Murder on the DART Tracks: An In-Depth Look Five Years Later

It was a horrible crime. Four young teens were convicted in the killing of a 19-year-old.

The brutal moment in November 2011 was caught on surveillance camera. The boys beat Octavius Lanier, then pushed him into a moving Dallas Area Rapid Transit train. Investigators say they wanted his iPod. They all pleaded guilty to their parts in the crime and were given lengthy sentences.

But nearly five years later, two of the teens were out of jail, and they were arrested this summer for armed robbery, raising the question of why they were out on the streets again so soon.

There was outrage when the original crime happened and the public saw the suspects in court, children aged 12 to 14. They were not charged as adults, so for years they disappeared into the carefully guarded privacy of the juvenile justice system.

But when two of them were accused of re-offending so soon, NBC 5 dug deeper into the juvenile system and heard from one of the convicted killers for the first time – all to find answers for a heartbroken family.

Takeysha Keys didn't choose the path that led her to a Dallas County courtroom in September 2016. It was the last stop in her legal fight, a civil suit against four boys who took the life of her son, 19-year-old Octavius Lanier.

Five years later tears still flowed when she watched Octavius's final moments in court – the brutal beating and that final push into a moving train. Octavius was dragged 30 feet to his death.

The boys responsible, then-14-year-olds Verendeze Gage, Royneco Harris and Cortney Woods, and one 12-year-old, did not turn out for the hearing.

Their chairs stood empty in the courtroom. But they hold an unwanted place in Takeysha Keys's life forever.

They also link her to another young man, named Jackson McKinney.

"It all happened in about four seconds, it was really quick," said McKinney.

This summer, McKinney was walking from another DART station, near Deep Ellum, when police say his path crossed with Harris and Woods.

"About right there they actually stopped us," McKinney said, pointing to a spot on the sidewalk.

McKinney is one of four victims Harris and Woods are accused of holding up at gunpoint over just 10 days.

"I looked down and I saw a gun up against me," said McKinney.

All the alleged muggings happened shortly after Harris and Woods were released from juvenile jail on parole.

"It happened so recently with the killing, it was 2011 right? I just don't see how they could be out again that soon afterwards," McKinney said. "It's one of those times whenever you just don't think things are working as they should."

NBC 5 took the question to Durrand Hill, chief prosecutor for the Dallas County District Attorney's Juvenile Division.

"The juvenile system is geared almost exclusively toward rehabilitation," Hill said. "It's also geared toward the child not having their juvenile record hanging over their head to keep them back in the future, to hold them back."

That philosophy shapes how kids are punished. The maximum juvenile sentence for murder is 40 years.

But if an inmate stays out of trouble and is deemed rehabilitated, he or she can be released on parole after just three years, without going back to court.

"Basically what the system does is it gives a kid rope," said Hill. "They can either pull themselves up out of the system with that rope, or they can hang themselves with it."

Verendeze Gage allegedly chose the latter.

"I'm gonna be gone from my family for a long time," Gage said in a jailhouse interview.

Gage would likely be out on parole, too, but he was transferred to the Gib Lewis Unit, an adult prison, because he admits he was fighting too much with the other inmates in the juvenile system.

He now faces his full 30-year sentence for murder. Now 19 years old, he will be up for parole in 10 years. Prosecutors say he was the most aggressive in the attack.

"It wasn't really like that," said Gage. "Didn't nobody know that somebody was going to be killed that night?"

This is the first time any of the teens involved in the high-profile case has spoken publicly. Gage says he accepts responsibility for beating Octavius Lanier.

"I feel bad because I had made a choice, I made the wrong choice," said Gage.

But he insists Lanier's death was an accident.

"I'm really sorry," said Gage. "I really didn't mean for it to happen."

Paying for a crime is a lonely place to be. But Gage could soon have company.

Harris and Woods's aggravated robbery charges clearly violate their parole, putting them back on the hook for their full sentences in Lanier's death: 30 and 22 years each.

Five years later justice is coming full circle for Takeysha Keys.

A Dallas County judge awarded her $50 million from the four boys. But it's money she will never see and a gesture that won't change the facts.

Her boy is gone, while three more turn to men behind bars. They are the final consequences on a track that can't change course.

Keys told NBC 5 that she wasn't notified of Harris and Woods's release from juvenile jail until after they had been arrested again on the new aggravated robbery charges. Durrand Hill of the DA's office said, "The system should work better than that."

Keys also received a settlement from DART but the dollar amount was never released.

Harris and Woods are both due in court over the next two weeks to face their aggravated robbery charges.