Wing’s family ‘flabbergasted’ after watching entire police interview

TOWN OF GOUVERNEUR, New York (WWNY) - The family of Frederick Wing Jr., the man initially charged in a St. Lawrence County murder, is disheartened about Wing’s treatment during a 6-hour police interview. He has since been cleared of the crime.

Family members say they informed investigators before the interview that Wing has a disability, to no avail.

“I told them about his incapacities, his inability to comprehend, and it got me nowhere,” said Jessica Bice, Wing’s cousin.

The state police interview eventually lead to Wing’s arrest in the February murder of Ronald “Huck” Durham.

Wing’s family was able to see the full interview after Wing was cleared. They paused to take notes.

“We started off at about 4 o’clock in the evening on a Friday night, and we were not done until about 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Bice.

As investigators raised their voices, Wing’s story about what happened to Durham continued to change.

“We were all flabbergasted that someone could just continue to berate somebody for so long, and he still didn’t really comprehend it,” said Bice.

Bice claims coercion led to confusion, fear, and a false confession. She says more research would have cleared him from being at the scene.

“He at no point in time was near there, but he knew of it because of everybody else,” she said.

Wing’s lawyer Ed Narrow says these were interrogation techniques at play.

“It’s not always what we see on television, but it’s what we have, and I believe it led to Mr. Wing making some admissions that were untruthful,” said Narrow.

We asked St. Lawrence County District Attorney Gary Pasqua if Wing’s intellectual disability had been considered.

“In terms of him, Mr. Wing specifically, that’s a better question to ask the interviewers themselves, but this wasn’t a situation where they just went in and provided information to Mr. Wing to try and get him to say, ‘Okay, yeah, I did that.’ He was providing information that led them to believe he had more than what he was sharing,” said Pasqua.

Evidence in another murder weeks later cleared Wing and connected now-suspect Adam Smith to both crime scenes. Wing’s charges were dropped and he’s getting back into his routine.

“He knows it happened, but he’s not scarred in the instance that people are bad or anything. He still thinks everybody is so good,” said Bice.

We reached out to state police for comment on the interview and how it went. They said they did not have anything to add to this story.

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