On December 22, 1990, Darryl Patterson, a 33-year-old Black man, was shot and killed in an alley behind Warnock Street in Philadelphia. The shooting also claimed the life of 34-year-old Thomas Winn and was believed to have followed a drug deal gone wrong.

Police arrested Don Ray Adams seven months after the killings and charged him based largely on witness testimony identifying a shooter called Don Ray. Witness descriptions at trial, however, described a tall, thin, light-skinned Black man about 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet tall, while Adams was a shorter, stocky, dark-skinned man listed at 5 feet 4 inches. Donna Benjamin was a key witness who said she was in the alley and identified Adams as the shooter, testifying that he let her go because he recognized her.

Years later a key witness recanted, saying she had lied and been pressured by police, and that recantation became the basis for Adams’s appeal. After a new trial was granted, Adams was acquitted and released following nearly two decades behind bars. Does anyone have information about Patterson or the alley behind Warnock Street in 1990?