The capital murder trial of Dallas rapper Yella Beezy began on Tuesday, with prosecutors accusing him of arranging the killing of fellow rapper MO3 in a targeted attack on Interstate 35 in 2020.
Yella Beezy, whose legal name is Markies Conway, has pleaded not guilty and denies hiring Kewon White to kill Melvin Noble, known professionally as MO3. If convicted, Conway could face life in prison.
A jury of 12 people, along with three alternates, was selected in Dallas County on Monday. The trial is expected to last between two and three weeks.
Prosecutor Tommy Adams told jurors that the evidence would show an organised murder-for-hire plot arising from a long-running feud between Conway and Noble. He said surveillance footage, travel records and text messages would be presented as separate pieces of a case that prosecutors believe point to Conway’s involvement.
Defence lawyer Toby Shook urged jurors not to rely on assumptions or what he described as investigative “tunnel vision”. He argued that the prosecution had failed to establish a reliable financial link between Conway and White, pointing to differences between cash withdrawn by Conway and money later recovered from White.
Shook also suggested that investigators had overlooked other possible suspects and motives, including personal hostility between Noble and Devin Brown, another defendant in the case.
Witnesses describe fatal Dallas highway shooting
Noble’s mother, Nicole Noble, was the first witness called. She told the court that she believed her son was in California filming a music video on 11 November 2020, before receiving a series of missed calls alerting her that he had been shot.
She travelled to hospital and waited for hours before doctors and police confirmed that Noble had died. During her evidence, she said she had urged investigators to examine several people, including Conway, rapper Trapboy Freddy and Noble’s manager, Brandon Rainwater.
Two motorists who witnessed the attack then gave evidence. One said she tried to check whether Noble was safe after pulling alongside him, but saw a masked gunman emerge with a weapon and tell her to leave.
Prosecutors played her emergency call and showed the jury dashcam footage from a delivery vehicle which captured part of the shooting. A second driver said Noble died in front of her car and that she took photographs after the gunfire stopped.
Dallas Fire-Rescue Captain Chris Bloodgood described attempts to save Noble’s life. Former Dallas County medical examiner Dr Jeffrey Barnard later told jurors that Noble had suffered several potentially fatal gunshot wounds, including one that punctured his heart and was the “most rapidly lethal”.
Jocylynn Jackson, Noble’s girlfriend, told the court that he had stayed at her flat the night before the killing after returning from California. She said that, shortly before the ambush, her former partner Devin Brown had repeatedly contacted her young son’s phone and asked whether Noble was at the property.
Cellphone records shown to the jury indicated repeated calls from Brown to the boy’s phone on the morning Noble was killed. Jackson said she suspected that details of her address had been passed on because relatively few people knew where she lived.
Security images from outside the flat were also introduced. They appeared to show a gold or tan vehicle leaving the property, followed by a black car, in the days before Noble’s death.
White was convicted of capital murder in September and sentenced to life without parole. Prosecutors allege that he was paid to carry out the attack, while Conway’s case centres on whether he commissioned the killing.
In a pre-trial ruling, Judge Chika Anyiam allowed prosecutors to introduce three of Conway’s songs as evidence, while excluding most of the tracks they had sought to use. The admissible material is expected to form part of the prosecution’s argument about motive and intent.
Conway’s trial had been delayed by a month while his lawyers sought a transcript of White’s proceedings. Devin Brown, who was mentioned repeatedly during Tuesday’s testimony, is also charged with capital murder.
