Rashawn Brazell /// Part 1 /// 741 | Forensic Files

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life redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com [Music] [Music] today [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime this is one of the most brutal
murders in the history of this city Ran's gruesome murder will forever trouble a dedicated detective who
retired without solving it and will haunt Ran's mother who's had to live with it every
day whoever did this don't realize that it's a half of me that's just completely gone I can never get
back it can never be restored so that morning he was up he was getting his clothes ready he had his
little bag with his resume and you know he was a little concerned because he had
been out of work not that long but a couple of months and it bothered him so I remember when I got to the train
station I called him and I said listen your phone bill and if you have any other little bills you know mommy's here
Mommy's going to help you I don't want you stressing over the fact that no one has
called you back yet from the few interviews that you went on you will get a job until then Mommy got you and I'll
see you later because he was my valentine date Mommy and Son were supposed to get
together that day and you know have lunch and [Music] everything this is one of the most
brutal murders in the history of this city Ran's gruesome murder will forever trouble a dedicated detective who
retired without solving it and will haunt rashan's mother who's had to live with it every
day Thursday February 17th this is back in 2005 at 3:00 a.m. we have two New York
City Transit workers who are setting up lights for a Subway track cleaning crew this is when they made what would turn
out to be a very Grizzly Discovery they spot two large black plastic trash bags on the subway tracks near the no strand
Avenue Station which is located in Brooklyn newor New York now according to the NY Daily News these were blood
soaked bags found near the southbound tracks so this would be about 450 ft north of the A train platform the hori
transit workers decided to take a closer look this is when they discovered a Barefoot sticking out of one of the bags
now of the find one of the workers said quote you could tell it was fresh the blood on the roaded was still wet so
while it's unclear to the workers exactly what they have found their feeling at the time is that these bags
with the foot have not been there for too long The Daily News which is not known for its subtlety their article
goes on to say quote the site was so sickening that the first worker who saw it started to scream hysterically then
yelling there's a leg there's a leg the other worker told the news Outlet at first I thought someone was under a
train which would make sense given the setting at first when you look at it they said it didn't look real we didn't
really know what we were seeing but then under the bag they could see a trail of
blood when police get to the scene they're going to be the ones that are tasked with opening up these bags
looking inside inside the bags the police found blue plastic bags and then inside of
these blue plastic bags they found human body parts the report is that they found
a torso an arm and two legs and judging by the appearance this is from a black adult
male the legs had been cut off below the hips the blue recycling bags were found
shoved between the tracks and the tunnel wall this is near an emergency exit that
leads to the street above the bag with the body parts was split on both sides along the seams because of its heavy
load so the weight of the contents split the bags the guess here was that the bags were carried as there were no signs
that they had been dragged along the track bed to the location where they are later found obviously if the bag are
dripping blood You' see the drag marks because the bags would be dragging the blood behind them this is a weird
scenario right because here you have a crew that's setting up lighting for work that future work that is going to be
done and you can picture this setting right away it's going to be dark down in these tunnels and I'm it's difficult to
try to describe this find this discovery because I like many of us have never crawled through these subway tunnels and
so I picture this dark area but here you have the scenario where these This Crew
is out to set up these lights and the lights probably come into play here so they're able to view and provide a
description of what they find and then call in the police who can then start to secure the scene and start their
investigation on the subway platform near the Northbound track not far from the bag of Parts police
found a canvas bag so this is different from what they've already found this was
a wheeled black and tan toolbag with a rooster emblem on it so it's got wheels on the bottom this is one of those
roller tool bags inside this bag they find bloody drill bits and some other tools so of course we are going to be
testing the blood that's found on these tools right we are going to be testing the body parts later the blood on the
tools would turn out to be human that's what the test would provide to us and we
would also learn the results of those tests is that the blood on the tools matches the body parts that were found
in those bags those other bags nearby so obviously somebody committed a murder dismembered the body to try to conceal
possibly the identity of the body but also a way to carry the body out of wherever the crime was
committed and so we got a Dumping Ground of of the body but we have a Dumping Ground site of the tools used to
dismember the body now let's go to six days later this is Wednesday February 23rd here we have more body parts are
found which of course immediately are going to be suspected to be linked to the others this time it was a mutilated
pelvis found in trash bags among the debris at rapid processing garage plant on Humbolt Street in Greenpoint
Brooklyn this is about 5 miles from the location where the first parts were found right then we have more parts that
are found the following day this is more of the pelvis an arm and a hand were found on the
24th they were all doubled up right all double bagged in the blue and then black
plastic bags so this is uniform to the first find blue bags inside of the black bags the then Police Commissioner his
name is Raymond w Kelly said everything found all have similar cut marks adding that investigators believe the cuts are
clean done by someone with medical knowledge and a atomical knowledge and the ability to do some sort of refined
work we should note that NY Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is the longest serving commissioner in the history of
the NYPD and was a colonel in the Marines serving in Vietnam so Mr Kelly thank you for your service so what we're
working with here Captain is if these were as the police believed to be all pieces of the same adult male one has to
wonder how did his body parts get spread around to a few different locations yeah
was that done by the killer was it done by some other means so we get one report
and this is from the NY post that seems to explain what's going on here and it says
that the rapid processing facility served a company that held the contract to collecting trash found along the
Subways a line and the New York Times reported that detectives found Metro cards in the same
trash Lots as the body parts so if I'm picking up what you're putting down it's possible that all these bags were dumped
in the same location but some of them were moved by a company that was paid to collect the trash around the subway
exactly so they believe the trash came from stations along the A-line but they were not able to determine exactly where
along the a line so it's a it's a 32m route which my my information says has 35 stops so that's a lot of territory to
cover so this would tell us captain that it seems likely that rather than the parts being disposed of in totally
different locations the recycling plant and the subway tracks they were all dumped at various locations along the
A-line tracks and somehow some of them got picked up as trash and sent to the processing facility in Greenpoint and
others did not so I believe you are spoton with your assessment there meanwhile there was no head and no
clothing that was found with any of these remains but strange that they left the hands because that would be
identifier some people would say well maybe the head wasn't left behind because they didn't want the police to
be able to identify the victim if they're not able to identify the victim they're not able to identify people that
the victim would have known and this type of dismemberment typically would fall into
two categories when you're looking at the person responsible I it could either a point to the depravity of the
individual who committed this crime and these crimes or B it could be as simple as making a smaller package to later
dispose of having several small packages rather than one large thing to dispose of and let's not forget it also could
point to absolutely both all wrapped up into one here the pathologist concluded that the victim was a young adult black
male who had died very recently whoever cut him into pieces had done so with quote surgical precision
it was theorized that each limb had been neatly and sharply severed at the joint
and then a chainsaw used to further disassemble the corpse on the Torso they found some stab
wounds but the cause of death as far as the pathologist was concerned and I think even from a lay person's
perspective was unclear because absent the head this is going to leave some question as to the exact act cause of
death police got to start somewhere so they decide that they're really going to focus in on the clues that would be
provided by the dismemberment so this is a good start this is a smart place to start well I
think one of the first Clues is if there was a chainsaw used and we think that this murder took place with inside the
city limits or close to where possibly the body where the body was dumped you'd Wonder is there any ear witnesses that
heard somebody using a chainsaw in their apartment anybody that does a lot of yard work or
landscaping and has familiarity with chainsaws I tell you Captain my chainsaw is louder than any other piece of lawn
equipment that I have with a with a small motor on it right and it's not like they make a silencer for chainsaws
now and in Brooklyn people are living in close proximity to one another so I think you're right like
if if our victim was killed very recently then look there's no nice subtle way to say these things the
victim was dismembered recently if you put this out to to the public you might get an earwitness that will come forward
with some information that could that could really shrink the size the scope of your investigation and allow you to
hone in on something now we've already discussed some of the details regarding this dismemberment and again that's
where they're to focus the early stage of the investigation they're looking for leads here at this point they don't even
know who their victim is yeah but they do have the victim's hands so they they would be able to possibly identify them
through fingerprints so regarding this cut up with some sort of precision that's what was stated to the public and
also by the other statement is some by somebody who had knowledge of autonomy so a butcher maybe could be a doctor
doctor a mobster experience in hit cleanup and Disposal right now we have reviewed cases that are similar to this
with similar methods used at concealing the disposal of remains in fact two come
to mind two cases from Kentucky and unfortunately those victims have yet to be even
identified right but this is a very rare breed it takes a very special level of pile of [ __ ] person to dismember a body
yeah very few Killers go to these lengths and while I cannot speak to the exact specificity of these
cuts and this body I don't want to limit it to some kind of expert right because
frankly most times it it could be some med school dropout or somebody that worked in a butcher shop for a couple
weeks they didn't have answers to who that doctor or butcher might be but at least they were able to identify the
victim victim very helpful to the investigation for obvious reasons here we have the hands as the captain pointed
out found intact fingerprints will provide police with the victim's name and identity sadly the deceased was
positively ID as being 19-year-old rashan brazelle police went to the home where records indicated rashan lived now
he lived with his mother and stepfather in Bushwick this is in Brooklyn Ran's mother desire told police that indeed
yes her son was missing and in fact desire filed a missing person's Report with the police just days earlier ran
brazelle was born April 15th 1985 in 2005 he was a young openly gay man who was in college part-time and
working part-time he's at that age Captain where he's hoping to realize his aspiration
of being a web designer fashion designer or singer he had tried his hand at modeling and worked several retail jobs
but not really finding his thing now he was known as a kindhearted and rather creative individual he often designed
and Seed his own clothing the New York Times described him as an energetic grounded 19-year-old who loved both
music and cooking and he enjoyed going to clubs with his friends now the day in question here is going to
be February 14th 2005 because sadly this is going to be the day that he goes missing yeah he
said he's working part-time but on this day he leaves the home with resumés that
he had prepared and in hand and he set out to go job hunting that's what he tells his mother and his stepfather so
on the morning of February 14th note this is also Valentine's Day ran told his mother he was scheduled to meet with
his accountant to prepare his taxes and that he had a stack of resumés that were ready to drop off at retail
department stores in Manhattan so he's going to kill two birds with one stone here while he's out on his travels
afterward the plan was that he was going to go meet his mom his mother desire brazelle Jones
for lunch at noon ran like many New Yorkers does not have a car he does not have a vehicle he
uses the subway to get around ran does not show up for this lunch date with Mom his mom calls him calls him calls him
gets no response this is incredibly way out of character for this young man big red flag ran was known as a responsible
and reliable individual and look he never stood his mom up you don't stand mom up on Valentine's Day this is a note
to all the sons out there in listener land don't stand mom up especially on Valentine's Day and ran was not just a
good son he was a great son and he would never do such a thing so of course this
gave everyone great cause for concern later Ran's mother told the Daily News quote it didn't make any sense he lived
through his cell phone remember she's trying to get a hold of him the for the remainder of the day on his cell phone
and gets no response she begins to feel very uneasy so when she gets home from her job she's a social worker when she
gets home at the end of the day she calls all of her friends that she knew any friends of his that she knew their
phone number she's calling them trying to find her son to no avail finally she calls the police and reported her son
missing on the same day February 14th needless to say it doesn't seem like much happened this is Brooklyn a young
19-year-old male went off the grid police have other stuff to worry about he's an adult well it becomes tough
because he has like you said he's an adult he can disappear if he wants to or just yeah just be gone for the night
right but then later three days later when the parts are found which later are confirmed by DNA test compared with his
mother's DNA confirming it was the missing young man right now unfortunately police have a homicide
investigation rashan's family was devastated by this horrific and violent death his mother desire said in a 2014
interview with Pix 11 no one deserves to end up being thrown away like they are trash she told the NY Daily News he was
someone so loved he will be so missed everyone loved ran desire said he was her best friend rashan's friend
Jacqueline Perez described him as quote the most upbeat happy person there was he' always wear something that turned
your head and he always wanted to know how everyone was he was like a brother Joel Washington age2 a friend since
kindergarten said so now that we have a full picture of what's going on here in the from February 14th through the
17th and then even the later days when additional items are found now we are essentially riding shotgun with
detective's Captain staying in the moment watching from afar what do the police need to figure out in Pronto this
well-liked and loved young man goes missing on February 14th his body found on February 17th so we have two to three
days to sort out by my calculations we have 63 hours unaccounted for we need to squeeze that window closed fill in the
blanks and the missing events from that timeline and figure out when did he truly go missing what happened to this
young man and how the hell did he get spread out at various locations along the a TR tracks by 3:00 a.m. on Thursday
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IOS and [Music] Android all right we are back cheers mates cheers to you Colonel cheers to
you Captain cheers to the people that paid for the good seats up front investigators came using Ran's
neighborhood they they're talking to the neighbors and they learned that around 7:30 a.m. on February 14th and if you're
paying attention you already know that this is the morning that rashan went missing yeah you're not paying attention
well you have been warned on February 14th Police learned that a man an unidentified man buzzed rashan's
apartment and ran came down to meet this man the two walked to the subway At The
Gates Avenue Station and ascended the stairs to the elevated platform where the trains are accessed and then as far
as we know he didn't tell his mother that he had plans to meet up with somebody and go job hunting together no
and that that's what's interesting here because either this could be a planned comp companion if you will someone to
travel with him or maybe or maybe this is just happen stance that ran doesn't know that this person's going to hit the
buzzer and then he's going to go down and go oh oh you're leaving too you're hitting the subway too yeah I'll walk
with you right so it's a little unclear if this was a planned event and the thing that's even more troubling is they
don't know who this person is so this person's not easily identifiable to anybody what they do have is Witnesses
saying look we saw somebody we saw some these events take place the two are seen
going to the subway together now after that they kind of lose track of both of these
individuals ran included right and we don't have anybody coming forward saying hey I I went to the subway with rashan
that day yeah and then later we get some other Witnesses telling police that they
saw rashan and this again this unnamed person exiting the subway in Bedford at the no strand Avenue Station but at
least if you're law enforcement you go okay well we don't have a name but at least we have a description of an
individual that was last seen with him and this area that we're talking about now exiting the subway in Bedford at the
no strand Avenue Station this remember this is where some of the remains would later be found right so this is where
the trail of iwit wies seeing ran and his movements this is where that trail ends the parts found in bags in the
subway were situated along the a line tracks between no strand Avenue and Franklin Avenue stations and the tool
bag found on the platform with the parts containing tool bits and Ran's blood remember with the rooster brand wheel
duffel bag here is your break in the case captain listen to this they studied this bag police and detectives really
honed in on this bag right they believe that it was very important and it's it's
a very simple thing you have a young man 19 years old he's living with Mom and stepdad you take a picture of this bag
you take a close-up picture of the rooster emblem on the bag you show it to Mom and stepdad you show it to friends
of Rad's and you say have you ever seen this bag in his possession did he own a bag like this did you ever see him
carrying or Wheeling around a bag like this if you get NOS from everybody no no no no you're going to work your
investigation with the idea that this bag does not belong to your victim it has to belong to somebody it might
belong to your killer definitely so they study the make of this bag they want to
know all about it where was it manufactured where was it sold how could one get a bag like this what they come
up with is that this bag is only one of 15 I'll repeat that one of 15 that were made and it sounds to me like these were
like prototype type bags like they made them to be tested to see if they were durable if they were if they helped
anybody carry out the job compatible with the work so for my understanding it's one of 15 that were made for
testing by the Metropolitan trans Transit Authority we'll call them the MTA going forward
they made these for the MTA employees back in 2001 now the trouble here with the 15 bags that we know that
were made for testing is that the trail of the distribution of these bags it didn't lead the detectives anywhere so
while they were able to figure out where and how they and why they were manufactured they couldn't really figure
out past the Metropolitan Transit Authority who would have got one of these 15 bags
right and like you said right now law enforcement goes okay we're starting off we have a dismembered body we have these
trash bags we have this tool bag okay if we can figure out the victim okay now we
have the victim it's going to be easier to track down this tool bag than it will
be these trash bags yeah and the thing you're hoping here too trash bags can be very useful to your investigation but as
the captain pointed out they're not nearly as unique as these 15 bags rooster bags that were made the roller
tool toolbox tool duffel bag but yeah they they can't find the distribution of these bags but it has an identifier so
then when you're talking to other people that might have seen the victim and the
killer together you can go did one of of them have this bag or when you're looking for a possible eyewitness of
somebody that saw somebody drop these bags off somewhere again you might see a lot of people walking with different
styles of bags but one with identifier it's a good starting point it's a great starting point the problem is it turns
out to be a real kick in the pants later right because as a detective you're looking at this and you're going okay I
have this this rooster yeah tool duffel bag to work from it's a real kick in the
[ __ ] it's one of 15 so if I can locate the 15 different individuals that have these I'm looking for I got a few things
in my toolbox here I'm looking for the person that's missing their roller toolbox I'm looking for somebody that
may have these black and blue trash bags in their possession we can use cut or tear marks to M possibly identify the
ones used to dispose of the remains with with the remaining role also keep in mind your victim's clothing was
missing from the scene so you may find the victim's clothes in the possession of the killer as well or the victim's
blood in their residence also it would be helpful if you locate someone that also owns a
chainsaw so at the beginning of this investigation you're thinking okay we got a major major lead
here we should be wrapping this thing up in 4872 hours right then later you're figuring out well we can't we beyond the
the company where we sent these things the Metropolitan Transit Authority we don't know who would have
had these these rooster bags so you get this real kick in the pants and then now
you got the the police are going well our our very good lead quickly dried up so the on top of that the other part of
your investigation they weren't able to figure out where ran had actually been killed it seems like they could not rule
out the possibility that ran was slain right there somewhere in the subway where the majority of his body was found
right Brooklyn North homicide detective Richard Amato said quote I believe somebody who had knowledge of the subway
system had to be involved in this end quote NYPD detective Anthony Baker told America's Most Wanted quote
the killer or Killers knew the layout these tracks were two flights down which leads me to believe they had some
knowledge of the tracks because nobody really goes to the unknown to dispose of something like that unless they have
been there before end quote right because you wouldn't want to put yourself into danger and it's a whole
different thing because this is a this this is a urban atmosphere I mean if this happen
in a suburban area where you have neighboring fields or Woods that's where the Killer is going to go to dispose a
body but here in the city where do you dispose of a dismembered body some hidden dark cavernous area by
the subway and those detectives are spot on because I bet you if we were in New York City right now we could quickly
Round Up 100 individuals that would tell us I've been on the subway system a thousand times right have you ever
decided to get down into the dirty tunnels and run around I bet you none of those 100 would say that they've ever
done that so I think the detectives are spot on here with their speculation about potential leads and and also a bit
of the psychology of the the killer here so police searched those tunnels until they were blue in the face detective
Amato stated we checked all the rooms in the subway in between stations and we never found the original crime scene to
be clear it's not possible that Ran's killer slayed him elsewhere bagged up the parts and chucked them from a moving
train onto the tracks you see what I mean what I'm trying to say is that's not possible Right the killer had to go
down to where these bags were found it does big the question you start wondering if it's one killer or multiple
Killers true true but the subway cars they don't have Windows that open up so it's not like some killers that we've
talked about in the past that are driving along Country Roads and chucking things out the window right and the
other thing too we've we've hinted at this a lot but it's detective Amato they have every reason to believe that the
killer has intimate knowledge of this dark mazike rat infested tunnels that are the subway system right because this
is not something that most people would be comfortable with doing one the dismemberment two the going to the
location where the body parts are found well again and I know we're talking about a dismembered victim
so it's it's hard to get around having uncom uncomfortable conversation but his head is missing and so again is
it is it a dmer situation where you're going to find a suspect and in in the refrigerator you're going to find the
severed head it's a very difficult case to discuss and for for obvious reasons the other thing to the another
difficult part of this case in the investigation is to think about about the chilling
possibility that ran had been kept alive for some time before he was killed remember we have the statements of the
pathologist he was found on the 17th the medical examiner determined that the remains were that he was killed recently
and yet he vanished on the 14th yeah and again never showed up to eat with his mother wasn't answering his phone it
makes you wonder was he captive somewhere was he tortured I mean the things that his family and friends would
have to what would be going through their mind would be just horrific and there's everything telling us captain
that he wasn't just alive elsewhere willingly he would have met mom for lunch or at the very least called he
would have called Mom if he couldn't make it to lunch so it's really a matter of
determining what happened in the interim virtually no information about this case
has been released by authorities but we do know that the police believe that the
person who killed rashan quite possibly the same man he met on his stoop on that
Valentine's Day right everything's telling you Captain this has got to be somebody that rashan knew and his mother
desire is convinced of this as well and we know this because she told NY Daily News quote a friend killed him someone
he trusted end quote she said at 6 fo1 inches tall and 180 pounds her son was not a weakling who could be easily
overcome and his friend Lamar said the two often went clubbing together and Rashad could fight when need be right so
so he likely went with this abductor walking casually together to the subway well and it makes you also wonder too I
mean is this a hate crime based on his race or his sexuality that is certainly something to be
investigated and unfortunately look we know nowadays one thing that is a fantastic tool in the
Arsenal of detectives are cell phones victim's cell phones and Ran's cell phone would be of great interest to this
case of course but we don't know much about what the police knew and and it seems like we got Mom calling the phone
calling it on the 14th the phone is going to voicemail at some point it's believed that it was dead or turned off
at some point it looks like his phone was never recovered we know the clothing was not recovered right now one thing we
do know one thing that we did find out is that there was one call a phone call that was made from Ran's phone at 7:25
a.m. on that that Monday now investigators have not revealed will not reveal who the call was to well because
it would makes sense if you're going to meet up with somebody hey meet me down you know meet me downstairs and we'll
head up to the subway together or is that call going out or is the call going in exactly and as said the the phone was
never found but we do know that the it's been reported that the police were reviewing all of Ran's telephone records
and looking at computers he might have used one lead that was followed up extensively was a male acquaintance of
Ran's who was believed to be someone ran had planned to go and spend a few days with right NY Daily News citing quote
sources reported that Ran's friends told police that he and a male lover were planning to leave for a few days this
person it sounds to me like this person has been identified and investigated but
has never been named publicly right so it would seem like this is not the killer this police do not believe that
this person is responsible and it also seems like that this is not the same person that ran met with that morning
yeah and look I mean this guy he he was a looker he was very handsome he would not have a problem getting a date on
Valentine's Day or to get somebody that fancied him to to go with him to drop off some resumees there was a person of
interest early on in this case this is when police discovered that ran was in some sort of relationship with a
slightly older man uh this man is in his 30s or was in his 30s at the time he was
an individual who rented a room in an apartment around the corner from Ran's mom's house this
person has never been named publicly so I'll refer to him as the unknown the unnamed man but interesting to our
investigation it seems like this unnamed man vanished right when ran was killed or soon thereafter police didn't know
where this man was only that they had heard from some individuals that the man may have moved South now a high-ranking
police official told the Daily News quote we are not certain if ran ever made it to meet up with this man but if
if we can confirm that he did then this guy is going to be very very important to their investigation but quickly we
will learn that that lead really LED nowhere it also goes against eyewitness accounts it wasn't it wasn't that he was
seen with a older man leaving the apartment building going to the the subway also makes me wonder too you
would think that there would be some CCTV footage of ran going to the Subway or getting off somewhere getting off a
stop picked up by some local business yeah I I'm with you on that Captain um the the thing here is regarding this
lead with this other man so detectives eventually found the man and they determined he was not a good suspect the
thing here is you have this information that rashan is walking with another unidentified man to the Subway and then
later seen with an unidentified man getting off of the subway so to me this goes back to like a lot of cases that
we've covered when you're asking the public hey we need to help identifying uh the the person who he
could have been with where we looking to talk to the person that he could have been with that morning when said person
doesn't come forward and say yeah I was with ran that morning I would uh decided
to hop a ride on the subway myself right when that person fishy that person's got
to become suspect number one and I think I think what police is are doing here yes while you have that individual that
you're looking for you also have to determine that ran didn't go and meet up with somebody else elsewhere
later and when when you don't know who that person that is walking with ran you also have to cover all your bases and
make sure who's to say that this other person wasn't killed and and still concealed somewhere right and we just
haven't found that body and but then it also makes you wonder if your law enforcement did this individual come
from the area that they left right around rashan's apartment or is is this individual from the area where they went
to yeah again you're trying to squeeze that 63-hour window and what I what I really believe looking at this case is
that whatever trouble found ran I believe he was in trouble before he could get to that lunch date with Mom I
believe that that that either happened all around the same time or shortly before because something prevented him
from calling his mother something prevented him from going and meeting his mom that day and something prevented him
from answering her phone calls I totally agree with you now police wondered whether Ran's tax preparer story may
have been a white lie that he told to his mother to explain that he would be gone that morning because they weren't
able to locate any appointment that ran had that morning so they were wondering if maybe he had something else set up
yeah but some of those places you just walk in that's where my went too I'm glad you said that because I A lot of
times people will either just walk in or they will drop off their information their file in advance and say hey get to
this when you can it's February we got some time on this right I got to drop this off at some point it's 2005 here
you go but it would appear that if if he had a regular tax preparer which I don't
think we could call anybody regular he's only 19 that one they may not have been able
to identify anybody that he had talked to in that sometimes you just go to a company and it doesn't matter you know
I'm you know I'm getting my tax prepared from Liberty Tax and whoever happens to
be there that day will be the people that will prepare my tax from Jump Street and you you talked about this a
little bit earlier captain from Jump Street and as they went through the early stages of the investigation the
reality was police police had no idea why ran was killed was it a lovers quarrel was it a hate crime because he
was openly gay was ran tangled up with a bad crowd the answer to that last question was it's an absolute no people
who knew him including his high school principal said he was a good kid someone just trying to find his way that he
wasn't some street gang kid or drug dealer who could have been killed by any number of people he was a threat to no
one one investigator told the NY Times this victim was not leading a criminal lifestyle they would have found that in
their investigation I'm just going to reiterate very handsome kid and so yeah no clear motive of why somebody
would want him dead but you could then say look again could could get a date if he wanted to I'm sure if you're law
enforcement that has to calculate into your investigation to to go there could have been many people there could have
been many people that fancied him there could have been many people that had a a
crush on him and if and if hey it's Valentine's Day I'm going to make my feelings known and if he rejected them I
guess that would be a possible motive detective Jason Palomar who we will talk about and discuss a little more in
episode two he's now retired but he worked on this case for years he told us that there were lots of hopeful leads
early on in this investigation he said they looked at Ran's friends acquaintances online Connections contact
list and so on and unfortunately all turned out to be dead ends those potential leads just simply LED
investigators nowhere I have to be honest in the beginning of my son case I did not
feel that the detectives in the very beginning was really working my sun case I I have to
be honest with that my sun case didn't really start getting worked until detective Amato took it over himself
I'll never forget how this detective came to me and he said you know the people that I've talked to no one has
had any bad thing to say about your son you know when it got called I decided to
do a March you know to keep his name out there to let them know somebody know something whatever you know you know I
gave my email you know I gave numbers that you know people can reach out to I got together with this church and
we used to go out on noan Avenue where he was found on the train tracks there and we were like candles
and you know certain news reports would come out and you know I would say once again somebody knows
something whatever little thing that you think is not important talk about it tell some somebody about it I it I gave
Gatherings you know I sold dinners just you know in his name there was a scholarship fund it was called the
rashan memoral scholarship fund that was started with you know Larry lions and some of his other people we got together
and we was able we were so successful in raising money where we sent other kids to college you know with money that was
donated I tried to do everything I possibly could to make sure that this his case just didn't go cold and nobody
you know wasn't working on it and it just it just it was hard for me it was hard
because I knew somebody out that had took my son's life and the way that they did it they didn't
even allow me to look upon his face again so with all of that it just had me charge I mean in the beginning I was so
angry you know I was hurt I was so many emotions I wanted to know why and you know how could this have happened and I
even blamed myself for a while because I felt like maybe I led him to believe that you
know everybody needs help and because of the work that I do you know I wanted my
child to feel like you know the homeless the weak the people that you can help you can help maybe I made a
mistake about that but I just kept going I just kept going [Music] want to thank everybody for joining us
here in the garage for everything True Crime Check out true Crim garage.com while you're there sign up on the
mailing list and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter [Music]

Rashawn Brazell /// Part 1 /// 741

Part 1 of 2

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In late February of 2005 a crew working in the A line subway tunnel in Brooklyn New York found dismembered body parts in trash bags. Later the victim was identified as 19 year old Rashawn Brazell. Rashawn had vanished three days earlier. The New York City Police Department searched all over the country for clues. Rashawn’s murder case was profiled several times on America’s Most Wanted. This week True Crime Garage is joined by Rashawn’s mother Desire to discuss the case and where it stands today.

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Brief Summary

Rashan Brazelle, 19, was brutally murdered; his dismembered body was found in Brooklyn, sparking an ongoing investigation into his death.

Key points

Rashan's Gruesome Murder. The story of Rashan Brazelle, a young man whose tragic murder shocked his community.
Discovery of Body Parts. Transit workers stumble upon gruesome evidence of a murder in subway tunnels.
Rashan's Last Day. February 14, 2005, marks the day Rashan goes missing after leaving for job hunting.
The Mysterious Disappearance. Rashan goes missing on February 14th, with his body found days later.
Witness Accounts. Witnesses report seeing Rashan with an unidentified man before he vanished.
The Tool Bag Clue. A unique tool bag found at the crime scene may lead to the killer.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

No one deserves to end up being thrown away like they are trash.

Desire, Rashan's mother, reflects on her son's tragic fate.

23:48WatchMar 6, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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