Joyce raised Richard Lollar, who was left dead in the street in the early morning hours on Jan. 31, 2000, — a few hours after the Rams defeated the Titans in one of the most thrilling Super Bowls in history. And then came one of the most chilling post-Super Bowl scenes in history. A brawl outside the Cobalt Lounge, an upscale Atlanta nightclub, turned into gory spectacle of steely knives, mangled flesh and a river of blood. The 24-year-old Lollar and his 21-year-old boyhood buddy from Akron, Jacinth Baker, were both stabbed multiple times in the heart, the knives savagely twisted into their vital organs. The killers knew exactly what they were doing.
Lewis, his two good friends — Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting — and nine others sped away from the crime scene in a 40-foot Lincoln limousine. Lewis, Oakley and Sweeting were charged with the killings and cleared in a controversial court decision that still leaves many questions unanswered.
Why, when Lewis made an appearance at a sporting goods store the day before the Super Bowl, did his friends buy knives at the store?
Why did witnesses say the limo pulled over and someone dumped bloody clothes into a trash bin?
Why was the white suit Ray Lewis wore that night never found?
Why did the limo driver change his story mid-trial after originally testifying that Lewis told everyone to "just keep your mouth shut and don't say nothing"? Originally, the driver told police he saw Lewis actively taking part in the bloody brawl and heard Oakley and Sweeting admit to stabbing someone. But he backed off those statements when he got on the witness stand.
Why did prosecutors reduce the murder charge against Lewis to misdemeanor obstruction of justice? It was a plea deal in which Lewis agreed to testify against his two friends, Oakley and Sweeting, who were later acquitted after Lewis' testimony failed to implicate them in the murders.
"Why were people changing their stories?" Joyce Lollar asked on the way to the cemetery that day. "… The jury didn't know who or what to believe. By lying and deceiving from the beginning Ray Lewis helped set everybody free."
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