Edwin Ramos doesn't deny that he was a member of a gang, that he beat people up and sold drugs. But he says killing someone is "a whole different animal" and he is denying he had any involvement in what police say was a case of mistaken identity.
ABC7 News talked to Ramos behind the bars of San Francisco's maximum security jail. He shared his version of what happened four years ago. It was June 2008 when 48-year-old Anthony Bologna and two of his sons, 16-year-old Matthew and 20-year-old Michael were gunned down in a drive by shooting in the Excelsior District.
"I was trying to get to the freeway, I turned…left and he opened fire," Ramos said.
The "he," according to Ramos, was his friend and fellow gang member Willfredo Reyes.
ABC7 News: "Let me ask you Edwin, what responsibility do you take for what happened to the Bologna family?
Ramos: "Zero...none."
Ramos says he sits in jail while the real killer is still on the streets.
"I wasn't part of it; what I mean part of it, like I planned it or like wanted it to happen or said, 'Yes, it's cool,'" Ramos said.
ABC7 News: "You know how many people are in jail who say 'I'm innocent, I'm innocent?'"
Ramos: "Like 99.99 percent."
ABC7 News: "What makes you different?"
Ramos: "I don't think, I don't think, like, I ain't trying to convince nobody that finds me guilty."
The jury deadlocked on whether Ramos was the one who fired the shots, but still found him guilty of the multiple murders and the attempted murder of the surviving son.
The Bologna family matriarch cried walking out of the courtroom Wednesday.
"God answers our prayers," Lena Bologna said. "I miss my son and my grandkids. I'm never going to see them again."
ABC7 News: "What would you say to Danielle Bologna and that family?"
Ramos: "It's, like, sad, like...seeing that lady in there. Like, every time I think about it, like I cry sometimes."
Ramos believes the jury convicted him primarily to give the family closure.
ABC7 News: "So you've spent four years, now you're looking at the spending the rest of your life."
Ramos: "Couple of hundred years, that's it. Maybe they give me half time."
ABC7 News: "So why are you laughing about it?"
Ramos: "Because it's upsetting."
The former friend Wilfrfedo Reyes that Ramos says is the real killer vanished before the trial and was not charged in the case.
Ramos took the stand in his own defense and says he felt like the public needed to hear what happened from his perspective. He now faces life in prison without parole and will be sentenced next month.
