At the beginning of 1993, new witnesses came forward to implicate Maddox. A confidential informant named Donald Johnson told the FBI that Maddox had admitted to him that he was the "trigger man" in the Behan killing. Johnson said Maddox told him that while an unidentified friend distracted the deputy, he "eased up" alongside the car and shot Behan in the head. The witness also swore that Maddox moved to Homestead after the murder to hide from police.
Another witness, Teresa Johnson (it isn't known if she and Donald Johnson are related), told a similar story. Teresa Johnson, who was Maddox's girlfriend, told BSO detectives that during a party on New Year's Eve 1992, Maddox began crying and admitted that he was there when Behan was killed. But he didn't pull the trigger, she said.
Broward Sheriffs Office
Detectives induced a confession from Keith King (bottom left) in the Patrick Behan murder after determining that Keith Maddox (bottom right) wasn't involved
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"He said that they had the right Keith but he is the wrong Keith," she told Thomasevich.
"Who is the wrong Keith?" the detective asked her.
"Keith Maddox," she said.
Prosecutor Morton and BSO stonewalled Tobin for months before handing over the information from the two Johnsons. It wasn't until February 1994 that Tobin was allowed to depose Donald Johnson, who swore that Maddox had said he had killed Behan.
To MacCoy, the evidence clearly points to Brown and Maddox. MacCoy says he wonders if Maddox escaped BSO simply because Maddox was older and mentally stronger than King, who was released in December 1999 at age 24.
Today, King, whom the State of Florida still officially calls a cop killer, is the father of a one-year-old baby girl and lives with his mother outside Orlando. He says his dream is to become a cook, but he complains that the cop-killer label keeps him from getting a job. He has hired Orlando attorney Bruce Blackwell to represent him on a contingency basis in a bid to seek damages from BSO for violating his civil rights. "I'm going to get some get-back," King says.
Brown, meanwhile, remains behind bars. His public defender, Tim Day, has filed new motions seeking his release. King says he was never friends with Brown before the BSO brought them together, though he had met him as a child. Ironically, the two became friends in prison. "I don't think he done it," King says of his codefendant. "But I may be right, and I may be wrong."
When the name of Keith Maddox is brought up, King says he sometimes wonders if he just had the wrong first name. "I ain't never met that man in my whole life," King says of Maddox. "I wouldn't know him if I seen him."
