ONE CHILD AT A TIME Davontae Sanford Story

Read the latest Davontae Sanford news and view Davontae Sanford pictures from our team of local insiders.

The New Yorker features a story about a Detroit hitman who confessed to 8 murders including the wife of a cop. The hitman claims a teen falsely confessed to some of the murders.

A Detroit police officer who was demoted for investigating claims that former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had a relationship with a ring of hit men has won a legal victory.

...Cobb was shot four times in the face at close range...

Vincent Smothers wears death all over his body. The self-professed hit man is tattooed on his arms, back, legs and chest — permanent reminders of friends and loved ones who died before him. The names, tombstones and dates of their deaths are impressively etched on his 6-foot-1 lanky frame.
Smothers, 27, says he's no stranger to death. He told police that he stealthily freelanced seven slayings on Detroit's poverty-stricken east side from 2006 to the end of last year.
He said he mostly killed drug dealers who either owed a debt, stole the merchandise or had infringed on someone else's turf. But he also has confessed to killing two men who were targeted as federal informants and a Detroit police sergeant's wife.
In his confession, Smothers told police that he wasn't remorseful until he killed the sergeant's wife.
For the occasion, he donned suits, ties and sunglasses, and usually carried at least two guns — an AK47 and a .40-caliber pistol — for efficiency. He said he practiced shooting at a gun range between jobs.
After high school, Smothers told police he began stealing cars, dabbling in the drug world and robbing dope houses before graduating to contract killings in 2006 for one motivation: money.
By many accounts, Smothers is a soft-spoken and charming man with a handsome smile and a polished persona — certainly not a man who embodied a murder-for-hire existence.
After his April 19 arrest, Smothers described to police the two lives he led: one with his wife and newborn daughter in a tidy townhouse complex in Shelby Township, where he would walk his beloved poodle and politely speak to neighbors; the other as a man who matter-of-factly detailed his deadly trail for police.
Smothers said his first kill occurred on Aug. 16, 2006, in front of a reputed drug house on Strasburg near Gratiot.
He was hired to kill two brothers, but only one was there at the time. Adrian Thornton, 27, was killed by gunshot wounds to the head, chest and legs. Another 28-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the left side of the head, but survived.
Weathered teddy bears mark the grassy spot across the street where Thornton collapsed on his back after running from the house.
But Smothers did not forget the other half of his assignment.
Waiting about five months to the day, Smothers said he returned to the Strasburg neighborhood on Jan. 17, 2007, to gun down Carl Thornton, 29. Neighbors said Smothers laid in wait in an abandoned house and ambushed Thornton and a 22-year-old woman, who was shot in the buttocks but survived. Neighbor Nancy Jenkins, 58, said she hit the floor and called 911 when the shooting started. She said she peeked out her window and saw Thornton lying facedown on his front porch, and a woman bleeding and crawling toward her house.
"They sounded like automatic cannons," Jenkins recalled of the gunshots. "I heard it was a hit — that they had stole something from a drug man," she said.
Police say Smothers told them he was hired to kill Marshall White Jr., 56, and Johnny Marshall, 64, because they were believed to be federal informants. The men were found dead about noon May 24, 2007, at Jos. Campau and the I-94 eastbound service drive.
Police found the car with the hood up. White was shot in the head outside the car, and Marshall was in the passenger seat with a gunshot to the face.
A federal source who requested anonymity said the case is under investigation. Smothers has not been charged in those killings.
But he is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the June 21, 2007, fatal shootings of Clarence Cherry, 34, and Gaudrielle Webster, 18. Cherry was struck 20 times in the head, abdomen, leg, arm and chest. Another woman, Karsia Rice, 18, survived the attack on Gravier, off Cadieux near Mack.
Smothers' accomplice, Lakari Berry, 27, was arrested shortly after the shootout and is serving life in prison with no chance of parole for the killings. Smothers confessed to police that he was the other shooter.
Meanwhile, Smothers has told police he is prepared to take full responsibility for his actions.

Vincent Smothers, a convicted former Detroit hitman has once again come forward to the public to clear the name of Devontae Sanford.

The case against Davontae Sanford is falling apart, the truth is being uncovered, the cracks starting to show...., it's time for this miscarriage of Justice to be corrected, and the true and flawless image of this child to shine through...Free Davontae Sanford now!!!

Detroit hit man says kid is innocent...

Which confessor to the murders was actually there on Runyon Street? The hit man, or the fourteen-year-old with no real criminal past who had a reputation for making things up and talking big at school?

On January 30th, the AP reported, "Smothers said he never used a 14-year-old accomplice - blind in one eye and learning disabled - to carry out his paid hits, mostly victims tied to Detroit's drug ...

We ask for your support to Free Davontae, there has been an unprecedented media black out in this case, given it's high profile status the Media has consistently ignored this young child's fight, we ask why?
Do the right thing, change this young man's fate, Sign the petition and send the message it is time to free Davontae now!!
http://www.change.org/petitions/new-trial-for-davontae-sanford
Video - http://youtu.be/KILs6U5dFRA

Davontae Sanford
State: Michigan
Background
The Detroit newspapers broke another evolving story of a juvenile who not only may have falsely confessed to a multiple murder, he pled guilty to the crimes and received a sentence of up to 90 years. Davontae Sanford was a developmentally disabled 14 year old boy when he was arrested and charged with the murders which took place in connection with the robbery of a drug house. After he pled guilty at age 16, Sanford’s appellate attorney, Kim McGinnis, learned that another man had confessed to the crime. That man, Vincent Smothers, is a known hit man, who is wanted in connection with numerous other murders including the contract killing of the wife of a Detroit police officer. Although police are discounting his confession at the moment, the crime bears many of the signature traits of Smothers’ killings, including the same weapons.
Sanford’s confession, upon close inspection, is filled with errors, including a mistake about the kinds of guns that were used. Police released all of the other co-defendant's who Sanford had named for lack of evidence. The confession was obtained during early morning hour interrogation sessions with the boy conducted without a parent or guardian present. Here, the boy’s initial interrogations were not recorded and the only portion that was recorded contained footage of a police officer going over a transcript of the earlier interrogation with Sanford.
Update: July 21, 2009
After ballistic testing, bullets found at the scene have been connected back to the known hitman, Vincent Smothers. The prosecutor is now forced to argue that this hitman hired a one-eyed, 14-year-old boy to help him, and then this boy then wandered up to policemen in his pajamas to report the crime.
Update: November 6, 2009
Davontae Sanford now has an alibi to further support how his claim that his confession and guilty plea to a quadruple murder. William Rice, a retired Detroit Police Commander and veteran of 25 years on the force testified on October 28 that Sanford was with him at a family member's house when the killings occurred.
Update: March 16, 2010
It is the theatre of the absurd in a Wayne County Courtroom. Davontae Sanford, a 14 year old mentally retarded boy when he confessed to killing four people in a drug house in Detroit, clearly did not commit the crime he confessed to and pled guilty to. The crime was later confessed to by Vincent Smothers, a notorious hitman, who has already confessed to killing at least 10 people in vivid detail. Smothers named his accomplice in some of these killings –Ernest Nemo Davis. Police have not arrested Davis and continue to argue that Smothers must have used Sanford, who is not only mentally retarded but is blind in one eye, as his accomplice. The case bears all of the markings of a Smothers’ hit, right down to the ballistics evidence and the gangbusters style of the shooting, to the fact that many of Smothers’ other hits were on the same block. As the article below indicates, the tide may be turning in Sanford’s favor. For the second court date in a row, a Detroit policeman has taken the stand and called into question the veracity of the confession. At the last hearing, an officer provided an alibi for the boy and today, a second officer vouched for the reliability of Smothers’ confessions and described the Sanford confession as “weak.” Here’s hoping that the judge does the right thing and vacates this conviction sooner rather than later so that the boy can spend the remaining years of his adolescence on the streets.
Update: April 26, 2010
Davontae Sanford is innocent. The mentally disabled teenager confessed to killing four people during a shoot-out at a drug house. One retired police officer has already stepped forward to find an alibi, and now a second police officer has raised questions about the police investigation (a move that could not have been popular among his peers). The reason we know that Sanford’s confession is false: a serial contract killer Vincent Crothers has confessed to the crime and provided accurate details that only the true perpetrator could have known. Meanwhile, the case drags on as prosecutors are making Sanford’s post-conviction lawyers jump through needless hoops.
Update: May 13, 2010
This is getting insane. The idea that a hit man would have anything to do with a mentally limited 14 year old who is blind in one eye is absurd. Two police officers have raised concerns about a wrongful conviction (one who gave an alibi and a second who testified that Sanford’s confession was unreliable) and now a third police officer had testified that the hit man admitted that Sanford was innocent. This trial judge should grant the motion for a new trial now, vacate Sanford’s conviction, and leave it to the State to decide if they want to retry the boy in light of all of the newly discovered evidence of his innocence.
Update: June 30, 2010
A hearing today to determine whether a police investigator can testify for Sanford that his confession is unreliable.
Update: July 23, 2010
Vincent Smothers will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, but, despite his confession, he still remains uncharged in the quadruple murder for which Davontae Sanford is serving his time.

"Free Davontae Sanford, No Justice No Peace"!!

With Davontae's Case under a spotlight right now this is the time to push harder for Justice, if you have supported Davontae for a long time or just become aware of his fight, we need you more than ever now, if we are going to be successful in this war on injustice for Davontae and his family we need to be united, so please sign, share, care!
See this child as your own, see all children tried/sentenced/incarcerated as adult's as your family, for we are all in a struggle through this life, but we can still find the time and compassion to make another's journey less harsh. God Bless you.