Thursday’s release of two suspects for lack of probable cause in last month’s shooting death of a McComb High School football player doesn’t mean the case against them is over, the judge who set them free said.
“The only thing we eliminated yesterday was them being in jail,” Pike County Judge John Price said of Jesse Gray and Wayne Nobles III, who were charged with murder in the July 15 shooting death of Dominic McCoy, 17.
The rising senior was shot dead just after midnight on Burke and White streets in McComb.
According to testimony in a preliminary hearing held Thursday before Price, McCoy was riding in a car with two unidentified minors when he was ambushed. He was apparently on his way to visit a girl who lived in the area, but that was a set-up, Detective Toy Beacham testified.
Her testimony did not place Nobles and Gray at the scene specifically, but she said a neighbor reported hearing voices and gunfire and seeing people on the corner when McCoy was shot.
Police recovered three weapons from McCoy’s car and said the two people he was with were witnesses to the shooting and identified Gray and Nobles as the gunmen. Ballistics tests on the weapons have not been returned, police said.
“The weakest case of probable cause”
Price, who called the investigation so far “the weakest case of probable cause I have ever seen,” said the evidence wasn’t enough to bind the matter over to the grand jury. “I just didn’t see it,” he said.
Probable cause is generally defined as a reasonable basis for believing somebody has committed a crime.
“If I were a suspect, I would say the other people did it, too,” he said.
The judge also noted that Beacham said the investigation is continuing.
“The investigation needs to continue,” he said.
McComb Police Chief Garland Ward was stunned after Thursday’s hearing.
“If you have two eyewitnesses that identified them, what more evidence do you need for probable cause?” he said. “Based on my experience in law enforcement, this is enough evidence to bind a case over to the grand jury.”
Gray’s attorney, Bill Goodwin, and Nobles’ attorney, Ronnie Whittington, also agreed the investigations should continue, hoping that more facts and evidence would exonerate their clients.
Goodwin said he believes Gray is innocent, but he does not know who killed McCoy.
“That is exactly the point,” he said. “The point is that you can’t arrest someone on mere speculation and you can’t arrest someone on gossip. That’s what was happening yesterday. Those charges are based on nothing more than gossip.
“In 32 years of practicing law, I have filed less than a half a dozen writs for habeas corpus. This was a case that screamed for a serious review of the evidence. Because, as Judge Price said, it was one of the weakest cases I have ever seen.”
Bonds at issue
Price wasn’t the judge originally set to preside over the preliminary hearing for Gray and Nobles. Since the shooting happened inside McComb city limits, the matter was initially scheduled to be held in municipal court before City Judge Jwon Nathaniel on Wednesday.
McComb Selectman Tommy McKenzie said at a recent city board meeting that he believed suspects accused of crimes involving gun violence should be held without bond.
McKenzie’s presence did not go unnoticed when he and former Selectman Michael Cameron showed up to court and sat in the back row during the hearing.
Goodwin and Whittington asked Nathaniel to move the case to county court, given the “totality of the circumstances,” a legal term that asks for multiple factors to be taken into consideration when rendering a decision.
Nathaniel, who had previously set bond for Gray and Nobles at an unmet $750,000 for each, granted the motion and transferred the case to Price’s court.
Goodwin said he disagreed with McKenzie’s position about bonds.
“The issue of bond is a hot-topic issue and most people do not understand what a bond is and what the legal basis for a bond is,” he said. “It is not punishment. About a month ago, I had the opportunity to be standing in front of a copy of the Magna Carta in England. That is the document that established the principle that citizens cannot be held without due process of law and that document was incorporated into the United States Bill of Rights.”
Goodwin provided a personal example to illustrate his point. He said he met a man who told him he believed someone should be held without bond until their trial — until his grandson got arrested for drugs a month later.
“A bond in a particular case is not a political issue,” he said. “You can discuss bonds in general without crossing the line, but when a city official outside of the judiciary gets involved in the issue of the amount of a bond in a particular case, they have crossed the line.”
Goodwin said the executive and legislative branches of government should not try to do the work of the judicial branch.
McKenzie said public safety is his main issue.
“The citizens of McComb and all of Pike County are very frustrated with recent proceedings,” he said. “Safety is on everyone’s mind. While we all respect the U.S. Constitution and our court system, we must never be complacent with the status quo. Awareness can bring solutions if we can all agree change is needed. Exactly what that change looks like is what we should all be working towards.”
Other cases of note
McKenzie’s disapproval of what he perceives as leniency for suspects of violent crimes may have been reinforced with other cases this week.
On Monday, the family of Austin Wanzo, who was slain in his car on June 21, 2020, on the corner of Summit Street and Moore Avenue in McComb, learned that a grand jury declined to indict the suspect in that case.
In another case Thursday just prior to Gray and Nobles being freed, Price set a $50,000 bond for Quardavion White, 20, who was charged with possession of a controlled substance, enhanced with the possession of a firearm.
White was arrested on July 19 along with RaKedrick D. Stephens, 17, who police accuse of taking part in a May 6 drive-by shooting on Pearl River Avenue.
White’s arrest came three days after he was wounded in a shooting outside the entrance of the Ice House bar that wounded two others. An apparent retaliation shooting later that night killed a woman and wounded two others.
A year before all of that, White was released on $810,000 bond for his alleged role in the death of rapper Michael Brock. Brock was shot seven times in the face as he opened the door to an apartment. Louisiana authorities had identified White as the getaway driver in that case.
No evidence, no hold
Goodwin said he feels bad for McCoy’s family, but locking up an innocent person would not serve justice.
“I understand that the young man’s family, the deceased family, that they’re hurting and I have the utmost of sympathy for them, but no good is going to come out of them arresting someone that ultimately the charges cannot be proven against,” Goodwin said.
Whittington said he investigated his client and believes Nobles is innocent. He noted the unidentified minors at the scene — the police department’s eyewitnesses — had weapons, not Nobles.
“The police department certainly does not have evidence to indicate or prove anything about who might have shot Mr. McCoy,” Whittington said. “My client might be subject to a charge or the matter can be presented to the grand jury, and the grand jury will make a determination if there is evidence that will support an indictment.”
He said Price did a good job and ill-informed criticism of the judge isn’t fair.
“They don’t know the facts,” he said. “My client shouldn’t have been in jail. It’s not an issue of what the bond should have been.”
