What the family and police didn't know at the time, though, is that Speakes had what some would call a rock-solid alibi - two time-stamped videos that placed him miles away from the shooting.
The District Attorney's Office viewed the video and decided to put Speakes on trial anyway.
Denied bail, Speakes turned 22, then 23, while awaiting trial behind bars, often playing chess alone.
Finally, after two years and three months, a jury last month found Speakes not guilty of first-degree murder. Instead of spending the rest of his life in prison, he was finally a free man.
"Here I am facing charges, and I didn't have no clue about what happened," Speakes, 23, said during a recent interview in his attorney's office. "That 'not guilty' verdict made me what I am. If I didn't hear that verdict, I wouldn't be here."
Speakes' case is disturbing not just because he sat in jail for so long for a crime he was cleared of, but also because it begs the question: If the jury got it right, how did the police and District Attorney's Office get it wrong?
"There was just a lot of burying their heads in the sand and not wanting to open their eyes to what really happened here," defense attorney David Nenner said. "This has been a rare experience in my career, where there is video evidence that exonerates somebody. It's not something I typically see."
'The jury spoke'
"We have a jury system. We have a system of due process. The jury heard and saw evidence and concluded that this defendant was not guilty," District Attorney Seth Williams said recently.
"There's a difference between not guilty and any type or form of prosecutorial misconduct or misconduct on behalf of the police. The jury spoke."
The verdict also means that the murder of Ross, which was once hung on Speakes, is an open case.
