At about 7 p.m. on February 24, 1988, 38-year-old Raphael Reyes, a clerk in a store on Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn, New York, was shot three times with a .25-caliber pistol and died. The autopsy found that Reyes had been shot twice in the head, including one shot at close range, and once in the pelvis.
According to witnesses for the prosecution, the gunman was 17-year-old Brian Kendall, a native of Guyana who had moved to America with his family when he was 11 years old. The Kendall family lived around the corner from the store and Brian attended the local high school.
When he was arrested, Kendall told police that he was in the store at the time of the shooting, but he was not the gunman. Kendall said that he was part of a group of people who chased after the gunman until the gunman got into a waiting car and sped away.
However, in July 1989, when his defense attorney reported that Kendall’s witnesses were dropping out of sight, and that Kendall’s chances of being acquitted at trial were diminishing, Kendall faced a harsh reality. He had been charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon and faced a sentence of up to 25 years to life in prison.
Urged by his mother, who said he could rebuild his life after parole while still relatively young, and so advised by his attorney, Kendall decided to plead guilty. On July 19, 1989, Kendall pled guilty in Kings County Supreme Court. He was sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.
More than 15 years later, on December 20, 2004, Kendall was released from prison. On January 22, 2005, he was deported to Guyana.
On July 1, 2025, following a reinvestigation by David Crow at the New York Legal Aid Society and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU), and at the request of Crow and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, Kendall’s conviction was vacated and the case was dismissed.
“A review of the entire record and interviews of material witnesses shows that it is likely that defendant was not the shooter or any way involved in the crime,” the 35-page CRU report said. “Any consideration of a new prosecution is untenable. Almost 37 years later, memories have faded, and witnesses cannot be found or have passed away.”
The 1988 investigation was led by Detective Dennis Minogue of the 70th Precinct and Detective James Rooney of Brooklyn Homicide South, assisted by Detective Daniel Lynaugh.
Minutes after the shooting, police interviewed Nicholas Ruiz, who was in the store, located at 2105 Cortelyou Road, at the time of the shooting. He said the gunman was Black, 40 to 45 years old, 5 foot 3 inches tall, about 135 pounds, and was wearing a light gray three-quarter length herringbone coat. The man came in, pulled out a handgun and yelled, “Get out!”
Ruiz said everyone scrambled for the doorway. He heard gunshots and looked back to see the gunman walking on Cortelyou Road toward Flatbush Avenue. A group of young people began to chase him. According to Ruiz, the man walked to Beverly Road where he got into the passenger side of a car sitting in front of a barbershop and the car drove away.
William Reyes, the victim’s brother, said that two days before the shooting, on February 22, the victim and the victim’s nephew, Tito Salgado, had argued with a short, heavyset Black man, possibly of Jamaican descent, because the man was selling drugs to customers inside the store. At that time, the man, referred to in the Report as “JD,” threatened to shoot them after the store closed.
Salgado told police that when he arrived at the store on February 23, JD was there. Salgado said that when JD reached into his pocket as if grabbing for a gun, Salgado pulled a knife and swiped it at JD and missed. JD then left the store.
Salgado said that on the day of the shooting, he arrived at the store about 12:30 p.m. and JD was there. They looked at each other and Salgado left. At 4:30 p.m. Salgado called the store and was told that JD was still there.
Salgado said that when he learned of the shooting and came to the store, a neighborhood crack dealer told him, “[Y]ou know why this happened. It was because of yesterday.”
Late in the evening of February 24, police spoke to a teenager named Analise Romero. Romero said that she had been standing on the street after the shooting when Odilka, a friend of a friend, said to her, “Brian did it.” Detectives tried to speak to Odilka on the phone, but Odilka’s father cut off the call.
In the early morning hours of February 25, police interviewed a man who was identified in the CRU report as F.F.
F.F. said that he had been in the store during the day and saw an argument between the victim and two teenagers who were brothers. Later, the two brothers were outside “selling drugs for Moon.” Then, F.F. said, both brothers came back into the store. The victim said it was okay for F.F. to leave, and he did.
F.F. said he walked around the corner. Then he heard gunshots and looked back. He said he saw the older brother come out of the store holding a “black automatic gun.” The older brother ran to Flatbush Avenue, then came back on Cortelyou Road, and then turned on 21 st Street and went out of sight.
F.F. did not give names or a physical description for either brother. He said that he had seen the older brother “five or six times” in the neighborhood.
On February 26, JD was interviewed by police and denied involvement in the crime.
On February 27, Odilka told police that she had seen “Brian,” whose last name she did not know, and Brian’s girlfriend as well as his brother, Sheldon, outside the store when she went to a drug store. While inside, she saw Brian and a crowd of others run by. When she came out and asked what happened, Brian told her that someone had been shot.
Also on February 27, police interviewed 13-year-old Shawn Jones, who said that he was in the store just before the shooting, playing a video game. He said “Brian” was among those in the store. He said he heard a gunshot and saw Brian holding a .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol in his extended right hand. Jones said Brian yelled, “Get out!” and everyone fled. Jones said he ran outside and heard two more gunshots. Jones said he circled the block and when he got back to Cortelyou Road, he saw Brian get into a gray car with tinted windows that pulled up in front of a pizza shop at 2117 Cortelyou Road. Jones said there was a “gust of wind” which blew up Brian’s coat to reveal a weapon in Brian’s waistband.
Jones did not know Brian’s last name but said he had seen him “on numerous occasions” in the neighborhood.
Based on Odilka’s description of Brian and Sheldon as two teenagers who went to school in the neighborhood, police used school records to identify Brian Kendall and his brother, Sheldon, and then obtained a photo of Brian.
On March 1, 1988, F.F. identified Kendall as the shooter in a photo array.
On March 2, 1988, Kendall was arrested. He denied involvement in the crime. That afternoon. F.F. viewed a lineup and identified Kendall as the gunman, saying he was “the guy I saw leave the store with an automatic in his hand.”
Jones later identified Kendall in a photo array, but never viewed him in a lineup.
After Kendall was arrested, the defense brought in several witnesses who said that Kendall was not the gunman. Anthony Bobb said that he was outside of the store when Kendall came out and said that a man, who was running up the street, had just shot someone in the store. Bobb said he and Kendall flagged down a passing police car and then they ran after the gunman.
Lawrence John said he was in the store playing Mario Brothers when a short fat man in his 40s entered wearing a beige coat with his hands in his pockets. John said he heard gunshots and saw a gun in the man’s hand. The man ordered everyone to get out, John said.
Simone Lyken, Kendall’s girlfriend, said she was inside the game store with him, when she saw a man wearing a dark brown hooded coat walk in and then she heard one shot. She said Kendall pulled her out of the store and told her to go home. Ten minutes after she got home, he arrived and said that the clerk had been killed.
Kendall’s brother, Sheldon, said that he was with Brian, Lyken and others when a husky Black man came in and fired three shots. The man ordered everyone out. Sheldon said he, Brian and others chased after the gunman until he got into a car that drove away.
Ordon Phillips was in the game store. He said that he heard the shots and saw a man holding a gun. He said he was with the group that chased the gunman.
On March 24, 1988, a grand jury indicted Kendall on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
On June 12, 1989, the defense reported that the prosecution had made an offer: Plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter in return for a sentence of seven to 21 years. Kendall rejected the offer. The judge said, “The only reason I wanted [the offer] on the record is so that if you should be convicted of the murder, you understand that my hands are tied. You have to get a life sentence.”
At a pretrial hearing on a defense motion to suppress the eyewitness identifications, the prosecution called a detective who testified that Jones and F.F. had both identified Kendall as the gunman. The court held that both witnesses would be allowed to identify Kendall at trial.
On July 19, Kendall pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter. During the pre-sentencing interview, Kendall denied shooting Reyes, but said that he agreed to plead guilty on the advice of his lawyer. On August 7, 1989, Kendall was sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.
The CRU began investigating the case after Kendall filed a request in 2019 that his case be reviewed. Eventually, the CRU identified 15 witnesses whose statements tended to exculpate Kendall, as well as severe flaws in the credibility of the two original prosecution witnesses and in the original legal proceedings that prompted Kendall to plead guilty.
The CRU investigation revealed that F.F. was in prison for possession and sale of crack cocaine by the time Kendall pled guilty. During the time after the shooting and leading up to when Kendall pled guilty, F.F. had been arrested four times. In F.F.’s file was a letter he wrote asking the prosecutor, Eric Bjorneby, to give F.F.’s lawyer “the letter you promised as soon as possible, so that it can be included in my release consideration at the parole board.”
Stapled to the letter was a handwritten note by Bjorneby that said, “I … confirm that [F.F.] cooperated with this office both in the investigation and prosecution of an important murder case against [Kendall]...wherein [Kendall] was charged with the shooting of a store clerk.”
The note continued, “It is our respectful request that [F.F.’s] substantial help in the context of this prosecution be taken in account in determining his release date and that every possible consideration be shown to him.”
Records showed that F.F. was released on the first date he was eligible.
Records also showed that F.F. had a drug addiction at the time of his arrest in February 1988.
Under court rules at the time, the prosecution was not required to disclose this information prior to a guilty plea. Bjorneby was also the prosecutor in the cases of Darryl Austin, Alvena Jennette, Willie Stuckey, and David McCallum, all of whom have been exonerated.
The CRU investigation showed that Jones, the other witness who had identified Kendall, could not be found prior to Kendall’s guilty plea. This information was also not disclosed to the defense before the plea.
Interviewed by the CRU, F.F. said he remembered that the uncle of his friend, Tito, had been shot, but did not recall having seen the shooting or having any information about it.
Tito told the CRU that he knew F.F. well, and that he did not recall F.F. being in the store on the day of the homicide. Tito said that he believed JD was behind his uncle’s death, and that Kendall was innocent. Another relative of the victim said he knew F.F. well, that F.F. was a crack user and seller, and that F.F. never mentioned that he saw the shooting.
The CRU spoke to several of Kendall’s original witnesses, who stood by their prior accounts, and spoke to an additional friend of Kendall’s, Rodwell John, who had not previously spoken to investigators. Rodwell also said Kendall was not the gunman.
The CRU interviewed the police officer who took Ruiz’s statement immediately after the shooting. The officer told the CRU he considered Ruiz to be a good witness, and that his description of the gunman did not resemble Kendall, who was 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 135 pounds. The officer had become aware of Kendall’s arrest and “he did not believe that [police] had arrested the right person.” The officer spoke to the lead investigator on the case, Dennis Minogue, about the fact that Kendall had been at the scene of the crime shortly after the crime. “He was pretty sure that Minogue had agreed with that fact, but ultimately [the officer] did not know what additional evidence Minogue had obtained during the investigation, and he knew it was possible that the shooter might return to the crime scene.”
Kendall’s defense lawyer at the time he pled guilty told the CRU that Kendall’s case “stood out for years and years” because there was “something wrong with the case.” Initially, he thought the case was a “slam dunk” for the defense, but as the trial approached, the defense fell apart. “The defense witnesses disappeared,” the CRU report said. “Counsel no longer believed that [Kendall] had a viable defense.”
Even though Kendall said he was innocent, the lawyer knew the judge was a “long ball hitter” who would impose a sentence of 25 years to life if Kendall were convicted at trial. The lawyer said that without the defense witnesses, going to trial would be “suicide.”
The CRU report noted that although Kendall’s lawyer believed the prosecution had a strong case, “in reality, the statements of Shawn Jones and F.F. were unreliable.”
The CRU report noted that police radio transmissions reporting that a group of teenagers were chasing a man with a gun helped corroborate the defense witnesses’ accounts of trying to catch the gunman after the shooting.
Kendall, the CRU report said, “has provided a coherent account of the shooting that was supported not only by five of his friends and his brother but also by Nicholas Ruiz, a friend of the deceased, whose account was nearly identical to the defense statement: in those accounts, [Kendall] was not the shooter, and he and his friends chased the real shooter from the game room to the corner of Beverly Road and Flatbush Avenue. This chase, in turn, was corroborated by the observations of police officers that were memorialized in contemporaneous radio transmissions, and defendant’s return to the game room was observed and remembered by the responding... Officer.”
“The prosecution’s witnesses, on the other hand, provided statements that were inconsistent with each other and inconsistent with the police radio transmissions in ways that undermine the credibility of both witnesses,” the CRU report said. “Given these facts, CRU has no confidence in the integrity of the conviction.”
Kendall’s mother, who implored him to plead guilty so he could build a life after release, died while he was in prison. He attended her funeral in handcuffs.
On July 1, 2026, Kendall filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city of New York and police officers.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 07-07-2025
Last Update Date: 07-10-2026
