on this episode of "death row stories," a million snare accused of brutal murders in a downtown miami hotel. >> the crime scene was a bloody, bloody mess. >> after a death sentence, one man fights to save his life. >> you go into federal court and say my guy's innocent. they say, too bad, mate. that's got nothing to do with it. >> what he discovers will turn the case upside down. >> anybody in the world would say, what? that's not allowed. >> there were a series of questions that should have been asked. >> there was more evidence covered up than any other case i've seen in decades.

>> there's a body under water. >> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this madison remorseless. >> he needs to pay with his life. >> the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. >> dedicatiadication at the all. the truth forward. ♪ >> another homicide was discovered at the dupont a hotel in downtown miami. [ sirens ]

>> this was a very sensational crime. how many times do you have a double homicide in a downtown miami hotel? >> the crime scene was a bloody, bloody mess. >> the father was shot six times. he was crawling, trying to escape. the son was shot execution

style. this was a pretty shocking case. >> the dead men were derek wu young, a father of four, and his youngest son, dwayne, who had just been accepted to you law school. a few hours after the shootings, ajournalist named neville butler said he had seen his boss, kris maharaj, pull the trigger. >> neville butler wanted to speak to us. >> he described the crimes in painstaking detail. >> i saw him open the door with a gun in hand, a glove on. and that's when i almost passed out. i asked kris, what on earth is this? he said, "keep out of this," he fired a first shot at his leg. that's when kris let go of four or five bullets. >> the television that was there, the lamp and everything had all been shot up. the screen of the television had been destroyed from a bullet. >> he turned his attention to the son. he said, "come with me." he took him up the stairs and had him kneel down, face the wall, and then the next thing i heard was boom. he shot the boy in the back of his head. >> kris maharaj was a wealthy importer from england who started a newspaper business in miami. he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. the maximum sentence -- the death penalty. >> it didn't look too good for kris. the lead detective said he'd

denied ever being in room 1215. his fingerprints were all over. that was a lie. he denied having a gun. he clearly had a opini .9 milli pistol, what was used in the murder. he had invested in property. young of supervising that property. according to chris, derek had stolen $445,000, embezzled it. kris had a motive, he clearly hated the youngs. finally the icing on the cake of the star witness, neville butler. >> kris' case went to trial. in court the defense presented me to alibi witnesses, and kris never took the stand. ron petril l was the defense investigator. >> i knew when i heard this coming out of the jury room what

the final outcome of going to be. >> the jury returned guilty verdicts in less than four hours. >> when it went to the penalty phase, judge gave him the death sentence. >> during his ruling, the judge declared that the "coldness and calculated manner in which the defendant executed his heinous crime could not be overstated." kris would officially begin time on death row. >> once they gave me the death sentence, i said, god knows i'm innocent, they will not kill me. they cannot. >> kris of from england. a country that had abolished the death penalty for murder in 1965. with one of their citizens on death row, the british government asked clive stafford smith to investigate kris' case. clive was a young idealistic lawyer this made a name for himself fighting death penalty

kise a pro bono basis. >> by the time i got there in '94, he had been sentenced to death, gone to the supreme court on appeal, come back down. my first thought of, my good not, how did i let myself in for this. >> despite his reluctance, clive agreed to meet with the man he presumed of guilty. >> i never talk to people when i first meet them about did you to it. they don't know that, they don't trust you. kris of one of those rare poem who inexisted on giving a -- insisted on giving a lecture about the fact he didn't do it. it was convincing, although i will say the evidence of strong at the time. >> as a former cop, don had doubts about the case. >> initially i thought kris just killed these guys. but i'm looking to see where the evidence takes me, and it didn't add up. the deeper i got into the investigation, it began to dawn

on me that kris was innocent. >> drum is very, very loyal to kris. he carried on after the case was over even though he wasn't being paid or anything. >> ron and clive noticed discrepancies in the prosecutor's story of the murders and set out to look for answers. >> i demanded to see the files of the prosecutor and the police. i started going through and am sitting there with extraordinarily bad coffee in the police headquarters going through this carefully tabbed file. i discovered that neville butler, the star witness, fail his polygraph test. i discovered notes this showed that the police knew this kris had lost his gun before the murder ever tock place. this case is more evidence that was covered up than any other case i've ever seen in decades. [vet] two yearly physicals down.

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just a year before kris maharaj was put on death row for the murders of derrick and duane moo young in florida, he had been living a life of luxury in england. >> kris had come to england when he was quite young, worked very hard and became a millionaire. >> in england, he married and had four kids before working his way as a truck driver and becoming a business magnate. >> i started small and became a entrepreneur. >> he got his royals royce and

then began to get into horse racing. >> i would purchase 100 horses and 12 trainers. >> kris amassed the second biggest stable of horse races in england. only the queen had more. having emigrated from trinidad, he mingled with members of parliament, gaining admittance to members of society. >> when i became involved, the member of parliament said we know, maharaj, something is wrong. i've been praying. >> kris first met the men he had been accused of killing when he began importing their fruit from jamaica. after years of doing business together, derrick moo young asked kris to invest in houses he had in florida.

>> my plan was when i retired, i would spend the summer months in england and winter months in florida, and i mfted the money with him. >> but according to kris, the moo youngs took his money and embezzled it. they also incorporated as kd m distributors, a name similar to kris', and allegedly started drawing money from kris' accounts. >> according to kris, derrick had stolen property worth $441,000. so you can see why kris would be very angry. he wanted to put an end to this. >> kris was used to settling disputes with words, not weapons. he sued the moo youngs and told clive he expected to win. >> there was no question of me killing them for the money, as a matter of fact, killing them would make me lose the money, obviously. >> but if kris then had little reason to walk into the dupont hotel with a loaded weapon why was there so much evidence

pointing to him as a suspect? according to kris he went to the dupont at 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the murders to meet a potential business partner for the newspaper he had started in miami. neville butler set up the meeting. >> neville butler set up the meeting. opened the apartment. >> but the man kris was supposed to meet was not there. >> neville butler said perhaps he went out. >> the two men waited for nearly an hour. >> he insisted i wait. i said no, i'm going. i am never late for an appointment and i am always on time and i left. >> at 10:30, kris drove 25 miles to ft. lauderdale and attended meetings during the hours that the meetings took place, and he could prove it. kris had alibi witnesses, including tino geddes.

>> he swore to me he had been with kris, gone to lunch, stayed by kris. >> the manager at the restaurant kris frequented also clearly remembered seeing kris at lunch. >> i know i saw kris the day of the murders because there was a person who was sick and i needed to come in and fill in for that person. it doesn't seem like there is any way possible that he could have killed people at 12:00 and then been in for lunch sometime between 12 and 2:00. >> five other witnesses would come forward placing kris with them on the day of the murders. >> i have no doubt that i saw him that day. so that was 12, 12:30, within that time. >> yet neville butler told the pd homicide detective a convincing account of seeing maharaj commit the murders in cold blood. someone had to be lying. butler was a home run for police, not only could he

identify maharaj he would go on to take the detective where he was having dinner. >> i was at denny's having dinner, and i saw him walk in with a man, he pulled out a card and said you have been arrested for murder. i said what are you talking about? >> kris would be taken for interrogation and stark differences would emerge about what was said during that conversation. >> he said kris denied being in room 1215 while his fingerprints were all over the place. >> kris' fingerprints would only be significant if he denied being in the room to police. >> i told them i went to the hotel. i was in room 1215 for about an hour. >> then, he also said that kris denied ever having a gun, he clearly did have a 9 mm pistol. >> i told him yes, i owned a gun

and i owned one when i lived in trinidad. in england i owned a gun. >> but if he thought kris was trying to hide something he never took a sworn statement during the interrogation to document that fact. and the lie detector test kris took later that evening would support kris' version of events. >> they had one of the top polygraph examiners do the test. kris passed. that was plain and simple. >> despite passing the lie detector and having numerous alibi witnesses, kris was booked and held without bail. it would be a year before he got his day in court. >> put it this way, i went from living like a prince to an animal. >> on the eve of trial, kris and his investigator, ron petrillo, felt good about their chances. >> kris had seven or eight

alibis, i had located people and gotten sworn statements that put him squarely in broward county, some 25 miles away during the time these murders occur. >> but as the trial approached, kris got word that one of his alibis, tino geddes, was about to change his story. >> everything he said when the murders took place, it was all a lie according to tino. >> geddes was now going to testify for the prosecution and no one, including kris, was prepared for the accusations geddes was about to make. score, thanks to the tools and help on experian.com. kaboom... well, i just have a few other questions. >>chuck, the only other question you need to ask is, "what else can you do for me?" i'll just take a water...

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kris maharaj was facing the death penalty for the murders of derrick and duane moo young. one of the witnesses had a dramatic change of heart. >> tino geddes worked for kris, at a newspaper kris was working on. from day one, he swore to me that he had been with kris. now, tino changes his story on the day the murders were committed. he wasn't with kris, kris wanted the moo youngs dead. >> tr i -- tino was claiming the actions now were premeditated. >> he said he had been with

maharaj on several occasions, and that in fact, kris maharaj's sole motive at the time was the death of derrick and duane young. >> he said kris had done a dry run where he had prepared to murder the moo youngs and kris was going to burst through from room 404 to room 406 to do it. i went to the dupont plaza, there is no door between 404 and 406. there are all sorts of reasons why tino is lying, the question is why. >> why do you think that tino was lying? >> tino geddes had a dwi trial coming up, and he was also being charged for smuggling guns and ammunition. >> he was smuggling a ton of guns into jamaica at a time when there was very, very harsh sentencing. my vast experience is that when people are facing life in prison they're willing to say what the

prosecution says to say about anything, and probably about their grandmother. >> in tino geddes' misfortune, the prosecution sensed an opportunity and flew to jamaica to help their new witness. >> they went to testify on his behalf and got him off with i think just a fine instead of doing jail time. and i thought well, okay, they're doing their job. until i found out that they, and tino, went to a strip club. a lot of people would say, well, what they do on their own time is their own business. but they're there on my dime as a taxpayer. testifying on behalf of this man and they go to a strip club with him? yeah, i would say that they got a little too close. >> kris's trial began on october

5th, 1987, almost exactly a year after the murders occurred. it was presided over by judge howard gross, known to friends as mousey, because of his small frame and large ears. chris' attorney was eric hendon, who helped other accused killers avoid the death penalty. during open arguments, the prosecution contended that the moo youngs were innocent business men, gunned down by kris, a cold-blooded killer. eric hendon said they would hear fictional stories from the prosecution worthy of a hollywood drama. but on the third day of trial the proceedings came to a sudden halt. >> what happened on the third day of the trial if you can believe it is that howard the mouse has not shown up because he had been arrested for taking kickbacks in another court, and had been caught, by agents posing as drug dealers. >> mousy's removal of a goalen

tune for kris' lawyer to call for a mistrial. with the new trial, hendon would know the prosecution's arguments ahead of time. without a new trial, the judge replacing mousey could face deciding a death sentence without hearing all the evidence. >> i wanted a new trial. but hendon's advice was not to ask for a mistrial. >> he said they would just go on with the trial because he felt they made headway and they had a good jury. >> why would they do this? >> probably the main motivation was he was on a set fee. and you're going to have to start over and that cuts into your fee. >> hendon claimed he had worked hard on behalf of his client, the jury would go on to hear six days of testimony, all directed against kris. neville butler testified about the graphic details of the murders he said he had watched kris commit.

tino geddes said that kris had asked him to make up an alibi. and the detective said kris tried to cover up the crime during his interrogation. when the case was finally turned over to the defense, hendon's judgment would again come into question. >> eric said to me that if he didn't call any witnesses he would have two shots at the jury in closing argument. i said to him, but you're not going to do that. i've got all these witnesses. you're not going to do that. he didn't answer me. >> eric hendon's defense case for kris would consist of only nine words. >> eric stood up and said, "your honor, the defense rests." eric didn't call a single witness. nothing. i thought kris was going to rip

the skin off my forearm. >> i just couldn't believe my head. i was shocked. >> it is not often in a capital case you get six alibi witnesses putting your client somewhere is. one is, did the lawyer not put those on? >> i have never wanted to hit another human being, physically attack another human being like i did that day with eric hendon. >> the jury responded to hendon's strategy by returning guilty verdicts for two first degree murders. they would also vote whether or not to recommend the death penalty and with florida being the only state where a simple majority is needed in sentencing, the vote of death passed by a count of 7-5. the judge who replaced mousey agreed. kris would be sentenced to die in the electric chair. >> kris fainted.

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when clive finally got the chance to appeal kris' case in 1995, he immediately set out to talk to the alibi witnesses who were never called at the trial. >> i talked to the alibi witnesses who were very convincing, they say it was true. kris was not at the dupont plaza hotel that day because he was with us. he was in ft. lauderdale. >> but kris' alibi fell on deaf ears, the courts only concerned with whether or not he received a fair trial in 1987. >> i am just saying the facts are wrong. most of it is about what people discouragingly call legal technicalities. >> but clive did have an opening. if he could show the representation was ineffective, he could open the door for a new trial. then kuehne worked on the trial.

he would cross examen hendon. >> he was over his head and needed help in a case of this magnitude. and kris has suffered the consequences as a result of his lawyers' errors. >> but hendon needed to admit under oath that he made mistakes and when ben asked him why he didn't present kris' alibis, he told the court, it appeared to me that these were alibi witnesses who had been sought out. it seemed all too convenient. in other words, hendon didn't believe any of kris' alibis. >> how is one lawyer going to be the judge of a witness that could be the key to a not guilty verdict? that's not a decision for a lawyer to make -- not with the stakes this high. >> hendon said he thought he had a strategic reason for not putting on the alibi, he thought it was too good.

once a lawyer says that, it takes it out of the realm of the lawyer's ineptitude and becomes a strategic decision by the lawyer that the courts won't second-guess. >> ultimately the court agreed with clive and ben, refusing to believe that hendon had been ineffective. clive still believed that kris was innocent and while looking through files, he discovered evidence he felt police and prosecutors didn't want kris to have. >> i found out kris had lost his gun before the murders had taken place. i discovered kris told them from the very beginning he had been in the room. so there was an explanation. >> clive had also seen photos belonging to the moo youngs. the contents were something that

ron petillo had wanted to see before the trial. >> the bar master sent the young girl out. i open the brief case and it is empty. and i said to her, where are the contents? and she said that detective burhmaster told her to tell me that he didn't find anything of any evidentiary value and returned the contents to the family. >> burrhmaster had said that they had gotten rid of the briefcase. that wasn't true. here in the file were hundreds of pages of notes of the moo youngs. it was all sort of intriguing things, far from people who were making $24,000 a year, they were offering loans around the

caribbeans first $100 million, then $250 million, just extraordinary stuff. >> they didn't have a pot to pee in, or a window to throw it out of, where were they coming up with $100 million. >> shortly before their deaths, derrick and duane moo young also took out a million dollars worth of life insurance policies. the company who issued it hired an investigator, because they were suspicious. >> the moo youngs' headquarters which consisted of a garage at the family home only had left an old telex machine and no documents whatsoever. the more we learned about it, it seemed like they were either selling false goods entirely or they were laundering the money. >> but if the moo youngs were involved in laundering, whose money were they laundering? >> those kind of dollars and narcotics go hand in hand in 1980, i think that is fair to say. >> do you know, i didn't really get that. i didn't ready understand miami

in the '80s. >> say hello to my little friend. >> federal agents seized 25,000 pounds of cocaine. >> in the '80s, the moo youngs were operating in a city where drug smuggling was bringing in an estimated $7 million to $12 million a year. >> the banks in miami had more money than all the other banks in the country put together. people were walking in and buying mercedes and porsches for cash. >> miami could have been seen as the headquarters for money laundering for the colombians. >> with so much drug money at stake, the violence ballooned into what would become known as the cocaine wars. and law enforcement was quickly overwhelmed. >> we had bank robberies, kidnapping, extortion. one of the guys shot me through the fingers. in the back of the arm. standing between my legs, i went to kick home and he shot me in the groin. i figured he would kill me.

>> these drug dealers were the most violent, desperate criminals that we ever had in south florida. they could see a pretty girl in the car, they would wait and kill girl and take the car. >> miami's crime rate doubled, turning it into the murder capital of the nation. >> there have been so many murders in miami lately that a special truck is being used to store all the bodies. >> it turns out it was a truck that they used from burger king to hole the overhaul of bodies. >> clive was beginning to see the picture frame around the murders and now wondered whether the moo youngs had caught themselves in the cross hairs of miami's cartel violence. clive felt the road map to the '80s could be found in the moo youngs' brief case. >> we figured out the moo youngs

were laundering money for the cartels. they got greedy and came up with this great plan they would skim 1% of the money. so if you were ripping off the colombia drug cartels, that is a slightly stronger motive for you getting killed than what was going on with kris. it totally re-framed the case. now we have a huge alternative suspect. >> a suspect that happened to be staying in the room directly across the hall from the murders. don't hide it... tackle it with fda-approved jublia! jublia is a prescription medicine proven to treat toenail fungus. use jublia as instructed by your doctor. once applied, jublia gets to the site of infection by going under, around, and through the nail. most common side effects include ingrown toenail,

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clive stafford smith had uncovered evidence suggesting that before the moo youngs were murdered they may have been stealing money from a colombia drug cartel. and a photo ron petrillo had seen boosted the theory. >> when you look at the crime scene photos, there are blood drops in the hall and blood smear on the door frame of 1214. it begs the question, who was in 1214? >> did you ultimately find out who was it? >> oh, yeah, i wound up looking into an employee, it was mejia.

>> jaime vallejo mejia said he was an importer, but the truth is he would soon be busted by the drug enforcement agency for laundering. >> he said i chatted with him for a few minutes, standing in the hallway and he didn't seem to know anything. >> this is the only other guy who is there. the only room occupied on the 12th floor. we discovered mejia was wanted at the time of kris' trial for conspiracy to take $14 million in cash to switzerland. >> former dea agent dave lorino had his own opinion. >> he was involved in the money laundering business. not only was he working for escobar, but there was other work done for the organization as well. jaime says he worked for insurance companies, that doesn't make any sense, people working in insurance don't work in the import business.

why is there blood on the door? it doesn't add up. there were a series of questions that should have been asked of him that were not asked. >> officers took a brief statement from jaime mejia and let him go. would the jurors at kris' trial have found an alternate explanation for the murders if they had seen evidence about the moo youngs and mejia? while piecing together the evidence, clive pieced together what he believed was happening that day. >> what happened in my mind, the moo youngs were laundering money for the cartels. they started to skim money off the top. they then got in trouble. and it was set up so they would meet in the dupont plaza hotel and kris would be there, too. all three were meant to die. it would then be determined to

be a murder/suicide, and then you have somebody else fingered for it. clearly jaime mejia supervised it. >> but the courts were not the least beat interested in the theoretical suspects or the evidence he'd uncovered. innocence was not the issue. >> one of the bizarre things that americans have no idea about is whether you're innocent or not is not a legal issue. you go into court and say my guy is innocent, they say well, too bad, mate, that has nothing to do with it. and the judge actually said that in kris' case. >> but clive did manage to introduce a document into the proceedings that the courts could not ignore. a document showing that the death sentence had been issued by someone other than kris' judge. >> i find in the prosecution file ordering kris sentenced to

death days before the sentencing hearing. they were written by the prosecutors, because it said js k. >> in allowing prosecutor john kastrenakes to set his death sentence, the judge who replaced mousy had decided to impose the death penalty before hearing the sentencing phase of the trial. >> the judge asked the prosecutor would you prepare a proposed sentencing order imposing the death penalty before the sentencing had been completed? anybody in the world would say what? that is not allowed. >> the evidence was enough to vacate kris' death sentence, he would no longer be scheduled to die in the electric chair. but kris was far from a free man. clive and ben would now argue

for a more lenient sentence for kris in front of a judge and jury who could once again sentence kris to death. this is not a trial about innocence or guilt, only the proper punishment. and kris' wife would look on. at the hearing, the state broad back kris' familiar detractors, who reconfirmed their original testimony. >> what did you observe about him? >> he had a gun in one hand, a pillow in the other. >> the jury was not allowed to hear any of the new evidence that clive had discovered. but they did listen to 24 character witnesses in support of kris, including peter bottomly, kris's friend from the british parliament, who testified by satellite. >> i like him and respect him and find him the kind of person i'm pleased to be associated with. >> finally after days of testimony, the jury would hand down a new recommendation for

kris. >> the jury advises that it impose a sentence of life imprisonment without a possibility of parole for the first 25 years. >> the judge imposed a life sentence. that saved kris' life. >> but that just meant he was not on death row anymore. he would still die in prison. >> kris' appeals had gone through the florida courts and the federal level without so much as a hearing about his innocence. so the question remained -- why was there so much evidence that kris did not commit the murders? as it turned out one man had an answer to that question. a cop. he said he was there the day of the murders and knew all about them because he helped cover them up. o all the tools and help on experian.com. so how are we going to sweeten this deal? floor mats... clear coats... >>you're getting warmer... leather seats... >>and this...

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investigations will continue in what is shaping up to be the biggest police corruption scandal in miami's history. >> while miami police were battling a crime wave in the early '80s, a new enemy suddenly emerged. corruption within the ranks. >> particularly in the early '80s, miami police rushed out and made a lot of hirings without bothering to look too deeply at the people's backgrounds. >> already, 11 people were investigated and arrested.

>> they put in additional background investigators, and some of these people were tied into the drug dealers. >> the latest investigations go beyond the cops, the charges are first degree murder. >> we can just say we're trying to clean our own house. >> everybody you thought you could trust you couldn't trust anymore in miami. >> as it turned out, one police officer jailed for corruption would hear about kris' case and tell clive he knew what happened because he was there. >> i started courting a witness, that is probably the word for it, a witness who was in the place who could tell the truth. and this officer had told me that the police back in the '80s had a deal with the drug dealers where they would protect the murderers who were going around killing people in these drug cases. they would frame someone else with the crime if anyone got on to them. this officer told me yeah, yeah, kris was framed. it was my former partner who did

it. >> it took clive a full year to get him to testify. he declared, i was a former police officer in miami, i was persuaded to tell what i know to his lawyer, clive stafford smith, i do not expect to benefit from this. i know the particulars of the maharaj case. indeed, i visited the scene of the crime when it happened. i know that mr. maharaj was framed because officers investigating the double murder told me they were going to do this. i had a moral duty to free a man who had been framed and imprisoned for 26 years and spent many of those years on death row. he could have been executed for something he did not do. while fred may believe the cops

in kris' case were on the take he has never identified the individuals involved. no evidence has ever been presented in court to substantiate his claim. but recently, some of clive's suspicions about who killed the moo youngs were confirmed when he sent someone to colombia to speak with a man who had been in the room across from the murder. jaime mejia was plagued by men with four years when he discovered that he ran afoul on the drug smuggling operation, and said the moo youngs had to be dealt with. >> i visit kris every week. i don't tell people about kris' case. i don't discuss kris' case because if i tell them they will think i'm crazy.

he is not losing his hopes, and you know, that is good. >> all i can say about marita is god sent her to me. she is a blessing, sent by god. if i would switch places with marita, i would not put up with what she did. she is one in a million. she is the heroine of this tragedy. >> you cannot have a better husband. even now that he is in prison, there is nothing he really can do for me. but he has a lot of hope. >> in 2008, clive and ben kuehne submitted a clemency appeal to the governor of florida documenting the police and prosecutors in the case, and new evidence they had found. >> there was a strong case for

clemency. kris had been in prison for over 20 years which is a long time to serve for anything. but the victims' family showed up en masse. and charlie crist was the governor at the time and he instantly denied clemency. by now, kris is 70 years old. he is in bad health, his poor wife, marita, stuck by him. i've been representing kris now for 18 years and i have failed to get him justice. the most culpable character in kris' scenario is the justice system because they're just not interested in justice. as we produce more and more evidence that a, he had an unfair trial, and b, no one will unfair trial, and b, no one will listen. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

a vocal critic of russian president vladimir putin is gunned down a stone's throw from the kremlin. >> without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid. the table. >> u.s. lawmakers fumble their way to an agreement to keep the department of homeland security fund for at least another week. and the world says good-bye to spock. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world, i'm natalie allen. this is "cnn newsroom."