Exclusive: "I'm an innocent man" Part I
One of the most notorious murders in New Jersey history is the torture killing and sex assault of Emma Jane Stockton, a socialite who moved into Trenton in 1979 to try and rebuild the city in decline.
Three months after she moved into a three-story brick rowhouse in the Mill Hill section, she was murdered.
Police quickly charged then-24-year-old Keith Alford, a truck driver and former soldier with her killing. They also said Alford strangled and killed a senior citizen widow in nearby Hamilton Township less than two weeks later.
He was arrested driving her car and using her credit card, authorities said at the time.
Long before he was a homicide detective on Trenton's police force, Gary Britton was a 12-year-old city boy reading about the Stockton killing during day after day of front-page headlines.
"I remember the newspaper articles and I remember the fear in the community of, 'What if they didn't get the right guy?'" Britton stated.
About a year ago when Britton was still on the homicide squad, an anonymous tipster called and passed along a vague message: Police had the wrong man, and Keith Alford had been innocent all this time.
Intrigued, Britton went through the case file to see if anything jumped out.
"I knew there was pressure to solve this case," he said, "And someone calls all these years later and says, 'You got the wrong guy in jail,' of course the speculation is raised."
Britton retired in February, and he started working with Chasing News on the case.
Alford agreed to be interviewed, giving Chasing News and Gary Britton a chance to ask him about the truth of this brutal murder.