After The First 48: Last Call/Road Hazard (S3, E8) — Full Episode

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: For those most affected by a homicide, the first 48 is just the beginning. A violent gang member viciously kills a single mother's only son. [00:00:18] Speaker 2: I said, if you lock the door and put the alarm on, don't let nobody in the house. [00:00:21] Speaker 3: I wanted to give her some more closure. [00:00:25] Speaker 1: Will the prosecution be able to convince witnesses to testify? [00:00:28] Speaker 4: His reputation in the street gang was that it would do anything to anybody to keep from going to prison. Then... [00:00:37] Speaker 1: Investigators are shocked when a hit and run turns into a murder at close range. But as the trial nears, a key witness disappears. This is the story of what happened in the weeks, months, and years after the first 48. In 2005, veteran Memphis police officer Caroline Mason was serving her first year in the Homicide Bureau. [00:01:18] Speaker 3: Once I got assigned to homicide, I started seeing so many young guys losing their lives as a result of gang activity. [00:01:30] Speaker 1: When a high-ranking gang member was implicated in the shooting death of 18-year-old Christopher Wallace, it hit close to home. [00:01:37] Speaker 3: At the time of this case, my son, he was 13, right in the prime time when gang members grab kids up and initiate them and get them into gangs. That was an eye-opening for me, just how serious this gang situation was becoming in the city. [00:02:00] Speaker 1: Memphis, Tennessee, August 8, 2005. [00:02:04] Speaker 5: Please. We have got a body laying in the front yard. [00:02:08] Speaker 6: He's dead? [00:02:10] Speaker 5: Everything is dead. [00:02:18] Speaker 1: Sergeant Tony Mullins arrived on the scene. [00:02:25] Speaker 7: The victim, he's laying face down in the yard. It almost looked like he fell in mid-stride. The victim, shot the night before, lay in the grass till morning, when he was spotted by a passerby. This guy looks like he was shot in the back. That's a house phone, that's not a cell phone. So he probably lives nearby. Carried that with him to, uh, maybe call for help or something. [00:03:04] Speaker 3: Pretty quiet, cello-neighborhood, but the young people are what's waking it up. [00:03:11] Speaker 1: Lieutenant Caroline Mason was assigned as lead on the case. [00:03:16] Speaker 3: Wanted to make sure I did everything right and didn't leave any stones unturned. [00:03:23] Speaker 1: A woman approached investigators and said she feared the victim might be her son. [00:03:31] Speaker 7: Need to take a picture of the victim's face. [00:03:33] Speaker 3: My victim probably should have been at school, but instead, he's out of here and we have to break this news to his mom. That's my son. [00:03:47] Speaker 1: Cynthia Wallace told investigators that her son, 18-year-old Christopher Wallace, had been house-sitting for his grandmother while she recovered from surgery. The night before, he had called her, the night before, he had called her in a panic. [00:04:07] Speaker 2: He said, uh, I have some problems over here. I said, if you'd like to do it, put the alarm on. [00:04:11] Speaker 1: Did you hear anybody? [00:04:12] Speaker 2: I didn't hear anything. I would've came over if I would've heard something. I would've called the police myself. [00:04:20] Speaker 1: Christopher's final conversation with his mother still haunts her. [00:04:23] Speaker 8: I asked him, "Is there anything you need for me to do?" And, um, he said, "Well, I'm gonna call you back, Mom." And I never heard anything. [00:04:35] Speaker ?: And I was like, "Well, I'm gonna call you back." [00:04:40] Speaker 1: Solving Christopher's murder now took on a special significance for Sergeant Mason. Like Cynthia Wallace, she was also a single mom. [00:04:51] Speaker 3: I know that I could never give Ms. Wallace her son back, but I wanted to give her some more closure. [00:05:04] Speaker 1: At the crime scene, Cynthia Wallace told police that after she left Christopher the night before, he had planned to meet up with his new girlfriend. [00:05:14] Speaker 2: She was about 5'5". I went 140 with some cherry-colored little brains in her head. [00:05:30] Speaker 1: As investigators wrapped up the scene, they discovered the girlfriend amongst the bystanders and asked her to come down to the station. [00:05:38] Speaker 3: Hopefully, the girlfriend can tell us something about possibly what was going on. I don't think we got to go on right now. [00:05:51] Speaker 7: You know anybody he was arguing with? [00:05:53] Speaker 9: Mookie and Knockout, that's it. [00:05:58] Speaker 1: The girlfriend said that the night before, two young men, Mookie and Knockout, got into a dispute with the victim. Did they actually fight at all? [00:06:07] Speaker 9: No. They told him that they weren't gonna fight him. [00:06:11] Speaker 1: The girlfriend said that things calmed down and everybody headed home. But not long after, Knockout and Mookie, along with three other acquaintances, tracked the girlfriend down outside her house. [00:06:24] Speaker 9: Knockout and his crew then sped off in search of Christopher. [00:06:46] Speaker 1: Knockout was 17-year-old Louis Mays. Mookie was 19-year-old Lonzi Carter. Both were members of a notorious gang called the Vice Lords. [00:07:01] Speaker 7: They were a very dominant gang here. Every time you turn around, you heard something about Vice Lords. [00:07:11] Speaker 1: Investigators now piece together the events of the evening. Christopher was claiming he held rank in the Vice Lords, even though he didn't. [00:07:21] Speaker 3: Well, Mr. Wallace pretended like he was a high-ranking Vice Lord, and that really angered Mr. Mays. [00:07:26] Speaker 7: It just kind of escalated to the point that Knockout decided we wanted to put him in the V, as they say, put him in violation for, you know, making false claims. [00:07:40] Speaker 3: Christopher wanted to act like he was tougher than he really was. And I'm afraid that wanting to be tough cost Christopher his life. [00:07:56] Speaker 1: 24 hours after Christopher Wallace's murder, investigators tracked down the first of their two suspects, Louis Knockout Mays. [00:08:09] Speaker 7: They got Knockout, and they're bringing him up now. One out of two so far. [00:08:14] Speaker 5: Feel good. [00:08:24] Speaker 7: We want to talk to you about this. See what you have to say about this. Yes, ma'am. Because like I said, you're getting identified by more than one person. Identified for what? They'd be in a confrontation with a guy that ends up dead about an hour later. [00:08:38] Speaker 1: Though Knockout was only 17, his years of running with a violent crowd had hardened him. [00:08:44] Speaker 6: You could be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Okay. [00:08:48] Speaker 1: And investigators kept coming up dry. [00:08:50] Speaker 3: He was just sitting there calm, knew he had the case beat. Just, let's get this over with. I got stuff to do. [00:09:02] Speaker 1: In 2005, 18-year-old Christopher Wallace was found shot to death in the front yard of a Memphis, Tennessee neighborhood, four houses down from his grandmother's house. Next to his body lay a cordless phone. [00:09:17] Speaker 3: So he'd either been talking on the phone or tried to either summon 911 for help. And that was an indication that he was having some type of problem. [00:09:34] Speaker 1: Christopher Wallace was raised in Memphis where he lived with his mother, Cynthia Wallace, and his two younger sisters. [00:09:42] Speaker 8: Cynthia Wallace: Christopher was handsome. He was charming. He was always joking and being a prankster. He loved to make people smile. He had a loving relationship with his sisters. He was just a great, great big brother to him. [00:09:59] Speaker 1: Christopher was also very close with his grandmother, Elizabeth McKinley. [00:10:04] Speaker 10: Elizabeth McKinley: Chris was a very, very smart kid. Most of the time, he made honor roll. He was really a good kid. [00:10:16] Speaker 1: Elizabeth McKinley: For a teenager growing up in Memphis, the lure of street life was strong. But Christopher did his best to resist. [00:10:25] Speaker 10: Elizabeth McKinley: Chris had reached a point, particularly when he became age 18, where he decided, "I've got to do something positive." I just felt that eventually he would find a way to be successful, be good at whatever, whatever he did. [00:10:52] Speaker 1: On the evening of August 7th, Christopher telephoned his mother, sounding panicked. The following morning, she received another call. [00:11:02] Speaker 8: It was my sister, and she sounded really frantic. And as a mother, I knew there was something wrong. [00:11:21] Speaker 10: That was a tough, tough day. [00:11:30] Speaker 1: Back at homicide, investigators were questioning the first of their two suspects. Louis "Knockout" Maze. In his interview, "Knockout" was cool and composed. [00:11:42] Speaker 11: If something happened to me, something just happened to me. That's how I look at it. That's life. [00:11:48] Speaker 3: That's not life to me. I'm not going to go to jail. I'm not going to sit in jail for the first degree murder charge and say whatever, because you're a young man. You got a lot that you can do. Yeah, you're a young man. [00:11:59] Speaker 11: Two children. [00:12:00] Speaker 3: But if you go to jail for life, what kind of role model mentor can you be for two children? [00:12:09] Speaker 11: I ain't did nothing. The man upstairs is going to take care of me, so I'm going to leave it at that. [00:12:16] Speaker 3: You know what? You can sit over there with your cold heart. That's something you're going to have to deal with. But if you think that you can come down here and say, oh, I'm ready to go home. No, you ain't going home and work on your Cadillac Fleetwood today. Strictly ice water running through his veins as opposed to blood. [00:12:36] Speaker 1: With Knockout refusing to talk, investigators began a hunt for their second suspect, Mookie. It wasn't long before they tracked him down. [00:12:51] Speaker 7: We finally have Mookie sitting on the hot seat. [00:12:58] Speaker 1: Investigators were concerned that gang loyalties would keep Mookie from talking. But under pressure, he quickly opened up. [00:13:06] Speaker 11: I'm just going to put it like this. That's all I have to say. [00:13:10] Speaker 1: Knockout was angry about Christopher's false claims about being in the gang. So he recruited Mookie and three other young men, then went looking for Christopher to confront him. [00:13:21] Speaker 3: We were just going to put him in a circle and beat him up. [00:13:27] Speaker 11: He was on the phone waving his hand and stuff. So when we pulled up, he got saw Knockout when Knockout opened the door. Once he saw Knockout, he just struck out running. Knockout like, don't run, don't run. [00:13:43] Speaker 7: And as soon as Chris Wallace turned to run, Knockout started shooting. [00:13:54] Speaker 1: In August 2005, Lewis Knockout Mays and Lonzi Mookie Carter were both charged with murder. Mays, the alleged shooter, would be tried for murder in the first degree. Assistant District Attorney Ray LaPone now took over the case. We had a lot of homicides. [00:14:15] Speaker 4: It takes years off of your life because you're interjecting yourself into someone else's tragedy. [00:14:25] Speaker 1: With no confession, DNA, or other evidence, the state would rely on the testimony of the men who were with Mays the night of the murder. While in jail, Lonzi Mookie Carter had retracted his statements to police. So LaPone turned to the other men in the car, who had not yet been charged with a crime. Two of them agreed to cooperate with the state. [00:14:51] Speaker 7: We had the other witnesses that were there when it happened. [00:14:56] Speaker 4: They got in the vehicle and went along with Knockout to find Christopher Wallace. [00:15:03] Speaker 1: Greg Carman, a veteran defense attorney, would defend Mays. Because of the evidence against his client, he thought the best tactic would be to argue a lesser charge, voluntary manslaughter, not first-degree murder. [00:15:17] Speaker 12: I felt that Lewis's best defense would be a heat of passion defense. That my client went and looked for retaliation in the heat of passion. That this cordless phone the individual was holding could have been a gun. [00:15:32] Speaker 1: But Carman was about to learn that Knockout didn't trust anyone, not even his own attorney. [00:15:38] Speaker 12: He was very standoffish, very distrustful of anybody that's involved in the system. [00:15:44] Speaker 1: Would Knockout's mistrust of authority ultimately be his own downfall? [00:15:49] Speaker 12: Lewis thought he could manipulate the system sort of the way he had manipulated the streets. [00:16:00] Speaker 1: In 2005, 17-year-old Lewis Mays, aka Knockout, allegedly gunned down fellow teenager Christopher Wallace near his grandmother's home in Memphis, Tennessee. [00:16:14] Speaker 3: Mr. Mays fired a shot and it was an unlucky shot because it hit Mr. Wallace in his back and took his life. [00:16:31] Speaker 1: Lewis Mays was a young man with a reputation for violence and aggression. [00:16:35] Speaker 7: Knockout has a very street view of the world. [00:16:40] Speaker 1: Growing up, Mays was left mostly to his own devices. [00:16:45] Speaker 12: He didn't have a very great home life, no parental figure in the family. [00:16:49] Speaker 3: He was running the streets, pretty much raising himself. [00:16:53] Speaker 1: At a young age, he joined the vice lords and he quickly rose in the gang's ranks. [00:16:59] Speaker 4: He was willing to put in work, which is a gang phrase, meaning he would commit violent acts. [00:17:05] Speaker 1: By age 17, Knockout was a seasoned veteran of gang life. [00:17:10] Speaker 7: I don't think he had any illusions that he was going to grow old, live fast, die young type. [00:17:15] Speaker 1: If convicted for the shooting death of Christopher Wallace, Lewis Mays would face a life sentence. Prosecutor Ray LaPone was concerned about the defense's strategy. [00:17:27] Speaker 4: We were worried that the theory would be that Lewis Mays went there to beat him up, and he lost his temper, and he fired a weapon. But this is not a cold-blooded, premeditated murder. [00:17:39] Speaker 1: Defense attorney Greg Carmen wanted to argue just that. But Mays demanded an alibi defense, even though he knew eyewitnesses had linked him to the shooting. [00:17:50] Speaker 12: He always maintained he was never there, not involved. I ain't did nothing. I knew that alibi was not a good defense, but when my client never informs me anything other than alibi, that's the defense we have to go with. [00:18:05] Speaker 1: Mays was convinced his violent reputation would save him, even at trial. [00:18:10] Speaker 4: Knockout we knew would rely on the fact that no one would talk, because his reputation in the street gang was that he would do anything to anybody to keep from going to prison. [00:18:24] Speaker 1: And Knockout proved he was a threat, even from behind bars. While awaiting trial, he contacted fellow vice lords and put out a hit on one of the state's two main witnesses. [00:18:37] Speaker 3: It was very hard to get the witnesses on board, and speaking against him was amazing. They were terrified of him. [00:18:47] Speaker 1: In the end, police had to take drastic measures to protect their witnesses and save their case. [00:18:53] Speaker 3: We had to relocate them totally out of the city. And once they knew that we were going to protect them and their families, they were willing to talk to us. So that's what it took. [00:19:10] Speaker 1: On August 13, 2007, two years after the crime, the trial of Louis Mays began. In opening statements, the prosecution set the tone by reminding the jury about the victim. [00:19:28] Speaker 4: The first thing I do is bring them back to Christopher Wallace. That he was brutally murdered, in cold blood, running for his life. That's important. [00:19:44] Speaker 1: The prosecution then called the two eyewitnesses. Both identified Knockout as the mastermind behind the shooting and the trigger man. [00:19:53] Speaker 4: Louis Mays had gotten these individuals together to confront Christopher. And they drove over there with deadly weapons in the car. [00:20:02] Speaker 7: Knockout, jumped out with a pistol, knocked out, fired a shot. [00:20:11] Speaker 1: On cross, Carmen tried to discredit the witness's testimony. [00:20:15] Speaker 12: We had to try to impeach them as best we could and also show that they have motivations to lie against the defendant. [00:20:22] Speaker 1: Carmen had also hoped to put Lewis Mays on the stand. But in a startling turn, Mays refused to testify on his own behalf. Turning the alibi defense on its head. [00:20:37] Speaker 12: I was hopeful my client would explain what really happened, but Lewis decided never to take the stand. [00:20:45] Speaker 1: At the end of the four-day trial, the case was handed off to the jury. Less than two hours later, Lewis Mays was found guilty of murder in the first degree. [00:21:02] Speaker 12: Unfortunately, Lewis wouldn't listen to a lot of my advice. Otherwise, Lewis may not be serving a life sentence right now. [00:21:09] Speaker 8: When the verdict came back, I was so relieved. It was very overwhelming to know that justice was served. [00:21:20] Speaker 1: Seven years after Christopher's murder, Lieutenant Caroline Mason and Cynthia Wallace still consider each other kindred spirits. [00:21:30] Speaker 3: She and I have a good relationship. We communicate quite a bit. [00:21:35] Speaker 8: She calls me and checks on me. When Mother Day come around, she'll send me a text, ask me how I'm doing. She's a beautiful soul. [00:21:45] Speaker 1: For Christopher's family, it's impossible to reverse the past. Though they've learned to accept his absence, they still haven't gotten over their tragic loss. [00:22:00] Speaker 8: I think about Christopher every morning. I do. It's been hard for me to cope and deal with it. [00:22:12] Speaker 10: Chris was capable of doing great things, and yet he's cut down. As though all of his abilities and all of his potential meant nothing. [00:22:30] Speaker ?: It's been hard for me to watch. It's been hard for me to watch. It's been hard for me to watch. It's been hard for me to watch. [00:22:50] Speaker 1: Birmingham, Alabama. January 11th, 2009. 2:30 a.m. A distressed driver phoned 911 from the side of the interstate. Police arrived on scene, expecting to find a stranded motorist. But they found something else altogether. The 911 caller had been shot dead. [00:23:38] Speaker 13: We got a call on a person being shot on the interstate. [00:23:44] Speaker 1: Detective Chris Anderson would lead the investigation. [00:23:47] Speaker 13: I'm Sergeant Chris Anderson. At the time of the investigation, I was Detective Anderson. I've been involved in police work going on 17 years. I started in homicide in 2006. When we got to the scene, I saw the victim's car. It looked like it had been spun out. Very, very heavily damaged. The victim was outside of the vehicle and he pretty much just laid out. He's landing the ID. Golly. Tomorrow ain't good it, man. It's birthday, man. He didn't make it. [00:24:23] Speaker 1: The victim was 33-year-old Charles Beville, known to all his friends as Big Charlie. [00:24:32] Speaker 13: Looked like he got hit from the front to back. At the rear end of his vehicle, we noticed this white paint transfer. And it looked almost what we call in police work as a pit maneuver. You know, it looked like somebody clipped the tail end of his car and he lost control of it. [00:24:59] Speaker 1: But the victim left the crash unscathed, only to end up shot dead. What happened after he called 911? As police gathered evidence in the dark, a man pulled up and said he'd witnessed the brutal crime. [00:25:19] Speaker 13: When he saw Charles' car, he knew he hadn't had a wreck. So he decides to get out and help, being a good Samaritan. [00:25:31] Speaker 1: January 2009, Birmingham resident Charles Beville called 911 around 2:30 a.m. after his car was run off the road. Minutes later, emergency workers arrived on the scene and were shocked by what they found. Charles Beville had been shot dead. [00:25:53] Speaker 13: It looked like he had a very traumatic wound to his head. At that point, we really didn't know exactly what happened. [00:26:05] Speaker 1: Charles Beville grew up in Bessemer, Alabama. He was the son of loving parents Charles Beville Sr. and Mary. [00:26:12] Speaker 14: Oh, he was rowdy, but he was fun. He was loving, very loving, always hugging, always wanting to be close to me. He was a loving child. [00:26:31] Speaker 1: As a child, Charles loved to investigate how things worked. [00:26:35] Speaker 14: Once he had a train and he took the train apart and then he put it back again and it ran. But he was always tinkering with his toys and whatever he had. [00:26:50] Speaker 15: He was very creative with his hands. He could fix whatever, nothing that I've never known that he could not fix. [00:26:57] Speaker 1: As he grew older, Big Charlie developed a love for motorcycles and eventually formed his own motorcycle club. [00:27:10] Speaker 16: But they were more of a social club. They would have parties. Most of the people in the club were long-time friends and some family. He just really loved motorcycles. [00:27:30] Speaker 1: Back at Homicide, Anderson's team questioned the witness who pulled over to help Big Charlie on the highway. [00:27:36] Speaker 17: I'm Detective Bristow. So you talk to him, he said... [00:27:49] Speaker 1: Big Charlie seemed all right, so the witness headed back to his car. [00:27:54] Speaker 13: A few seconds later, he sees a black Cadillac STS pull up, pull around the wreck and stop and park his car. The suspect gets out of the vehicle, walks over to Charles. [00:28:13] Speaker 1: The witness said the shooter then walked calmly back to the black Cadillac and drove away. The next morning, Detective Anderson visited Big Charlie's wife, Erica. [00:28:40] Speaker 13: Hey, how you doing? I'm sorry for your loss, and we're going to do everything we can to get this, get y'all some closure, get this thing solved. But what we're going to need is y'all's help. [00:28:53] Speaker 1: Erica told Anderson that Big Charlie was in a motorcycle club called "The Show Nuff Riders." She said that in the hours before his murder, he was at a bar where different motorcycle clubs hung out. [00:29:07] Speaker 15: I tried all I could to convince him to leave that part of his life behind, you know, but he was just into fights. That was his favorite, fixing a car, fixing a bike. And I couldn't pull that part of him away. [00:29:35] Speaker 1: Anderson now headed to the bar where Big Charlie had been the night of the shooting. [00:29:41] Speaker 13: We learned that there was a huge fight inside the club involving Big Charlie's group and another group called Sin City. [00:29:51] Speaker 1: The club was formerly called the Sin City Disciples. And unlike Big Charlie's Show Nuff Riders, they did more than just socialize. Certain branches of Sin City had been involved in criminal activity, including murder. While questioning patrons at the bar, Anderson and his team turned up a witness to the fight. What started as a fist fight escalated into a gunfight. With members of both clubs getting injured. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:30:45] Speaker 13: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:30:52] Speaker ?: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:30:56] Speaker 1: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:10] Speaker 18: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:18] Speaker ?: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:21] Speaker 1: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:32] Speaker 13: And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:40] Speaker 19: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:48] Speaker ?: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:50] Speaker 1: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:58] Speaker ?: And they were in charge of the police. [00:31:59] Speaker 13: And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. And they were in charge of the police. [00:32:10] Speaker 1: Charlie Coyote Wilson was the enforcer, the strong arm of the Sin City Disciples. He had recently been released from prison after serving five years for attempted murder. Armed with a possible suspect, Anderson now brought the first eyewitness, the good Samaritan, back to the station. [00:32:43] Speaker 13: Take your time. Let me know if you can identify any of the faces that look familiar to you. [00:32:55] Speaker 1: The witness immediately fingered Charlie Coyote Wilson. Four days later, under pressure from police, Coyote turned himself in. I don't think I can tell you about the incident was, [00:33:12] Speaker ?: I was on the inside shooting pool. Okay. And there was a big ruckus at the door. He admitted that he had been involved in the fight with the victim. How did y'all get over there? I drove. What kind of car? It was a black car. [00:33:24] Speaker 6: Uh, it was a black, uh, Cadillac. Coyote then admitted to driving on the same interstate [00:33:36] Speaker 13: where Big Charlie was shot. [00:33:38] Speaker ?: Did you ever stop the car? [00:33:38] Speaker 13: I never, I never stopped the car. You ever see a wreck on the freeway? [00:33:48] Speaker 1: No. [00:33:56] Speaker 17: You don't remember seeing a wreck on the freeway? No. You don't remember seeing a wreck on the freeway? No, sir. [00:34:04] Speaker ?: Did you have anything to do with the murder, with the child coming? [00:34:06] Speaker 17: No, sir. [00:34:08] Speaker 20: All right. This concludes your statement. Be right back. [00:34:29] Speaker 13: He admitted that he was driving that black Cadillac STS. That's pretty much it. I mean, because I had an independent witness that puts him on the scene. [00:34:51] Speaker 1: Investigators had enough to arrest Coyote and charge him with the murder of Big Charlie. The case was now handed over to the prosecution, who knew everything would hang on the eyewitness testimony. [00:35:18] Speaker 13: Then... We just lost contact with my witness. And, you know, it was almost like he had dropped off the face of the herd. [00:35:31] Speaker 1: October 2009, nine months after the roadside execution of Charles Bevel, the trial of the alleged killer, Charlie Coyote Wilson, was about to begin. [00:35:43] Speaker 21: Well, you know, I've never had such a hands-on and brutal kind of killing. To kill somebody that close, up close and personal like that... ...takes a special kind of evil. [00:36:03] Speaker 1: Jefferson County District Attorney Jim Neal would lead the prosecution. [00:36:08] Speaker 21: I was a police officer for 16 years before going to law school and been at the district attorney's office for almost 12 years. [00:36:20] Speaker 1: Neal knew his case would rest almost entirely on the testimony of the sole eyewitness. [00:36:25] Speaker 21: There was no evidence. There was no shell casing. There was no DNA. Because what are you going to leave at the scene? You walk up and the only thing that touches the victim is a bullet. The only evidence was the one witness that would step forward. [00:36:46] Speaker 1: The defense attorney was Birmingham veteran Eric Guster. Guster planned to argue that his client, Charlie Joe Wilson, had nothing to do with Charles Bevel's murder. [00:36:57] Speaker 17: Our defense was symbol that Charlie Joe went home. To this day, I am not 100% convinced that Charlie Joe committed this offense. [00:37:05] Speaker 1: And then, as the trial approached, the state's key eyewitness suddenly went missing. [00:37:22] Speaker 13: We just lost contact with him. The phone number that I had for him had been disconnected. And, you know, it was almost like he had dropped off the face of the herd. [00:37:33] Speaker 16: The witness was scared. We didn't know if he was going to show up or not because he was so afraid. [00:37:40] Speaker 1: In fact, the terrified witness had left town. [00:37:44] Speaker 13: I dropped everything else that I was doing and I went out and found it. Up until the day of the trial, I would talk to him, try to let him know that, "Hey, I'm going to be there with you the whole while. Do everything I can to make sure you're protected and your identity is protected." [00:38:01] Speaker 1: On October 28th, 2009, the murder trial of Charlie Joe Wilson began. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. The prosecution called a string of police officers and crime scene technicians. But their best shot at a conviction was their star witness, the man who saw the shooting. The man who saw the shooting. [00:38:31] Speaker 21: It's always difficult when you have a one witness ID. Because if the jury does not believe that person, then you lose. Would he recognize his face if you saw him? Yeah. [00:38:43] Speaker 1: On cross, defense attorney Guster challenged the eyewitness's ability to correctly identify his client as the killer. [00:38:51] Speaker 17: One thing I do remember stressing was the lighting and his inability to truly see this person. This is an eyewitness case from a distance. Once I found out where Mr. Belville was killed, I went out there at night and I could not see that far. And that's why it amazed me that this witness chose Charlie Joe. But on the stand, the witness stuck to his story. [00:39:17] Speaker 21: What he said, he had his headlights on bright to illuminate the car that it wrecked. So oncoming traffic would see it. Well, Charlie Joe Wilson walked in front of his lights. And after he shot Charles Belville in the head, he looked over there and kind of glared at the people in the car. Because he knew they saw him. [00:39:46] Speaker 1: After two days of trial, the case was handed to the jury. [00:39:55] Speaker 21: You know, it's just 12 people, 12 regular folks, cross section of the community and they heard everything that we had. And sometimes that's all you do have is that one witness. [00:40:07] Speaker 1: One eyewitness was enough for the jury. They found Coyote guilty of murder. [00:40:24] Speaker 15: It was a relief, but in the end, I still lose, regardless whether he's guilty or not, because I have a loved one that's not here. [00:40:34] Speaker 16: Well, my reaction to the verdict when I first heard it was, "Thank God we got some closure." [00:40:44] Speaker 15: It's very tough. It's no easy days. Every day is different. And, you know, one moment I can be happy and cheerful, but the next day I could be down. [00:40:58] Speaker 14: If I didn't have family, I don't think I could have made it. And if I didn't have the Lord, I know I wouldn't have made it. [00:41:13] Speaker 22: When I set my eyes and look, I can see him with that smile on his face. He ain't gone. He still lives. Two victims. [00:41:30] Speaker ?: Both dead because of gang violence. Two families. Still trying to answer the same question. Why? You can't make any sense of it because it was senseless. [00:41:40] Speaker 1: When tragedy strikes, Father, it leaves families in a state of unbearable sufferings, God only you know. Crystal. Crystal. [00:41:52] Speaker 10: He was full of life. He had a way of just being a kid. [00:41:58] Speaker 23: I just gotta figure out where the message is in what has happened and try and move on. One of the Musketeers is gone. And you can't get that back. So it's giving me a better appreciation for life and for living. [00:42:16] Speaker 16: And I just gotta figure out where the message is. I just gotta figure out where the message is in what has happened and try and move on. One of the Musketeers is gone. And you can't get that back. So it's giving me a better appreciation for life and for living. And for living and being happy and being close to the people that you love.