FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – During the third week of Florida rapper YNW Melly’s trial for the two murders of his fellow YNW Collective rappers, the prosecution started to focus on the fatal wounds.
Assistant State Attorney Kristine Bradley called Dr. Rebecca M. MacDougall and Dr. Adrienne Sauder, the pathologists who performed the victims’ autopsies, to the stand on Tuesday.
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Bradley said the direction of the gunshot wounds showed Demons fatally shot Christopher “Juvy” Thomas Jr., and Anthony “Sakchaser” Williams, on Oct. 26, 2018, in Broward.
MacDougall said she performed Williams’s autopsy.
“There is no way for me to tell you what the time frame between wounds ... was,” MacDougall said.
Bradley had argued that the left-to-right direction of some of the gunshot wounds contradicted the allegation that they had been the victim of a drive-by shooting.
MacDougall said she did find that one of the projectiles entered the left side of William’s neck, traveled through his brain, and exited through the top right of his head.
MacDougall said this left-to-right shot was fatal.
The jury had already seen surveillance video showing that when they left the New Era Recording Studio in Fort Lauderdale Williams was in the front passenger seat of the Jeep Compass, Demons was in the left rear seat, and Thomas was in the right rear seat.
Sauder said she performed Thomas’s autopsy. She said Thomas also suffered a fatal shot to the head and the entrance wound was on his left cheek and the path was from left to right.
“The heart was not beating at the time this wound was inflicted,” Sauder said about one of the gunshot wounds Thomas suffered.
The video also shows Cortlen “Bortlen” Henry driving the gray Jeep.
Another video shows Henry arriving at Memorial Miramar Hospital and Thomas, 19, and Williams, 21, were dead inside the Jeep Compass, according to prosecutors.
The jury also saw a video of Henry telling a Miramar detective that they had been the victims of a drive-by shooting. He said the shooting was on Miramar Parkway, and the shooters had fired at the Jeep’s passenger side.
Detectives reported an expert’s bullet trajectory analysis showed the right-to-left path of the bullets that Henry had described did not match the left-to-ring pattern of the wounds, according to prosecutors.
Jurors also learned that cell phone data showed them on Pines Boulevard and Pembroke Road, in a desolated area where detectives did find evidence of a shooting, according to prosecutors. Bradley said this is where Henry and Demons staged the shooting.
A grand jury indicted Demons on Feb. 7, 2019, and he surrendered on Feb. 13, 2019. He and Henry, who is awaiting trial for the alleged coverup, pleaded not guilty.
Deputies have held Demons without bond for over four years. He is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty if convicted of two counts of premeditated first-degree murder.
Demons grew up in Indian River County’s Gifford community and had an arrest record there and in Lee County, records show. He is in YouTube videos with the victims playing with what appears to be guns, cash, alcohol, and marijuana.
Demons became known as YNW Melly when he released his breakout song “Murder on My Mind” on SoundCloud and on YouTube in 2017. His golden single while later signed with 300 Entertainment made it onto the Billboard Hot 100.
YNW Melly partnered with Kanye West for “Mixed Personalities.” He released “Melly vs. Melvin,” his debut album, in 2019, and his second album “Just a Matter of Slime” — which features Lil Uzi Vert, Kodak Black, and Lil Baby — in 2021.
Coverage of the trial