Atlanta – September 2, 2014
Reporting by Dennis Byron
On Wednesday, both prosecution and defense rested their case in the murder trial of Gary Bradford aka Eldorado Red, Deandre Washington aka Main Easy, and Maurice Conner aka Da Boi who are accused of the execution-style murder of Melvin Vernell, III who was professionally known as Lil Phat. Special Gang Prosecutor Gabe Banks began his closing argument by telling the jury who Lil Phat was as a person. “He was 19 years old, a father of three girls, two with Alnese Frazier and one from a previous relationship. He was an aspiring rapper and on June 7th of 2012, his aspiring dream to make it big in the hip hop industry came to a halt, it ended, he experienced a premature death at the hands of these three defendants who actually tracked him down and hunted him down at the Northside Hospital around 6:40pm.”
The prosecution believes this was all to take revenge on Lil Phat for stealing marijuana from Decensae White and alleged Bloods gang leader Gary “Eldorado Red” Bradford. White also implicated Maurice Dewayne Conner and Deandre Washington in the murder. According to authorities, Conner and Washington were the gunmen hired to shoot the aspiring rapper.
White gave an account of the moments leading up to Phat’s death inside the Northside Hospital parking deck. According to a special agent for the FBI whose expertise is analyzing phone signals, it showed how Bradford, Washington, Conners, and White’s phone was in the area around the time of the murder.
In earlier trial testimony, Decensae White stated:
“We see that [Phat’s] car is there. We circle around the parking deck and then exited the parking deck. Red gets on the phone with Conner, and tells him to stay there and, ‘Do you see the car?’ He said, ‘Yes,’” White told Fulton County Prosecutor Gabe Banks. “That’s when Red was saying, ‘Gun his ass or kill him right there basically.”
Prosecutor Banks was responsible for delivering the entire closing argument for the state as well as well as he presented the rebuttal argument after the defense delivered their closing arguments.
Check out the entire closing arguments of the prosecution below:
Defense Attorney David Wolfe Closing Arguments – Part 1
Dennis Byron covers crime and entertainment news throughout the country involving high-profile trials, but specifically inside Georgia courtrooms. Byron has covered dozens of crime stories from George Zimmerman murder trial of slain teen Trayvon Martin, gun charge case involving Sean “Diddy” Combs, to the 1994 rape case involving the late rapper Tupac Shukur and his road manager.
Byron’s first major story involved the murder trial of Larry Davis, a Bronx resident who was involved in a shootout with six New York City cops who Davis claimed at the time that they were trying to kill him. He was charged with multiple counts of attempted murder but ultimately was acquitted of all those charges. Davis stated during his trial that the cops wanted him dead because they were dirty and wanted him to deal drugs for them. His defense attorney at that time was famed attorney William Kunstler, Lynne Stewart and Ron Kuby.
In 2012, Dennis Byron covered the child custody case involving singing superstar Usher Raymond and the divorce case of former basketball star Allen Iverson.
Much of his reporting has been picked up by major news outlets and bloggers and portions of one of his recent coverage has made it to the Own Network.
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