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One of the more difficult parts of digging into the case of Jeremy Puckett — the Sacramento man convicted of robbing and killing Anthony Galati in Rancho Cordova in 1998 — has been finding anyone willing to talk about his case.
Puckett’s lawyers have remained tight-lipped about their client since his habeas petition is still pending in the California Supreme Court, and the few witnesses who were present before and during Galati’s murder have refused to speak to ABC10 on the record.
To get a better understanding of who Puckett was before he was convicted, we turned to his sister, Charon Knox, who flew down from her home in Seattle to meet with ABC10 at her cousin’s house in Sacramento.
“He is a very fun, very uplifting, very positive person in our family,” Knox said of Puckett during our interview. “He's a person that has kind of been my father figure as a child. He is my up-lifter, even until today.”
The oldest of three, Jeremy was born in Sacramento May 5, 1976, to Freddy Puckett and Lorraine Wright. According to court documents, Puckett’s parents never married, and he was raised by his mother.
“My dad wasn't in the picture,” Knox said. “My mom was around. Jeremy was the father figure to me. He's always been that go-to person for me.”
Knox remembers her brother as the “funny guy” in his group of friends, always making people laugh. Puckett, she said, was the type of person who, if you needed his help, he’d come running.
While Knox says Puckett did well in school, particularly in football, he ended up dropping out in the 11th grade, according to court documents.
That’s when his run-ins with the law started.
When Puckett was 15, court documents state he, along with four other kids, were arrested for punching and kicking a younger teenager, and a few weeks before his 17th birthday, he admitted to firing off a .22 caliber rifle in his backyard.
In September 1994, according to court documents, Puckett was arrested again, this time as an adult, for running from the cops after firing a gun at an apartment complex. Several months later, he was convicted of first degree burglary after breaking into a home the previous year and stealing a video recorder, jewelry, camera equipment, and power tools.
While Puckett was serving time for his first burglary offense, he was convicted on a separate burglary charge for a January 1995 break-in, in which he and another suspect stole audio and video equipment before flooding the victims house.
More than a year after the Galati murder, court documents state Puckett was convicted of battery and sentenced to 30 days in jail after he and six other suspects assaulted two men.
Despite these arrests, Knox says robbery and murder aren't things Puckett is “capable of doing.”
After Puckett was arrested in the Galati case, Knox said, emotionally, it ripped the family apart.
“Honestly, there was no words that can explain the way that we felt,” Knox said. “And we feel every day.”
Puckett has spent the past 16 years in prison for a crime that the Northern California Innocence Project says he didn't commit. Charon Knox says their help has been "answered prayers."
"They're the faith that helps us," Knox said. "Honestly it's a gift from God."
Follow the conversation with Michael Anthony Adams on Facebook.