FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Florida rapper YNW Melly was back in court on Tuesday during his trial for the murders of two of his fellow YNW Collective rappers over four years ago.
The prosecution accused Jamell “Melly” Demons of fatally shooting Christopher “Juvy” Thomas Jr. and Anthony “Sakchaser” Williams on Oct. 26, 2018, in Broward County.
During his second day of testimony, Detective Mark Moretti said the rappers discussed money regularly. Assistant State Attorney Kristine Bradley showed the jury combative text messages between the YNW rappers.
- “Before I let sum happen to me or play wit my family everybody will die,” Williams wrote to Demons on Aug. 30, 2018, according to prosecutors.
- “U just dea fa da money I kan [expletive] all u life’s up forever,” Williams wrote to Demons on Sept. 6, 2018, according to prosecutors. “It’s in my hands.”
Bradley played a part in a short documentary that was released on YouTube on Dec. 4, 2018, with images of Indian River County’s Gifford community. It also showed Thomas and Williams smoking what appeared to be marijuana at Demons’s home in Miramar.
“They love us and they hate us,” Williams said in the documentary about people back home.
The last frame of the documentary had an image of Demons on the beach and light text that mentioned Demons and his friends had been the target of a drive-by shooting that had killed Thomas and Williams.
Bradley also asked Moretti if he recognized Demons’s recorded jail phone call as part of the evidence that he used to associate the cell phone data that he had considered to be reliable evidence in the case.
Moretti said Demons had called his mother, Jamie King, from the Broward County main jail on Feb. 28, 2019, in Fort Lauderdale.
A grand jury had already indicted Demons on Feb. 7, 2019, and he had surrendered to Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies on Feb. 13, 2019.
The prosecution’s case centers on surveillance video before the murder showing Demons, then 19, Thomas, 19, and Williams, 21, left a recording studio in Fort Lauderdale together in a Jeep Compass that Cortlen “Bortlen” Henry was driving.
Later at Memorial Hospital in Miramar, surveillance video shows Henry before he reported that he and his friends had been the victims of a drive-by shooting on Miramar Parkway. Prosecutors said Henry arrived in the Jeep Compass with Thomas and Williams dead.
“We didn’t find any shell casings,” Moretti said in court on Monday about his search for evidence of a shoot on Miramar Parkway. “We didn’t find any shards of glass.”
Moretti said cell phone records later pointed to an area near the intersection of U.S. 27 and Pembroke Road where they did find evidence of a shooting.
“It a very desolate place,” Moretti said adding, the west side of U.S. 27 is a canal.
Moretti said K-9 dogs and divers helped to search for a weapon to no avail. He also said there was a search behind Fredrick “Fredo Bangs” Givens’s house. Earlier in the trial, the prosecution presented the autopsy results and a bullet trajectory expert to discredit the drive-by shooting allegation.
Demons’s defense attorneys first objected to the cell phone data because the device was used by several people and on Tuesday they objected to it because it had not been authenticated by the sender, the recipient, or the engineering company.
Before testimony started, Broward County Circuit Judge John Murphy, who is presiding over the case, offered King security after learning that she had a bodyguard. The defense reported Thomas’s relative had threatened her online.
Shortly before 5 p.m., Murphy said the court is in recess until 9 a.m., on Wednesday.
Demons pleaded not guilty to two counts of premeditated first-degree murder. Deputies have held him without bond for over four years. The opening statements were on June 12. Forensic experts testified about the evidence of the shooting and Henry’s allegations. The court was in recess from June 30 to July 10.
If convicted, Demons faces the possibility of life in prison without parole or the death penalty under the new state law that no longer requires unanimous agreement.
Henry is facing two counts of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of accessory after the fact. He appeared in court on June 30 and his trial is set to start in October. Murphy is also presiding over Henry’s case.
Demons first released “Murder on My Mind” on SoundCloud in 2017, and 300 Entertainment released it as a single on June 2018. The golden single later peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 and his albums “Melly vs. Melvin” and “Just a Matter of Slime” followed.
Read some of the text messages
INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC
TRIAL TIMELINE
The first week of trial: Opening statements were on June 12
The second week of trial: Prosecution’s witnesses continue to testify
The third week of trial: Testimony continues
The court is in recess
The fourth week of the trial: Testimony continues