Here’s what happened on day two of the trial against Justin Johnson, one of the men charged with the murder of rapper Young Dolph, prosecutors presented a detailed timeline of events through videos and images.
The eerie footage tracked Johnson and Cornelius Smith, the second suspect, before, during, and after the fatal shooting of Young Dolph, born Adolph Thornton Jr., at Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies in Memphis on November 17, 2021.
Diving in, Shelby County Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagerman called retired Memphis Police officer Terence Dabney, a former homicide investigator, to testify. Dabney described 10 crime scene photos, which included broken glass, Dolph’s camouflage Corvette, evidence markers next to shell casings, bullet holes in the walls, and Dolph’s chain found in a flower pot. While Dolph’s family was present in court, images of the rapper’s body were shown only to the jury.
Investigators did their job and found shell casings from both a handgun and an assault rifle, alongside 9mm casings from the returned fire by Dolph’s brother, Marcus Thornton. Still images from security footage showed two assailants: Smith, identified as the man with the assault rifle, wore a blue hoodie and gloves, while Johnson, seen in a Bass Pro Shops hat, carried a handgun.
Get this, Dabney testified that the weapons used in the shooting have not been recovered. Security footage connected Johnson to the Haven Court Apartments after the shooting, where he was seen with his cousin Kiana Hopper. Three days after the murder, a white Mercedes matching the suspects’ vehicle, with bullet hole damage, was found abandoned in a wooded area near the residence of Hernandez Govan, the alleged mastermind behind the murder.
Upon further investigation they revealed that the Mercedes had been carjacked by Treon Ingram weeks earlier in Mississippi. Fingerprints from the car matched Smith, Ingram, and another associate, Khistin Garner. Ingram had been seen interacting with the Mercedes at a gas station the morning of the murder.
What’s more, surveillance footage showed Johnson leaving his Crosstown Concourse apartment on the morning of the murder, wearing the same clothes described in the suspect’s description. He switched vehicles from a Ford Expedition to the white Mercedes before driving to the gas station and later returning to the apartment complex. Approximately 40 minutes before the murder, Johnson left the complex again, this time with his daughter, dressed in a black hoodie, gray sweatpants, and the now-notorious Bass Pro Shops hat.
As for evidence, Prosecutor Hagerman also presented photos of Smith wearing a blue hoodie, matching the masked gunman seen in the footage. Both Smith and Johnson’s cell phones were recovered and analyzed as part of the investigation. Johnson was eventually apprehended during a nationwide manhunt in Minneapolis.
Feels like this trial is seriously heating up and more evidence is coming to build the prosecution’s case.
The post The Murder of Young Dolph: Trial Day 2 Recap first appeared on .
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