Young Dolph

Just days after his co-defendant admitted to the 2021 shooting, a jury has convicted Justin Johnson of murdering Young Dolph. According to the local Fox affiliate, the jury, made up of nine white women, two Black men, and one white man, found Johnson guilty of all counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun after four hours of deliberation. The murder charge carries a sentence of life in prison, while Johnson is scheduled for sentencing RE: the charges in November.

The trial, which started with jury selection on Monday this week (September 23), was moved due to extensive media coverage of the murder and its aftermath in Dolph’s native Shelby County. On the second day of the trial, one of the four men accused of murdering Dolph, Cornelius Smith, admitted in court to being offered $40,000 for the hit by Big Jook (real name Anthony Mims), the brother of Dolph’s rival Memphis rapper Yo Gotti. A third man, Hernandez Govan was paid as the go-between between the shooters and Jook.

While the guns used in the shooting were never found and although Johnson’s defense questioned the state’s evidence that put him at the scene of the crime, witness testimony — including Smith’s — was convincing enough for the jury to convict Johnson, who’d previously pled not guilty to the charges. The trial will continue for the remaining defendants, Smith and Govan, while another man, Jemarcus Johnson, pled guilty before the trial. Shundale Barnett, charged as an after-the-fact accessory, pled guilty in June 2023. Big Jook, meanwhile, will not have a trial or charges — he was shot and killed in Memphis this past January.

On the second day of the murder trial against the men accused of killing Memphis rapper Young Dolph in November 2021, one of the defendants, Cornelius Smith, has admitted to shooting Dolph in front of Makeda’s Cookies alongside co-defendant Justin Johnson. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Smith also copped to accepting a $40,000 payoff for the hit.

Smith told jurors he and Johnson were both paid $40,000, while co-defendant Hernandez Govan was given $20,000 for planning the hit. Smith said he’d fallen on hard times, abusing drugs like Oxycontin and ecstasy, after the death of his nine-year-old son some months before. He also alleged that the contract killing was one of several marks on Dolph’s Paper Route Empire label roster, which he was made aware of after by another Memphis native, Big Jook, who reports noted was the older brother of Dolph’s rap rival, Yo Gotti. Jook himself was shot and killed this January, and the investigation is ongoing.

Smith said the original plan was modified on the fly after he and Johnson spotted Dolph’s wrapped SUV, leading to the ambush outside Makeda’s. He recalled being wounded by return fire from Dolph’s brother Marcus, and the process of cleaning up after ditching their white Mercedes — the same vehicle that police tracked to the arrest of Govan. The sad irony: Smith only received one $800 payment for the shooting prior to his arrest in Indiana in January 2022.