For the first time in nearly two decades, Tyree Musier is a free man.
A beaming Musier, seated in a wheelchair, rolled through the double doors of Philadelphia’s criminal courthouse Tuesday afternoon, out into the cool city air and into the arms of his weeping family.
“Seventeen years!” Tamira Musier screamed as she embraced her brother. “An innocent man!”
Hours earlier, Assistant District Attorney David Napiorski had told a judge that he believed “it is more likely than not” that Musier did not commit the 2008 murder for which he was serving life in prison.
Napiorski’s statement came after his colleague, Assistant District Attorney Zach Green earlier this year discovered a collection of tapes with the recordings of jail calls made by Musier’s former friend, Jonte Slater, in which Slater discussed his involvement in the crime and his plans to pay a witness to frame Musier.
Those tapes were not turned over to Musier’s defense attorneys ahead of his 2012 trial, a violation of his constitutional rights. Because of that, a judge last month vacated Musier’s conviction in the shooting death of Nathaniel Crawford in West Philadelphia in June 2008.
What’s more, Napiorski said, the tapes revealed that Slater was most likely the shooter.
And so Musier, after spending more than 17 years in prison, was released.
Musier’s mother, Annette, could barely speak as she touched her son’s face Tuesday. It was her first time seeing him in nine years after health challenges prevented her from traveling six hours across the state to the prison where he was held.
“It’s been so long,” she wept. “My son.”
Musier, too, was short of words. He was up all night, he said, anxious to get to court and hear the judge say the words he’d been fighting for for nearly two decades: You are free to go.
“I wanted to cry right then and there,” he said. “Now, I’m just excited.
“I’m just happy to be here on the streets and see the streets without being in the van, or transported back and forth [to the prison],” he said.
He thanked his family for never giving up hope, and then he turned to his attorney, Dan Silverman. Today, he told Silverman, the lawyer was “Dan the Man.”
Silverman lauded the work of District Attorney Larry Krasner and his prosecutors for “taking the necessary steps to free this innocent man.”
“The culture of professionalism and ethics Mr. Krasner has created is a far cry from the win-at-all costs mindset of his predecessors,” he said. “This is a good day, long overdue.”
Musier has been jailed since June 2008 for killing Crawford, 26, outside of the University City Townhomes.
Musier, Slater, and a third person were stopped by police while fleeing the scene the night of the shooting. Officers said they saw someone throw the gun used to kill Crawford out of the window of the getaway car’s passenger side, where Musier was sitting. And inside the console of the car, officers found an extra-large bright green shirt that the shooter had been wearing.
As officers held that shirt up to Musier, two young witnesses identified him as the person who shot Crawford multiple times.
Police charged both men — Musier as the shooter, and Slater as the getaway driver.
But one of those witnesses, 14-year-old Latasha Austin, later said she actually saw Slater shoot and kill Crawford, and that Musier was not involved. But Slater, she said, paid her about $2,000 to lie and testify at a preliminary hearing that Slater was innocent, and Musier was the gunman.
The charges against Slater were dismissed, and he was released. Then, about nine months later, he was shot and killed in a case that remains unsolved.
Austin tried to recant her testimony before and during Musier’s 2012 trial, saying she saw Slater, not Musier, kill Crawford. But prosecutors — and jurors — did not believe her. Musier was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Evidence supporting Austin’s contention was finally uncovered this year, when prosecutors located the recordings of Slater’s calls from jail in the bottom of an old file box.
In the calls, Slater spoke of being at the scene of the shooting, wearing the green shirt witnesses said the shooter was wearing, and even hatched a scheme to bribe Austin to say she saw Musier fire the gun.
“A thousand dollars apiece, for whoever the witnesses is,” Slater said in one call, according to court records. “Each one of them.”
But trial prosecutor Richard Sax said he didn’t know about the tapes and hadn’t listened to them. For reasons that remain unclear, the recordings were not turned over to Musier’s defense lawyers before his 2012 trial, as required by law.
Napiorski said there’s no evidence that the tapes were deliberately withheld.
“I think the most likely explanation is that [Sax] … didn’t know they were there, so he didn’t listen to them and didn’t know what was on them,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
The prosecutor said he stopped short of saying Musier was innocent because “we can never really be sure.”
“He was definitely there. He definitely possessed the weapon for at least a little bit, and there were IDs, as questionable as they are,” he said. “I cannot say with 100% certainty that he didn’t commit the shooting, I just think it’s probable he didn’t commit the shooting.”
Musier’s attorneys have said he did not know Slater was going to kill Crawford that night, and was asleep in the passenger seat of the car when the gunshots rang out.
Regardless, Napiorski said: “There’s no way a jury would convict him.”
To Musier’s family, the concession was the end of their 17-year nightmare.
Musier still has hurdles ahead. His health had deteriorated in recent years. He now uses a wheelchair because of pain in his legs and back, and this month, he was hospitalized for ongoing issues with his kidneys, his sister Tania said.
“He hasn’t been getting the care he needs in prison,” she said.
They planned to take him to the emergency room Wednesday, she said, and will then work to connect him with a doctor in hopes he might one day walk again.
Outside the courthouse, Musier’s first request was a cold bottle of water. And then, a hot lunch from Reading Terminal Market.
“Just no noodles,” he joked, referencing a common prison meal.
Among those gathered with him on the sidewalk was an unlikely ally: Slater’s father.
Billy Slater had been among those fighting for Musier’s release since he said he learned more than a decade ago that his son was the real killer.
After Slater testified about his son’s scheme to frame Musier, he said, he was shunned by many members of his family. He stands by his decision, he said.
“I sleep at night,” he said. “I know I’m doing the right thing.”
He shook Musier’s hand, then stood on the outskirts of the family group. Smiling. Watching. Thinking about the life his son took, and the steps, he, as a father, took to give another man’s life back.