The Murder of Jean Casse
The teenagers, who were friends, had gone to Times Square that night with a group of peers in the hopes of catching a rap show at Latin Quarters, a music venue popular with teenagers. But the cover charge was steep that night, and not everyone in the group could afford it, so the group hung out outside the club before heading home.
The Trial of Eric Smokes and David Warren
Most notable of the eyewitnesses was James Walker, age 16. Walker had been arrested January 2, 1987, for a different mugging in the Times Square area. Under questioning, Walker told investigators that Smokes had told him he’d murdered Casse.
Smokes says before Walker was an “acquaintance” before the trial.
“We didn’t hang out, but if we’d see each other we’d acknowledge that we knew each other. Young teenager stuff. Very loose,” Smokes explains.
Smokes was bewildered by Walker’s testimony at the trial.
“It was heart-wrenching," he says. "It’s not just that he’s testifying—he’s making stuff up. And this isn’t ‘David and Eric stole candy out of a store.’ This is a life-altering, for-real for-real situation. How you gonna get up there and do that?”
As for Warren, he says he was offered a plea deal to testify against Smokes that would’ve gotten him out in as little as a year, half of which he’d already served in pretrial detention.
“That would’ve involved lying on somebody. There was nothing to think about,” Warren says.
For the second-degree murder, Smokes was convicted and sentenced to 25 years-to-life imprisonment. Warren was convicted and got 15 years to life.
In 2005, Walker would write a letter to Smokes, confessing to deep guilt he felt for offering false testimony. It was provided to A&E Crime + Investigation by Smokes and Warren's lawyer, James Henning.
“I don’t know why I did it, besides me wanting to stay free and smoke crack,” the letter reads. “I’ve committed the ultimate crime.”
By that point, Warren and Smokes had already been incarcerated for 18 years.
Prison, Release and Exoneration
“The first stop was Elmira Correctional,” Warren recounts. “They make you strip buck naked, spray you with some lice stuff, make you get in a shower with other naked teenagers, give you some clothes, take you and read you the Riot Act and how they’ll kill you if you get out of line. And that they don’t care what you do to each other.”
The men began serving their sentences together.
“We were on the same bus,” from Rikers to Elmira, Warren says. “My number was 87B1647. He was 87B1652.”
Initially, they were in the same gallery (i.e., area of the cell block). Later, they were moved to separate facilities but stayed in touch.
They kept in contact with their girlfriends as well.
“Throughout my incarceration, she was always my friend. She never forgot about me,” Warren says of Williams. “Twenty-one years, and she never missed my birthday.”
Smokes and Jenkins reunited. “That was my biggest fan,” Smokes says, adding that although she had other relationships over the years, “I guess I made a hell of an impression prior to that, because we ultimately ended up back together.”
On December 20, 2007, the day after he was released on parole, Warren went to a check-cashing store in his neighborhood, where Williams worked. It was a pragmatic visit: He knew Williams would process a check he’d received, even though he hadn’t yet secured valid ID post-incarceration.
“Old feelings blossomed again,” Warren says. The couple married and had a daughter.
In 2011, Smokes and Jenkins also married while he was still incarcerated at Fishkill Correctional. He was released the same year.
Williams died unexpectedly of an aneurysm in 2020, four years before Warren’s sentence was vacated.
“My wife never got to see it. That weighs on me," he says. "She was part of this struggle.”
By the time of their exoneration, Walker had died. But his letter was submitted into evidence, and several eyewitnesses who had been teenagers at the time took the stand and recanted their prior testimony. One said he’d testified in the face of police pressure around his own case; another blamed youthful naiveté and a teen rivalry with Smokes stemming from a pellet gun incident. Prosecutors concluded that police pressured witnesses, and that, along with the fact that no DNA evidence linked Smokes or Warren to the crime, led Judge Stephen Antignani to vacate the convictions in January 2024. Authorities have not named any other suspects in Casse's murder.
Jenkins died of ovarian cancer that August.
The men settled with New York City and received payment in “May or June of this year,” Warren says.
Their attorney, James Henning, citing his clients’ privacy, would not disclose the figure to A&E Crime + Investigation, but acknowledged they negotiated from a strong position and that the pair would not have to work.
Still, when talking about the money, both men strike a somber tone.
“Let’s be realistic: I have a lot more time behind me than in front of me,” Warren says. “It’s about securing a better future for my daughter at this point.”
Smokes calls the settlement "bittersweet." “We didn’t really do nothing to celebrate," he says. "Neither one of us indulges in drinking or smoking or anything like that. It would’ve been more pleasing to share it with the people we hold dear.”
Since the settlement, both men have moved out of New York City to different locations.
