Law&Crime Sidebar - 6 Key Moments from YNW Melly’s Double Murder Trial Day One

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Rapper YNW Melly, born Jamell Demons, faces trial for allegedly killing two of his friends in October 2018 and staging the murders to look like a drive-by shooting. Opening statements presented Monday outlined why authorities believe 24-year-old Demons, and his co-defendant Cortlen Henry, aka YNW Bortlen, killed aspiring Florida rappers Christopher Thomas Jr., aka YNW Juvy, and Anthony Williams, aka YNW Sakchaser. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks down six shocking moments from day one of the double murder trial with SiriusXM host Mina ‘SayWhat’ Llona.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. After he's been tagged in multiple social media posts about this drive through, this shooting. And Mr. Demons responds very succinctly. I did that. Sh. More than four years after two young rappers are shot to death, one of their best friends, YNW. Melly goes on trial, accused of murdering them.

Why he would commit such a heinous crime against his own two best friends for no reason. YNW. Mellie's attorneys say he's the victim of a sloppy police investigation. We look at the top six moments. from day one of YNW. Melly's trial. I'm Anjanet Levy and welcome to Law and Crimes Sidebar Podcast. Jamel Demons' double murder trial is officially underway in Broward County, Florida. Demons is known to the hip-hop community as YNW. Melly. Melly faces two counts of first-degree murder for the October 2018 shooting deaths of his friends,

Christopher Thomas, who went by YNW Juvie, and Anthony Williams. He went by YNW Sack Chaser. Melly, Juvie, Sack Chaser, and a fourth YNW member, Cortland Henry, also known as YNW, Bortland, left a late-night recording session on October 26, 2018. They were in an S-Govie, driven by Bortland when Juvie and Sack Chaser were shot. Henry showed up at a hospital in Miramar, Florida, and claimed they were the victims of a drive-by shooting. But prosecutors say that's all a lie. months later, Mellie and Bortland were charged with their murders. Prosecutors say Mellie was sitting in the backseat and shot his friends.

Meanwhile, Mellie says he's innocent. He faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. And he could get the death penalty more easily than convicted defendants because of a recent law change, which allows a jury to impose the death penalty by a vote of eight to four. Joining me to look at the top six moments from day one of YNW Mellie's trial is Mena. She is a serious XM personality and a host at 100.3 in Philadelphia. That's an R&B station. Mina, welcome back to Sidebar.

Thanks for coming on. Hi, thank you for having me once again. Let's take a look and get right to it with opening statements from assistant state attorney Christine Bradley, who talks about what she believes happened in this case. On October 26 of 2018, this defendant shot and killed two of his friends. He killed Christopher Thomas and Anthony Williams. So ladies and gentlemen, I want to set out the story and how this unfolded and lay out what I expect the evidence will show during the course of this trial. First thing you are going to hear is that at 4.35 a.m. on October 26th of 2018, Cortland Henry, the co-defendant, shows up at Memorial Miramar Hospital. In his car, he has two dead bodies.

In the front passenger seat is Anthony Williams. In the rear passenger seat is Christopher Thomas. They are dead. They are riddled with bullets, and the car is full of blood. Christopher Thomas is sitting in the rear. There is multiple defects to his body. Anthony Williams, who is sitting in the front, has two major injuries. officer jessica amygore is working a detail at the hospital courtland henry runs in starts telling a story

about a drive-by quote-unquote drive-by all right mina so the state says this whole thing about a drive-by that it was staged it was all fake your thoughts on how the state attorney there started off her case i honestly after hearing her full remarks, I have more questions and answers. I thought our opening statement was going to give more clarity as to what happened and why they believe this was not a drive-by and shooting that happened within the car. But I didn't get many answers from what she said. They mentioned that they were using cell phone data to place all the two defendants and then the two people who have passed away in the same car at certain times. They mentioned traffic cams. They mentioned forensic evidence was found in the car. A case was found in the car. mentioned gang affiliations. They mentioned a whole bunch of things that didn't answer the question. What happened here? What happened?

Where is the evidence tying it to Melly? And did Mellie commit this murder? And where is that evidence that points to him? And we heard only a little bit about that. One thing that they pointed to, Mina, that I thought was interesting, was this social media message. Social media has become a huge part,

a huge part of criminal prosecutions. Everything you say and do is logged on social media. or on your phone. And prosecutors say they have a very incriminating Instagram message from Mellie on the morning of the murders after the murders occurred. So let's take a listen. You'll see on October 26th after about 8 a.m. in the morning, Eastern time, multiple messages are coming in.

Messages are coming in from individuals checking to see if he's okay. If he's been injured in this drive-by. If it's true that Anthony Williams, who's also sometimes referred to as SAC, and Chris Thomas, who is referred to as Juvie, are really dead. One individual, and specifically, sends out, and I want to quote the message exactly that you will hear, and says, right after this, yo, homie, you good?

Let me know something. And so ladies and gentlemen, this is where context matters. What does that mean? If you work at Google and you say, my whole floor is coding, that's a good thing. If you work at our general hospital and you say my whole floor is coding, that is a bad thing. The context around the messages matters.

So in the context of this message, this individual is reaching out, asking if Mr. Demons is good after he's been tagged in multiple social media posts about this driver through, this shooting. And Mr. Demons responds very succinctly. I did that. Sh. So the state is basically saying that Mellie confessed to this. Mina. So what are your thoughts about that message? That was the one surprising thing that I think was probably the strongest point that she made. Up until that point, I felt like a lot of the

evidence that she said that they had was circumstantial and would not prove beyond the reasonable doubt that Melly created the murder. I think that one message is probably the strongest thing that they have that is some sort of, according to them, an admission of guilt. I want more on that. Who was this message to? How do we know they were talking about that? They have to prove that. And I think on the other end of it is that being the other, the only piece of evidence that they might have that some sort of way it admits some guilt, but they have no gun. So there's not a gun that's been found. They have no video of them in this alleged alley that the prosecution is claiming they drove through. There was no cameras. There's no evidence of tying Melly to this crime.

except for this one message. So if this is what they have, they have to convince the jurors behind the reasonable doubt that this very vague message is about the shooting and is in some way some admission of guilt and in my perspective,

I think it's not enough. Well, Melly's defense attorney, David A. Howard, he doesn't think it's enough either. And he says his client is on trial because Miramar police conducted a sloppy investigation and basically decided he was guilty

from the get-go. Take a listen. Three years. after arresting this young man and sticking him in a cell. The state looks at its case and says, oh, man, this looks a little incompetent. Miramar police

seems to botched this investigation, and they call the Browd Sheriff's Office and ask them to come and look at the investigation upon which this entire prosecution rests. And he looks at it. And he says he instantly knew he had to start from scratch. I think his words were, it was the worst thing I had seen in my life. This is the Broward Sheriff's Office evaluating the work product of the Miramar Police Department.

And we have problems with the Broward Sheriff's Office redo as well, but you're going to hear about that during the course of this trial. Ladies and gentlemen, the murder of anybody and the murder of these two young men was a tragedy. You're not here to solve a crime. That's their job, and they have watched it. All right, Mina, this is something we commonly hear in these cases that the police didn't thought all their eyes and cross all of their teas, that they did a bad job. Your thoughts on what they are arguing thus far?

I will say he raised doubt in my mind because up to this, we didn't know much about this trial. And all we knew were that they believed that Melly committed the shooting because he was sitting at the rear of the car on the passenger side. And some of the angles from the forensic evidence pointed that it came from that angle, right? But until this point, I didn't know if there were any other people that potentially could have done this, this murder. But this attorney actually placed a large amount of reasonable doubt into my mind. I'm going to read off some of my notes here because in that opening statement, he mentioned a couple of people. First of all, he started to point at the driver.

The driver apparently had an inconsistent story, had a change of clothes, which I wasn't aware of until this point, and had gunpowder on his hands, according to this attorney. So that placed a large amount of reasonable doubt into my mind. He also mentioned another individual Montrell role who was discussing specifics about this murder that weren't available to the public. He mentioned another social media person called Mr. Coburn, who somehow admitted to some murders. He basically really made me think that maybe some other people are involved and the police have not really investigated the. avenues. Well, Mina, you kind of stole my thunder there a little bit, but it's okay. You're on top of it. I say that. I love you. It's so funny. We were kind of on the same wavelength here. But you're

right. I mean, he is saying there are a lot of issues with this case. And one of the things he says is that the Miramar police ignored other leads and didn't look at other people, specifically people who were essentially confessing to these murders. And again, social media comes up. Robert Colbert. Who is he? He is a gentleman that owns a social media account by the name of backwards. This social media account almost immediately, within days after these murders, posts this message, Noel, we killed two of your neighbors. Oh, really? It took them seven months

to go and talk to Mr. Coburn, the owner of this account that posts what amounts to an unequibbleable confession to involvement in that murder, in those murders. Seven months. Why? Moretti already had his guy.

And when they go and talk to Mr. Coburn, what does he say? He said, oh, I created that account, and I sold it for $20 to somebody else. Who'd you sell it to? Oh, I can't remember. Were you at the emergency? No. Did you do it? No.

Case closed. That's it. No more investigation. It would occur to a reasonable person, let alone a seasoned investigator acting in good faith. So, Mina, we have somebody on social media saying, we did it or I did it. And he's saying police didn't tie up that loose end. They didn't explore that avenue because they already had their guy. Kind of something you alluded to earlier.

That was very, very obvious from some of the, even the people that they bought on the stand. I mean, one particular, the lead detective, the Miramar PD, Hector Bertrand, while he was questioning Mr. Colton Henry, who's the driver, he said, I think I know what happened here. And he's, you know, Mr. Henry is telling him, we were the victims of a drive-by shooting, and I feared for my life, and this happened, and I'm scared. And the PD, the lead detective says, okay, well, our investigation doesn't prove that this was a drive-by shooting. So tell me what really happened, because I think I know what happened.

So I think even that in itself, to me, really supported what that attorney was saying in that they already had their guy. And they wanted to kind of, I guess, make that kind of align the evidence. So it points to Melly without having concrete evidence. Well, the first witness called to the stand was Miramar police officer Jessica Amangor. She was on duty at the hospital in the emergency room that morning. She described YNW. Bortland, that's Cortland Henry, coming into the ER. So I was sitting at the ER desk and he comes running inside to my left so the pediatric entrance and he's very excited like heightened state of alert, something traumatic or something,

it just happened. Um, and he's like, hey, you know, they just shot my car, they shot my friends. Like, I need help. Come help me. Okay, the, uh, the shoulder interaction. And based on his statement, how do you proceed? So as soon as I walk out the ER and I see the vehicle had multiple bullet holes on the side, I'm immediately ready to go in for additional resources because that's beyond my circle of my panel by myself. And then asking, hey, I need additional officers, you know, as soon as possible urgently to respond to the hospital. A vehicle that's been involved in a shooting and then see the multiple bullet holes.

And then looking inside the vehicle, I don't see two of responsive mails. So I advise how possible dead persons in the law. Then Amangor testified about being at the hospital when Bortland showed up with Juvie and Sack Chaser in the Jeep that morning. Surveillance video played showing the SUV pulling into the hospital and then Henry going into the ER and Juvie and Sack Chaser being placed on stretchers. Amengor said she tried to help the men, but they were dead. Then there was a somewhat dramatic moment on Cross where Mellie's attorneys pointed out that the ER was a crime scene, but there was really no log of who. was coming and going. There was another moment as well. Was the crime scene also inside the hospital where Mr. Cortland Henry was?

Did the whole ER shut down? Okay. So in other words, no one was allowed in that area that we saw. Unless they were needing an emergency care, that goes another room, but the ER would shut down. So I'm real clear. Do you know the name? of all, did you document the names of all the officers and detectives that responded? No, I didn't. So we're perfectly clear. Could you stand up?

You didn't see this young man. Yes. You're not at the jeep at any time, correct? No, sir. All right. So we have a couple of things going on there. Mina, we have basically the defense attorneys pointing out that this was a crime scene. Nobody was allowed in or out, but you're not keeping track of who's in and out.

So people could have been traipsing around, contaminating the crime scene. Maybe you didn't know who was there or who wasn't. But then this dramatic moment where they have Mellie stand up and she's like, yeah, I didn't see him in the Jeep. And the state's whole thing is that Mellie was in the back of the car, fired the shots, and then they staged it to look like a drive-by, but he's nowhere to be found. Right. I think it just adds to the questions. That attorney is doing a great job of just, instead of allowing the prosecution to carry

out their narrative, he's adding to the questions of, well, you guys didn't properly handle this. Why? Where's the log? Did you do this? Did you do that? I thought another really important moment was during that video where they were showing Meli's friends being carried out, he shut a tear from what I saw. And it was an emotional

moment for him, which I thought was really, really important to see him kind of tear up and get emotional at seeing his friends carried out on the stretcher and headed into the hospital. I thought that was really important as well. It's very interesting. And obviously, they have, I'm sure, spoken with Meli about how he is to conduct himself in the courtroom. I mean, he's been in jail for four years. They've had years to prepare for this trial. So they know what's coming in the evidence. They see the witnesses who get on the stand. They basically know what they're going to testify to. So there is a little bit of showmanship going on here, a little bit of performance art. We always have that in trials. What were your thoughts on everything that we saw today? I thought it was super

interesting. I still have a lot of questions. Obviously, I want to know what exactly they have that's tying Melly to this. I'm interested in the fact that they're saying that the state attorney's office went to the sheriff's office and said, hey, can you look this over? I want to hear more about that, that they're saying this is the biggest mess we've ever seen because that to me is very concerning because you can't go back in time. We always hear about how important it is in the first stages of the investigation to collect all of the evidence and get it right. So I think we need more information and it's certainly too early to make up our minds on any of this. I agree. I also think a fair amount of reasonable doubt was placed during these opening statements, at least in my mind.

So I do want to see how this plays out and what kind of how they're going to tie all the evidence. Because I think it was really important that the attorney, Mellie's attorney, actually started pointing fingers at the other young man. His name is Portland Henry. I never even considered that until this point. But I also thought it was important when Officer Jessica Amengor took the stand. She also noted that there was no blood on Henry's clothing as well and said, I thought that was odd. So now I have a whole another possibility in my mind. And as I mentioned before, there are a lot of questions and not enough answers at this point.

And hopefully as a trial moves on, we'll have more answers. Well, and another thing, too, I mean, they said there were 16 holes. This vehicle was riddled with bullets. So if bullets are flying and your friends are being shot, one's in the front seat, another in the back, how are you not getting blood on you? How are you not getting injured? So that is a big question right there. And I think that the defense pointing to Cortland Henry makes complete sense because he can be the fall guy or at least one of them. So we're going to be watching this very closely. I'm very interested in it. And we know our audiences too. Minalona, thank you as always for coming on. We appreciate

it. We'll be watching this closely. Of course. Thank you. And we want to remind you that opening statements are not evidence. The only evidence in this case comes directly from the witness stand. Thanks so much for joining us for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.