 He was the "prime suspect in five murders in the Charlotte area" and yet his testimony was used to put men with clean criminal backgrounds in jail.With crime rates rising, famed philosopher Angela Davis's publicized fight with the FBI, George Jackson's "meteoric rise to militant fame as…Black Party Minister of Defense", and the University of Wisconsin's math building bombing, the crimes of Washington were overlooked.They were not taken seriously enough since the aforementioned crimes were politically motivated, however Washington's were not, and as put by the District Attorney Tom Moore; "sometimes you must go to hell to get the devil".