leave I didn't want to leave a lot of times I just wanted to stay I asked Danielle what she thought about
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the law created after the murders I think that changed in the lowest to to um have juveniles charges and adults
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somewhat necessary because they are children that are incorrigible something is wrong
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like there are signs and we don't say what do we do to fix it today Willie basket is 55 years old in
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solitary confinement at Five Points Correctional Facility in Upstate New York Corey Pitkin drove up to speak with him
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when she got there it'd been so long since he'd had a visitor that his records weren't up to date in their
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computer system they agreed to let Kari go in but not record the conversation you know we kind of went through all the
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security and everything and we went into this big long room with lots rows and rows of tables and there's kids doing
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coloring books and I saw a couple making out and you know families eating and spending time together and then down
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sort of at the end of the hall was where the no contact visits happen and that section was completely empty and we were
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brought into this kind of booth that was totally enclosed and waited for about 10
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minutes and then they brought Willie down a kind of separate Hall and brought him into the adjoining booth and he sat
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down in front of us uh did he kind of say you know who are you I mean did he have any idea who you
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were no I mean he the definitely the most awkward moment was the kind of that look
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of who are you and what do you want from me um but the fact is you know the few people who do visit Willie have tended
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to be journalists so he's kind of used to sitting down and talking about his life so the second he knew who we were
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and what we were interested in he kind of clicked into a mode and he was incredibly welcoming and as everyone had
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said quite charismatic and really easy to talk to what did you talk about well you know for one thing I had talked
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a lot with his family members and they are not in touch with him because you know I think for a while they maybe
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wrote letters but didn't hear back and they really haven't visited him in probably about 15 years so
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you know I was curious what they would want to say to him and they said that they really do miss him and they think
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about him all the time and they still really love him so I had these messages to kind of relay to him
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um and I you know I did that and he was interested to hear about their lives and
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what was happening but he also said he really didn't want them to think about him because he would just be a burden on
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on them 29 years in isolation I mean I can't imagine what what that does to someone
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it's really that was actually something that I was very interested in talking to
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him about to get a sense of how does he survive that because he is very engaged and sort of intelligent and someone who
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obviously is curious and wants to talk to people so what what does that mean then if you have been in in a box
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for almost three decades um what he said is that he lives completely in the present he can't think
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about anything in the past and he can't think about anything in the future he has to just deal with what's right in
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front of him in that moment foreign 1996 Fox Butterfield published an almost 400-page book about Willie basket
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it's called All God's Children the basket family and the American tradition of violence
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was he red fox Butterfield's book yeah I asked him about that and he said he said yeah it's a good it's a really
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good book I I have I have one problem with it and I said oh oh what's that and he said it doesn't provide any solutions
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and I thought that was kind of poignant in a way that that he was interested in thinking about how things could have
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been different for a kid like him wnyc's Corey Pitkin you can find their new podcast caught
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when it debuts March 12th caught follows a group of kids as they navigate their way through our criminal justice system
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from the experience of being arrested charged and punished to attempts at Rehabilitation and how they move forward
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foreign is produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers matild
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erfelino is our intern Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at
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thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show criminal is recorded in the studios of
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North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around
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special thanks to adserc for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
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[Music] s