True Crime Black

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This story centers are 18 year old Andre Jones of Jackson, Mississippi. The young high school graduate was looking forward to starting college in the Fall of 1992. Andre’s mother — Esther — was the president of the Jackson branch of the NAACP. His stepfather (Charles) was a Nation of Islam minister. Andre also had a girlfriend named Tanisha Love. On the night of August 22nd, 1992, Andre and Tanisha were driving together. At around 1 am, they had to stop at a routine sobriety checkpoint in Brandon, Mississippi. At 1:30 am, Andre’s parents received a call from Tanisha.

She told them that Andre had been arrested.

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This case centers around 28-year-old Niqui McCown. Niqui was a prison guard who recently got engaged to her fiancé Bobby Webster. Niqui’s life looking up and there were a lot of things to be excited about. However, one day she went to her mom’s house incredibly upset. On July 22nd, 2001, she told her mother about an incident while she was at a laundromat. She told her mother that two men were repeatedly harassing her while she was doing her laundry. She expressed to her mom that she was too afraid to return for her laundry out of fear of seeing the men again. Niqui eventually left her mother’s house and was never seen again.  

This all occurred just three weeks before her wedding day.  

Struggling to find any signs of what could have happened to Niqui, the police decided to retrace her steps the day that she vanished. Niqui attended church that morning before heading to the laundromat. Bobby was out with his best man looking for tuxedos. The couple had made plans to get together that afternoon. The people in Niqui’s life seemed to be very happy for her. She had a 9-year-old daughter from a previous relationship that was happy for her big day. Even her ex-boyfriend was excited for her. Being the youngest of 10 children, Niqui was surrounded with so much love.  

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On May 1, 1991, a 911 dispatcher in Miami, Florida, received a call from a man who claimed that he had witnessed a horrifying murder in Belle Glade, eighty miles north of Miami. He also said that he had gotten the license plate number of the killer's car. The dispatcher had trouble understanding the caller because he was speaking quickly in Spanish. She connected him to detective Burt Blanco. In a rushed, nervous voice, the caller began to describe a grisly scene that he had witnessed several days earlier. He said he was hunting illegally in a sugar cane field when he heard a vehicle in the distance. He said that as he ran to hide, a blue Ford Bronco pulled up nearby. A man and a woman got out. She called him "Ricardito".

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Frontera Prison, located forty-five miles south of Los Angeles, California, is one of the largest women’s penitentiaries in the United States. Its maximum-security wing houses some of California’s most dangerous female offenders. Yet it is the alleged criminal activities of some guards and administrators that have shoved Frontera into the public spotlight. During the early 1990s, former prison employees made sensational allegations of widespread drug trafficking at the prison. They tied these charges of corruption to a pair of seemingly isolated incidents – the disappearance and subsequent murder of a Frontera guard, Jesslyn Rich, in 1984, and the controversial death of a twenty-five-year-old inmate named Terry Lucas three years later.

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After being stonewalled by police for six years, she received a shocking envelope on April 9, 1992, Keith's birthday. The manila envelope contained apparently official photographs from the crime scene, which showed him wearing clothes that weren't his, including white sneakers. The only clothing returned to the family were his jacket and brown boots, which were not seen in the photographs. Investigators confirmed that the pictures were official crime scene photographs. Leaves seen in the photos on the back of his shirt suggested that he had been laid on the ground and then hoisted up into the hanging position.  

His body was soon exhumed for an autopsy. The surprising results showed that there were several deadly amounts of chemicals in it. It appeared that he had, in fact, been murdered, although some medical examiners claimed that the chemicals were from the embalming process. One examiner noted, however, that the original medical examiner did not mention using these substances in his report. Also, other substances not related to embalming fluid were found.

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“The last recorded lynching in the United States was in 1981,” said Jill Collen Jefferson, a lawyer and founder of Julian, a civil rights organization named after the late civil rights leader Julian Bond. “But the thing is, lynchings never stopped in the United States. Lynchings in Mississippi never stopped. The evil bastards just stopped taking photographs and passing them around like baseball cards.”  

This video is based on the hard work of Jefferson and her team (https://twitter.com/jillcollen)

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Marcia Williams, the mother of Terrance Williams, sued Calkins in a 2018 wrongful death action on behalf of her son’s estate and four children. But the Collier County suit came to an abrupt close in 2021 after Crump’s team missed a deadline to file for trial. Marcia Williams appealed to a Florida appellate court.    Williams was the second man to vanish after an encounter with Calkins. Felipe Santos, a Mexican immigrant and Immokalee resident, disappeared at age 23 in October 2003 after his brothers saw him get into Calkins’ patrol car.

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"It’s been said in the Black community many times, but there’s always a new story popping up in our newsfeeds that proves it needs to be repeated: No amount of being an upstanding citizen will shield Black people from racism."

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Thirty years ago, the 15-year-old Black girl from South Central walked into Empire Liquor Market and Deli, grabbed a $1.79 bottle of orange juice and put it in her backpack. A Korean-born merchant, Soon Ja Du, accused her of stealing it. Latasha had $2 in her hand. Du grabbed Latasha’s sweater. Then Latasha punched Du in the face and headed for the door. Du picked up a handgun and fired a shot into the back of Latasha’s head. Police later confirmed that there was “no attempt at shoplifting.” A jury found Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but instead of serving a maximum of 16 years in prison, Judge Joyce A. Karlin gave Du probation. For killing a 15-year-old girl who was walking away from her.

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The heartbeat of the city of New Orleans is its raucous French Quarter, where great music, street celebrations, and Cajun cooking sometimes overshadow a more unsavory side of the city. On August 4, 1991, in Algiers, across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter, a lone recycler gleaned what he could along Nevada Street, a narrow, deserted city road that was often used illegally as a dump site. He had no idea he was about to launch one of the city’s most complex murder investigations. When he picked up a piece of garbage, he discovered the body of a young woman.  

The body was identified as seventeen-year-old Danielle Britton, who lived nearby in Gretna with her mother. She had been strangled and possibly raped approximately twelve hours earlier. At first glance, her murder seemed to be an isolated incident. But the reality was far more sinister. She may have been the victim of a serial killer who preys on women he believes are prostitutes. By some chilling estimate, more than a hundred serial killers roam the streets of America at any given moment. Police are usually left to gather clues only from the silent testimony of gruesome crime scenes. But the New Orleans case would be different.  

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Nineteen-year-old David Josiah Lawson was studying Criminology at HSU (Humboldt State University, located in Northern California in the small town of Arcata). Lawson was the president of the Brothers United, an on-campus group that formed as a result of the unsolved murder of a Black HSU student, Cory Clark in 2001 (there is, unfortunately, a lack of information on his case). The group’s goal was to provide support for Black men in the predominately white institution — and predominantly white area — in which they felt there was more support needed. 

On April 15th, 2017 Josiah and members of the Brothers United were attending an off-campus party when they were approached by a group of white locals and accused of stealing one of their phones. One of the locals demanded that they empty their pockets. An altercation began that left Josiah Lawson pepper-sprayed and stabbed multiple times.

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a very well-loved and respected historical figure. He is widely seen as the leader of America’s Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. Unfortunately, his work surrounding that movement put a target on his back. On April 3rd, 1968, King arrived in Memphis and checked in at the Lorraine Hotel. He was there to show his support for the city’s sanitation workers who were on strike. Across the street from his hotel were a bunch of shoddy, run-down buildings. One of those buildings was actually a living space run by a woman named Bessie Brewer. On the night of April 4th, one of the building’s tenants went to use the communal bathroom and found it locked. We would later learn that the man inside the bathroom at the time was career criminal James Earl Ray.  

Ray went into the bathroom with a high-powered rifle and took aim at Dr. King as he stepped out of his hotel room.  

Ray immediately went to make his escape after pulling the trigger. As he was leaving the area, he dumped the rifle and his bag at the Canipe Amusement Company’s door. Witnesses reported seeing a white car fleeing the scene at the time. Just two months later, Ray was apprehended. He was in the process of boarding a flight to Brussels from London when the authorities took him in. On March 10th, 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The judge in his sentencing trial handed him a 99-year consequence. However, Ray had a confession just three days after his conviction:  He was set up.  

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On that night, the two of them were being tailgated by a pickup truck which they didn’t find to be much of a concern. Continuing on their patrol route, they came across a fire on the side of the road. The pair quickly discerned that it was just a trash fire, and nothing malicious, so they made a U-turn and headed back south. On their drive, they passed the same pickup truck from earlier, which began to follow them again. In a terrifying move, the pickup truck pulled up alongside Moore and Rogers and the occupants opened fire on the new sheriff’s deputies.  A passerby came onto the scene to help the men but, unfortunately, it was too late for one of the men. O’Neal Moore was dead. Fortunately, Rogers survived, though he was very badly injured. He was rendered blind in the left eye but luckily was still able to give a description of the pickup truck and the shooters. The police embarked on an immediate search for the killers and their truck which saw them breaking ground less than an hour later. The driver of a truck very similar to the one the shooters were riding in was picked up only twenty miles away in Tollertown, Mississippi. Ernest Ray McElveen was arrested and bonded out on $25,000 bail. However, the charges against him were dropped due to a lack of evidence.

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This story takes place in Greensboro, North Carolina. On June 9, 1993, a woman was returning to her motel room at around midnight. As she was entering the door, two men appeared behind her and forced their way into the room. Both men were armed and used the threat of deadly weapons to force everyone in the room onto the floor. Each of the five people in the room was robbed of all of their cash and jewelry. Just minutes later, the horrifying ordeal was over and the men were gone. The occupants of the room went to the police when the coast was clear. One of the guests got a good look at the robbers and was able to identify them. This led to the police arresting two men — one of them named Frederick Young. The case would go to trial soon after and Young found himself being convicted of the motel robbery.  However, Frederick Young was adamant that he wasn’t the one to commit those robberies. He asserts that his conviction is a case of mistaken identity and that his twin brother — Cedric Young — was actually the one who should be behind bars.  

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Although he was safely away from his attacker, Holden decided not to drive straight home. Instead, he drove in the opposite direction so that he could give himself some time to decompress. It was during this downtime that one of the biggest coincidences in history would take place. As Holden found his way back to his trailer, he saw the same man who had attacked him walking around his property. To avoid — once again — winding up in a confrontation with this unhinged individual, Holden drove to a nearby payphone and alerted the police. An officer soon arrived on the scene and walked with Holden to his trailer while keeping an eye out for the strange man. A look through his trailer showed that the man was not there (nothing was out of place or missing). Holden was still concerned, however, about his mother who lived in the house behind his trailer. Things already looked bad when they found that the back window was broken. As the two made their way to the upstairs bedroom, they found Dorothy Donovan dead from several stab wounds to the arms, chest, and face.

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When Unsolved Mysteries returned to our tv screens in July of 2020, one of their first cases was a doozy. The Netflix reboot of the show featured the case of a mid-twenties partygoer who may have been the victim of a series of hate crimes that ultimately lead to his death. If it wasn’t for the reboot, however, his case would still be closed.  

Twenty-three-year-old Alonzo Brooks grew up in Topeka, Kansas. He was the youngest of 5 children, growing up with one older brother and three sisters. The 5 kids were raised by single mother Maria Ramirez. Maria had a special bond with Alonzo according to everyone who knew them. When Alonzo’s older brother Billy turned eighteen and moved out, Alonzo and his mother move to the suburbs of Gardner. In what is perhaps a premonition, Billy felt that he needed to toughen his younger brother up — much to their mother’s chagrin. She felt that he was trying to make Alonzo grow up to fast, but Billy felt that he needed to protect him from getting taken advantage of by his new peers.  

That premonition would bear out in a series of mystifying events.