After 57 years behind bars, a juvenile lifer speaks
By Karen Heller
That Friday night in February, Joe Ligon went drinking.
He tore through the neighborhood, South Philadelphia, with five other teenagers looking for money to buy wine. One boy carried two switchblades.
Something went wrong. By night’s end, eight men had been knifed. There’s no question Ligon was involved. He admits stabbing Clarence Belvey. Two men, Charles Pitts and Jackson Hamm, died before midnight.
Ligon was 15.