June 11, 2024 • 36 mins
St. Louis County, 2016, the early hours after Labor Day. Darren Seals, 29 year old rapper and famed Ferguson activist, is found shot dead inside his burning Jeep. Six years later, the former Missouri state senator who was in the movement with him, Maria Chappelle-Nadal, joins co-host Ray Nowosielski and our investigative team to begin a two-plus years investigation. His activist friends point to a sloppy crime scene and rumors about cops and white suspects. But leads offer many directions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
My name is Maria and I'm with Ray. How are
you doing today?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
We're told you you've lived here for a while. There
was a young man in twenty sixteen that was killed
on this block, and there's another gentleman who was an
activist who we're told may have also been killed that
same night. And I guess we were just trying to
figure out anyone around here remembers that when he's sixteen
September twenty sixteen. I think he was killed around one am.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Yeah, like you really want to know like this, like
this gotta be a connection right here.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
This guy, he lives right here, So I mean, what
do you know?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Actually, we've been to several other homes, and so you're
actually one of the last homes we've been to today
in all honesty.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Well, so I'm a podcast journalist and I'm a former
state Senator Maria Chappelle Nadal, and so we are doing.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
A podcast about mysterious deaths that have occurred since the
person Uprising. And there's one gentleman in particular who has
been positioned here as a place that he was shot.
Speaker 6 (01:15):
Not here.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
I didn't know this.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, we do, We do appreciate all of your time,
and as I said, sir, I.
Speaker 7 (01:23):
Just don't see how I fit into I just don't.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Know what I could say that would have helped you. Man,
I don't understood. I don't see I don't know how
I could happen. Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
My name is Reyno Visselski. In twenty twenty one, I
produced and co hosted the first season of After the
Uprising with John Duffy. Across eleven episodes, we investigated the
hanging death of Donye Dion Jones, a young black man
from Saint Louis, Missouri. Donye's mother, Melissa mckinnis, was a
frontline activist during the uprising in fergus in twenty fourteen,
(02:01):
and she believed that her son had been murdered, despite
the police telling her that he died by suicide. You
don't have to listen to season one to follow this season,
but if you do, you'll get a lot of additional context.
In making season one, we became friends with former Missouri
state senator and state representative Maria Chappelle Nadal, who herself
(02:22):
took to the streets during the protests in Ferguson that
followed the killing of Mike Brown.
Speaker 8 (02:26):
Junior.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Maria has joined our team as we investigate the death
of another man from Saint Louis, the well known activist
Darren Seals, who was killed on September sixth, twenty sixteenthty two.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Right now, we're knocking on doors in the twenty eight
hundred block of Gamble Street, asking if anyone remembers a
shooting that happened six years prior. We're working a hunch
that this was the area where Darren was shot and killed,
despite the fact that his body was found nine miles
away in Riverview. As you heard, we didn't have much
(02:59):
sin access.
Speaker 9 (03:10):
What you're looking for is the aftermath of the grand
jury deciding not to indict.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Off The.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Nine year old Darren Seals was murdered before his killer
set his car on fire.
Speaker 9 (03:25):
Once they put out the flames, they discovered Seal's body
inside with a gunshop.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
You want a gun on me?
Speaker 10 (03:34):
Am I am I posing your other brothers focus of PD.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Grab you by my heart, slam me out the corn.
Speaker 10 (03:45):
He says, you might want you might want to pick
your enemies better.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
This is after The Uprising Season two, The murder of
Darren Seals.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
Emergency nine and one Sinleis County at this emergency read
new important.
Speaker 11 (04:05):
It's a fire my apartment line like this.
Speaker 10 (04:07):
Car is on fire.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
There's now there's a car on fire.
Speaker 11 (04:10):
Yes, all right, stand the phone for the fire department. Okay,
they don't even hit the gas yet.
Speaker 12 (04:18):
Fire name Amy.
Speaker 11 (04:22):
Yes, I'm at.
Speaker 13 (04:23):
Ninety six to forty din the drive and it's a
call on fire in my parking.
Speaker 14 (04:27):
Line out on the Frankness Fund of ninety fifth party won.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
The fire department pulled up there, that's see the fire,
let's see.
Speaker 11 (04:35):
All right, well I'm anything.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
This ninety one one call was made at one eighteen
am on September sixth, twenty sixteen. The apartment complex where
Jeep Wrangler was fully ablaze in the parking lot was
in Riverview, a small Saint Louis County municipality. When the
fire department arrived, they had no idea that when they
extinguished the blaze they would find the yearly burned body
(05:01):
of a man inside. The Riverview Police department is too
small to have a homicide unit, so they called in
the assistance of the Saint Louis County Police Department, which.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Took over the case.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
They were quickly able to determine that the jeep belonged
to Darren Seals, but it would take several more hours
for them to confirm that it was his body left
inside the burning vehicle. Then the news of Darren's death
moved quickly across not only Saint Louis, but the world.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
And night to Maria.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Residents say they've lost a voids an activist. During the
Ferguson unrest, twenty nine year old Darren Seals was murdered
before his killer set his.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
Car on fire.
Speaker 9 (05:40):
Seals was found shot inside a burning car in Riverview
on Diamond Drive. Police initially thought they were responding to
a car on fire. Someone who lives in the area
tells News Force she heard a boom before the car
was discovered burning.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Seal's charred body was found in the wreckage of his car.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Investigators say there's no known motive in the killing.
Speaker 15 (06:02):
Seals, who was also a rap artist, frequently tweeted about racism,
police violence, and politics.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Darren having been a major figure in the Ferguson movement,
not to mention his involvement in the local hip hop scene,
had become something of a celebrity, so his funeral was
a packed house event. After several heartfelt and fiery speeches,
the large crowd chanted his name, and passing cars honked
their horns as pallbearers carried his coffin from the church.
Speaker 16 (06:31):
Zoozuzu.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Darren was a complicated man who, though he died at
the young age of twenty nine, had already lived a
complicated life, and the story of how and why he
came to be shot in the head and left in
a burning car is of that complexity. On his Twitter bio,
Darren described himself as quote businessman, revolutionary activist, unapologetically black,
(07:11):
all caps African in America. That's three k's in America. There,
fighter leader, but he was so much more. Depending on
who you ask. Darren was a son, a big and
little brother, an employee of General Motors, a convicted felon,
an artist, a protector. Again, Darren was complicated. I knew
(07:37):
Darren not well, but I had seen him out in
the streets of Ferguson during the protest that followed the
killing of Mike Brown Junior by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
I remember him being fierce and brave. Darren explained how
he came to the protest. To filmmaker J Black on
his YouTube channel.
Speaker 16 (08:00):
Pretty good, Now, how did you first start with the
organizing and mobilization and first and after white brown and.
Speaker 10 (08:06):
Then he was murdered because he died so close to
my home. I just went out there, and I really
didn't even know what I was doing.
Speaker 8 (08:14):
I just knew I wasn't going.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Nowhere until we did something body.
Speaker 10 (08:17):
There was just people in the community coming together, a
small group of people, black men, black women.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
We were trying to see what the hill was going on.
And I was he gunned down like that?
Speaker 10 (08:26):
Yeah, we were just trying to check up on his
mom's And originally when it first had happened, I was,
of course I was concerned, but black mother just lost
her son.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
But I walked her home and she cried to me.
She threw up, She was real sick.
Speaker 10 (08:43):
She was just really just lost, you know, and she
didn't know what was gonna happen, what to do, And
I told her, I gave him my word.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
I said, I'm not leaving. I'm not stopping until we
get justice. We're gonna figure out happening to the son.
Speaker 14 (08:56):
Actually he was standing up on that ledge right up
by the brook sent Police Department and all of us
be out there.
Speaker 6 (09:03):
We got our signs, we got everything.
Speaker 14 (09:05):
And so I heard Dr Durne said, I tried to
tell you guys this last year when it happened to
Carrie Ball Junior.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So all of my family.
Speaker 12 (09:13):
He turned around me like, who is this man.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
This is Tony Taylor. She's the mother of Carrie Ball Junior,
the young black man who was shot twenty five times
by the Saint Louis Metropolitan Police after a high speed
chase back in twenty thirteen. She is describing meeting Darren
Seals for the first time during the Ferguson protests.
Speaker 14 (09:36):
And so when he got down off the ledge, I
went over and I tapped him on his shoulder.
Speaker 7 (09:41):
I was fitter saying, now, durn I'm carry's mom.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
But he's seeing my poster.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
So he instantly said you.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Carry his mother.
Speaker 14 (09:49):
And it just blew up from her and he was like,
and everybody, you see the hand in the face because
it's like the police started trying to rush at us.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
And he's like, no, that's up.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
It's a mother.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And I just went grow like I told his mom.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
I looked at him as like my son.
Speaker 14 (10:05):
Him and carry was the same age.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
They was born in the same year.
Speaker 7 (10:08):
They just months apart.
Speaker 14 (10:10):
It was an energie and then the things.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
That he said to Carlos.
Speaker 14 (10:13):
He was like, you still got a big brother.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Carlos is Carlos Ball, Carrie Ball's younger brother. He was
with his mother outside the Ferguson Police Department that night
when they heard Darren telling the crowd about Carrie.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
He said, I was trying to tell y'all just having it.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Darren looked over and he saw her.
Speaker 11 (10:33):
He was like, this is who I've been telling y'all
about carry Ball.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
This is his mom.
Speaker 15 (10:38):
Like if we just stood up like this neck last year,
like we're doing right now, we.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Probably wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Carlos and Darren formed a close friendship that lasted the
rest of Darren's life. Carlos told us that Darren had
a lot of plans for how he thought he could
help uplift the community.
Speaker 11 (10:55):
Darren was trying to come up.
Speaker 15 (10:56):
With some type of like platform similar or what if
we sell news it now, but like incorporating music podcasts
a different stuff of their nature, but just getting our
true stories out.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
He was trying to just create like our own platform
just for.
Speaker 15 (11:09):
The people, bringing better people.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
He was for his people.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He was for his people, and he was.
Speaker 15 (11:18):
Literally the true essence of Malcolm xIC by any means necessary.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
After Darren's murder, Tony Taylor met Darren's mother, Fannie, and
they formed a friendship.
Speaker 14 (11:30):
I didn't meet his mother the first year after losing him.
I think I left her a year or two later,
but Darren had already had told me about his mom.
Speaker 8 (11:41):
That you know, she was on dialysis.
Speaker 14 (11:43):
She didn't really believe in the protests and then all
of that until she went out there one day and
singing for herself. Now that me and her as close up,
she called me that too.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
She was like, I don't want my son out there.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
She was like, I was so scared for him. But
do you know what, from the time that Durrance out
to those streets, he was confined and his love that
he knew the police was going to kill him, and
he was preparing, she said.
Speaker 14 (12:10):
Mostly every day when they would talk, Darren would tell her,
all right, mam, I told you be prepared. They are
going to try to kill me.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
More after the break.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
Now back to the show, I do know that there
is a lot of sentiment in the community that they
want justice, they want the truth, and we hope to give.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
That to them.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
This is Benjamin Grande of the Saint Louis County Police
speaking to the media.
Speaker 8 (12:50):
We can't do it alone, so we're hoping that friends,
family members, acquaintances, so or just any members of the
community can come forward and help us out with this
with any information they may have.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Also representing the Saint Louis County Police, Sergeant Sean Maguire
was more blunt.
Speaker 8 (13:06):
At this point.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
We don't have anything, and that's where we're at the
brick wall, you know, as we're waiting for evidence, we're
waiting for just clues. We were able to get the
incident report regarding Darren's death, but that didn't reveal much
beyond when the nine when one call came in and
where his burning car was found. So we called the
Saint Louis County Police to see if we could get
(13:27):
any further information.
Speaker 17 (13:28):
So what are you looking for? And I'm trying to
pull up Darren zieals but I may not be spelling
it right. We get a lot of cases and this
doesn't jump out at me, So.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, totally, Yeah, so, and it was back in twenty sixteen,
and it seals seal even yeah, okay.
Speaker 17 (13:43):
Even more so than it wouldn't stand out to me.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So okay, let's see s als. Yeah, it was in Riverview,
September sixth, twenty sixteen, burning jeep.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
He was shot.
Speaker 17 (13:55):
I vaguely remember that, all right.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And I also just wanted to call and introduce myself
because we had previously, I think on season one, when
we were looking at a different case. It was Sergeant Gronda,
who was I think in your position.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
So I just wanted to kind of.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Call and say hi and let you know who we are.
I'm being extra polite because if you listen to season
one of our show, you'd know that our relationship with
the Saint Louis County Police wasn't the best, and I'm
trying to repair that. So there's no reason for them
to keep us from accessing information we might need to
solve Darren's case. The officer i'm speaking with, Sergeant Tracy Panis,
(14:35):
is new to the post, which fortunately gave us a
fresh start with the department.
Speaker 17 (14:40):
Yes, now I've got this report opened up, and I
do remember this one. Yeah, we really this is still
an open and active investigation, so there's really nothing that
we can share in it unfortunately. So yeah, there's really
not much that we can do with it. I will
touch base with our the investigator, the detective on the
and make sure there's nothing new.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
With the case still officially open, the police weren't going
to give us anything, so we began reaching out to
people who knew Darren and who'd gone to the scene
of his murder immediately after it happened.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
I not only walked up the cars, but I had
knocked on doors also, and a lot of people were
scirted even say anything. I don't know why they were scared.
It was me and some other brothers that were walking
up and knocking on doors and walking up the cars,
and a lot of people who wasn't trying to talk
(15:35):
to us for real.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
This is La La Moore.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
She's an activist in Ferguson and she knew Darren based
on what she knew of his character. She had certain
suspicions about his killer.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
Probablieve that whoever did it knew him, and Darren knew
them made him comfortable for them to pull it off
like that because Darren wouldn't go nowhere with nobody, no
random person that he don't know. I believe whoever it
was was close to him, because I ain't no way
(16:09):
you gonna let a stranger get in your car and
you just talking.
Speaker 12 (16:13):
And do you think it's possible that there was an
infiltrator that was trying to corner Darren because he was
so visible.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Me personally, I think the police had something to do
with it because of the lack of them trying to
help find the killer or killers. You should have seen
the crime scene like everything was still there, like everything
was still down, shells, bullet shells and all that stuff
(16:44):
was still at the crime scene, either somebody close to
him or the police. Didy Darren was finna expault on
some police activities. He had got pulled over by FUCU,
said police department, and got down to the ground him.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
They had looked this incident that Lala is referring to,
in which Darren was pulled over by the police, was
actually captured on video by a bystander who filmed it
with their phone.
Speaker 13 (17:12):
So I'm out here and I guess it's considered Ferguson
right off of West Floyd saying, and they got one two, three, four,
five police like five six shit and jump out boys police.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Which wants to jump out?
Speaker 10 (17:30):
Boy car.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I'm kind of good views here with a young deal over.
Speaker 13 (17:34):
That is actually one of the Ferguson processes that they got.
Regardless of whatever happened, one black man and eight police officers,
some that even jump out.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
After the police left, Darren came over to the person
who had been filming to give his account to the camera.
Speaker 10 (17:54):
Now I'm getting my version. Now we uprad the Dalas
Center on West FLOYDSA. It's me and my baby brother,
a ten years old. So we turned in some paperwork
for my mother. She's in the hospital right now. As
I'm pulling off, I get pulled over right here. They
pulled out point the guns at me. You've seen the
whole thing, right they pointing the whole They pointed guns
on me and my in, my fourteen year old though
(18:15):
brotherers focusing PD.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
They pulling.
Speaker 10 (18:17):
They pulled guns on me and my little butler. They
run to the car, They pull them out, grab you
by my heart, slamm me out the car, pull me
in cuffs, search my car illegally without my permission. Yeah,
I have no I gave them no permission to search
my vehicle. I told them they don't have consent to
search my vehicle. They searched my vehicle anyway. Then they
pulled me off the ground. They making costs of detective.
(18:38):
The detectives come that searched my car, say it stepping
in there. They say, did you go to the Trump rally?
I said yeah. He said, you pull some shit about
TRUP on Facebook. I said yeah. I said, what's that illegal?
Speaker 6 (18:50):
Now?
Speaker 10 (18:51):
He said no, that's nothing wrong with that, but you
might want to you might want to pick your enemies better.
I said, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 18 (18:59):
He said, uh.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Some people quote unquote called.
Speaker 10 (19:02):
In and said, I slank a lot of dog so
I make a lot of money and I post this
against Trump. I said, this bullshit. Everyone who followed my
page knows I worked fucking sixty days a week.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
Right, what drug deal?
Speaker 10 (19:13):
You know? Gonna be a public activist, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
So this ain't about to do enough drug. This is
about they're trying to pump fear into us.
Speaker 10 (19:20):
Young black man who got who got barred to stand there,
but against people like Trump, people like here llar Me,
people like all these motherfuckers. I'm hot bro thinking about
my brother. Man, I shit got me so fucking hot
man that shit't put a gun in a.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Fourteen year old face like like like it ain't nothing.
I ain't even mad about me though.
Speaker 10 (19:37):
They put a fucking gun in my brother's face and
putt him in the cuffs like he's a fucking nigga,
my little brother, like nobody's nigga. Cause they know I
don't play this shit. They know more than one's gonna
stand up. But you can keep on. Fuck on me,
bab They're about to kill me for me to stop.
Ain't no bitch that what they that what they gonna learn.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
I ain't.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I ain't the one. I don't for nothing, on for death,
on for noneing.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Because of this incident and others like it, and because
of everything Darren had been writing on his social media
pages right before his death, there was a growing suspicion
in the community and online that the police had something
to do with his murder.
Speaker 16 (20:19):
Activist Darren Seals, one of the original members that God
the Ferguson Uprising started, was found executed. Now. The reason
why we say he was executed is because we're going
to leak out the details of how this brother was killed.
This man was shot, put in a vehicle, and the
(20:40):
car was torched. That's not how your average thug, at
least black ones operate. That's someone they wanted to kill
him and destroy DNA evidence. Now, this man also stated
he was stopped by police twenty seven times. You have
a kind of an idea made. Who has something to
(21:01):
do with it. We're not saying that's what happened, but
a lot of people starting to get that idea all
over social media. We're seeing a pattern here.
Speaker 12 (21:09):
Do you think there's some movement people and police working together.
Speaker 7 (21:13):
We still don't know, because when they lock us up
for all our foss tap, when I tell you our
foss tap were prying to echo Facebook. We didn't trust nothing.
We didn't trust nothing and nobody. If you weren't out
there with us getting tick gas you, we didn't trust you.
But we did have fun that we thought was working
(21:35):
with the figs. I'm gonna leave them nameless.
Speaker 12 (21:39):
They didn't get.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
Far because we wouldn't talking around them. My other brother,
mye ain't not brother, he's dead too.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Now, So.
Speaker 7 (21:52):
Well, we still don't know.
Speaker 12 (21:55):
Well, oh lord, well I hope I do not upset you.
I hope I didn't upset you on that.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
This is a difficult situation to talk about because both
of these people was strong.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
People, my brothers.
Speaker 16 (22:23):
They deserve to be here, and we.
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Lose and ferguson front liners like left and right, and
nobody is trying to investigate about what is going on,
like ain't no way dar Ain't got shot in the
head and then burned up. They assassin in him, and
I really believe is somebody close to him or the
(22:48):
police did because they're not trying to investigate. They're not
trying to figure out what happened to them. They're not
trying to do nothing about their steals murder. You should
have seen the crime scene, like everything was still there,
like everything was still there.
Speaker 12 (23:04):
They didn't they didn't.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
Put you know how when police is put it like
uh what the uh yeah they put and what numbers
on shells, bullet shells, all that stuff was still at
the crime thing.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
What Lala is saying about the messy crime scene and
the bullet shells being left in place on the parking
lot was repeated by other activists and well documented by
the photographs they took and posted online. Reviewing those photographs,
one can see that the door to Darrens burn jeep
was left behind, and there's debris everywhere. That includes the
(23:45):
blue latex gloves the police investigators would have worn, and
that they seemingly left lane on the parking lot.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
Like the same was just everywhere, like people couldn't tamper
with the evidence, and it was shellcases on the ground
like he was picking it up, and like the yellow
tape crime scene tape was you know, all over the
ground on and people was can't remember with everything.
Speaker 11 (24:10):
I find you on Instagram with one of the bullets.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
But you can tell that the cops really didn't care,
you know, about his death.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
That's why, like a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
Had their theories on what happened to him, you know,
if the cops doing was it some old street big.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
This is Bodine, a Saint Louis rapper and friend of Darren's.
I asked him what he loved about Darren and why
he thought he was such an important figure in the movement.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
When I first met him, I had met him at
a show. He had already knew of me, but he
had introduced himself. He just had a real big personality,
like he's like, hey man, I'm seals meet too. He
just had a real, like big personality and but at
the same time it was like welcome men.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
You can tell just.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
By his like presence and how he carried him of that.
He was like a strong brother and like he was
a He was a man's man. He gonna get respect,
but he's not gonna take disrespect. He just had that
type of attitude, you know what I mean. He just
had a real confidence about himself. He wasn't scared to
speak his mind. If he felt you were being found.
(25:19):
If he can't agree with what you was, you know,
moving how he was moving, He's gonna call you out,
whether you were homie or just a you know, a
regular Joe or somebody random. He don't come you out
if he felt that, you know, you wasn't authentic.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
In short time, Daron and Voting became close.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
He invited me and my brother to a Sunday dinner
with his mother. I met his mom, met his little brother.
Speaker 12 (25:46):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
So like family was important, you know what I'm saying.
To like him, like if he really rock with you,
you know, he treated you like family and that translated
through the you know, the movement piece as well. He
was really one of the few people who could connect
with the street guys and just the everyday people, and
people would take what he said as the real deal
(26:10):
in regards to police brutality and what's going on out
there during that time, because he was also once out
in the streets, you know, living that lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Now here's my next question. Do you think it was
possibly gang related?
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Don't?
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
It might have maybe from my knowledge just had a
conversation with him. He wasn't involved in that lifestyle anymore,
but it could have been an old beef. I like,
think what change his life around to make him do better?
He got shot, He got shot a couple of times,
and he almost you know, he got shot like five,
five or six times, and that.
Speaker 11 (26:48):
Changed his life.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
In twenty thirteen, while waiting outside a family member's house
on Fourteenth Street in Saint Louis, Dary was shot six times.
After he recovered, he went before the Saint Louis Board
of Aldermen to complain about the treatment he'd received from
the Saint Louis City police, who'd arrived unseeen out.
Speaker 18 (27:10):
Of the fuck we set up to the scene. Thirty
five forty minutes later. They had no curtesy forgetting me,
any type of letter, what test, any type of health,
nothing like the only.
Speaker 11 (27:22):
The sound was who robs? Who shots?
Speaker 14 (27:26):
Who is?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And they asked me about three forty four times?
Speaker 5 (27:29):
So I said it or you wanted to?
Speaker 18 (27:30):
He asked me about when he shot.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
At me white, you don't want to do some help?
I won't let him die. He said exact words I called.
We don't need to damn any die. It wasn't just
three white cops. It was a black hawkster. So I'm
gonna fix two hundred dollars a week of my aren't money.
I need some holies to get it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Dam I'm gonna die.
Speaker 11 (27:55):
That's what you know.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
Made him become the man we seem to today. Was
like being out there and fighting for the people and everything.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I wanted to know what Booting thought about the fact
that Darren's car and body were set on fire after
he was shot. To me, it seemed so unusual for
a typical street level killing.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
We heard the.
Speaker 6 (28:16):
Story on the news. The man said that he's seen
somebody drag verbody out a car and put it into
like the other car or something like that.
Speaker 8 (28:26):
Where was this?
Speaker 5 (28:27):
This was on the news.
Speaker 6 (28:29):
This was a little bit. I think he got killed
about like a couple of days after, and they had
like a dude on news talking about it. They like
blurt out his face and everything. But like he said
that he's seeing what happened. And now I'm not sure
if you a remember, like on Facebook, somebody recorded the video.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Of his car being on fire, this story about a
witness who'd seen Darren's murder.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
That was news to us.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
We searched the internet but couldn't find the news story
Booting was talking about. We also couldn't find the video
of Darren's burning jeep on Facebook and presumed it must
have been scrubbed for terms of service violations.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
When he died and I told my dad what happened,
he said that whoever did it, it was definitely personal.
Speaker 11 (29:13):
When he was coming up.
Speaker 6 (29:14):
You know in streetcats had issues. That's how they kill people.
You know, they would set you on far so to
get rid of the prints and everything.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I wanted voting to tell me about what Darren had
going on in his life. In twenty sixteen, just before
he died.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
Just working on a project working on his red skills,
just trying to get them better. He was managing a
group called the Bottom Boys, I believe him, that was
her name. He was managing them at the time, so
he was putting all this resources and tough into them.
So like that last come vote that I talked to
him like he was excited about that. So you know,
(29:54):
like I said, he had a lot of things that
was going on, some good things, you know, like that.
The last conversation was a very good conversation. And I
wish I would have stayed on the phone with on
the follower.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
If I would have known.
Speaker 11 (30:08):
It that was the last time I would have talked
to him.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
I definitely would have just let him keep on talking
and you know, just just.
Speaker 11 (30:14):
Talk the day away.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
But that's life.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
We never know. But I'm glad that you know that
last combo was a good one. We are left on good.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Times more after the break.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Now back to the show.
Speaker 11 (30:45):
So he was shot once, Yeah, she was shot once
behind his ear and it came out the other side
of his ears. Sorry, and he died instantly and through.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
The driver's side window.
Speaker 11 (31:00):
Well yeah, so he's sitting in the in the driver's seat.
It's like someone comes up to the car from the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Was he apparently trying to pull away at that point
in time or was he like party?
Speaker 11 (31:13):
And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Did you ever get any kind of like a report
or anything you might be able to pass along.
Speaker 11 (31:19):
No, I didn't that. I don't feel like they put
into the case.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
On this call, I'm speaking with Dante Joshua. I know
it may sound like we're talking about the murder of
Darren Seals.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
We're not.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
We're talking about the murder of Dante's twin brother, DeAndre Joshua.
DeAndre is one of the people whose death gets listed
as one of the Ferguson Mystery deaths. This is because
DeAndre was close friends with Dorian Johnson, the young man
who was walking with Mike Brown Junior when he was
killed by Officer Darren Wilson, and because DeAndre happened to
(31:53):
have been murdered on the night when it was announced
that Darren Wilson would not be indicted for that killing.
The reason we're calling Dante to talk about his brother
is because the manner in which he was murdered is
so strikingly similar to that of Darren Seals. Both men
were shot in the head while in cars that were
set on fire. Though the car DeAndre was in didn't
fully burn, we figured the similarity in tactics was worth
(32:17):
looking into. The police still haven't solved his brother's murder,
so we asked Dante if he thought he knew who
was responsible, and surprisingly he had a name.
Speaker 6 (32:29):
Did you all ever have a suspect?
Speaker 11 (32:31):
I really don't think I should straying these We assumed
somebody did it, and our podcasted because it was like
our friends. So now that he just got locked up
with a sick murders and two of them was in
the area that the siding, should he killed my brother?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Was it similar where he tried to burn the bodies
one of them?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You?
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Now, can I ask you if if the person's facing
charges on six murders, then what is the harm? And
thrown the name out there?
Speaker 11 (33:02):
I mean it was read.
Speaker 7 (33:03):
It was ok.
Speaker 11 (33:04):
They used to shoot Dicelt all the time.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Darren Seals was killed in the early morning hours between
September fifth and sixth, twenty sixteen. We started our investigation
into his death in early twenty twenty two, with the
police unable to give us their report detailing what leads
they had and which ones were worth pursuing. We were
going to have to talk to everyone we could who
knew Darren or who had any information regarding what was
(33:32):
going on in his life right before he died. As
DeAndre Joshua was killed two years before Darren, did it
matter that both men were executed in a similar fashion?
Could their deaths be connected? Or is the fact that
both men were shot in the head and left in
burning cars merely a coincidence? And what should be made
of Dante Joshua's suspicion that his brother was killed by
(33:54):
the now incarcerated Perez Read a man who, as of
this writing, has been accused of seven murders, A man
who's been dubbed a serial killer. That's next time on
After the Uprising. After the Uprising is a production of
Double Asterisk and iHeart Podcasts in association with True Stories.
(34:18):
Season two was written, reported, and produced by Maria Chappelle, Nadal,
John Duffy, Malory Kenoy, and Renovashwski. Executive producers are Niki
Atore and Lindsay Hoffman for iHeart Podcasts, John Duffy and
Reinovishewski for Double Asterisk. David Cassidy and Ruth Baka for
True Stories directed by John Duffy and Renovashlsky. Theme song
(34:39):
and score by Zachary Walter. Sound engineering and mixed by
John Autry. Fact checking by Muffin Humes. Marketing by Alison Canter,
Fair Use legal by Peter Yazzi and Brandon Butler. Legal
by Holly Decan for iHeart Podcasts and Keith Sklarr for
Double Asterisk Missouri. Sunshine Legal by David Rowland. Show logo
(35:00):
by iHeart Podcasts using a photo by at Tillo Dagostino.
Our interns were Hannah Madura and Rosemary Fiery. Website by
Stephanie Clark, recorded at David Weber's Airtime Studios in Bloomington, Indiana.
We want to acknowledge additional investigation that became part of
this podcast was conducted by Detective Adams in the Saint
(35:20):
Louis County Police and the FBI, who did not participate
in this podcast, and by a Mere Brandy Mosey Secret
and Darnell Singleton. If you like our work, check out
our other podcasts. You can find us at Double Asteriskmedia
dot com and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Support us
on Patreon. If you're enjoying the show, leave us a
(35:42):
rating and review on your favorite podcast app. Thank you
to Jamie Dennis, Danny Gonzalez, Jonathan Hartwig, Bethan macalouso, Matt McDonough,
Melissa McKinnes, Ryan Mears, Tony and Valenovoshlski, and the family
and loved ones of Darren Seals, Bottom Boys, and Doa.
Tracks used via Fuse. So was the News Reporting. Archival
(36:03):
copyright twenty twenty four double asteriskkink
Hi, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
My name is Maria and I'm with Ray. How are
you doing today?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
We're told you you've lived here for a while. There
was a young man in twenty sixteen that was killed
on this block, and there's another gentleman who was an
activist who we're told may have also been killed that
same night. And I guess we were just trying to
figure out anyone around here remembers that when he's sixteen
September twenty sixteen. I think he was killed around one am.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Yeah, like you really want to know like this, like
this gotta be a connection right here.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
This guy, he lives right here, So I mean, what
do you know?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Actually, we've been to several other homes, and so you're
actually one of the last homes we've been to today
in all honesty.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Well, so I'm a podcast journalist and I'm a former
state Senator Maria Chappelle Nadal, and so we are doing.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
A podcast about mysterious deaths that have occurred since the
person Uprising. And there's one gentleman in particular who has
been positioned here as a place that he was shot.
Speaker 6 (01:15):
Not here.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
I didn't know this.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, we do, We do appreciate all of your time,
and as I said, sir, I.
Speaker 7 (01:23):
Just don't see how I fit into I just don't.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
Know what I could say that would have helped you. Man,
I don't understood. I don't see I don't know how
I could happen. Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
My name is Reyno Visselski. In twenty twenty one, I
produced and co hosted the first season of After the
Uprising with John Duffy. Across eleven episodes, we investigated the
hanging death of Donye Dion Jones, a young black man
from Saint Louis, Missouri. Donye's mother, Melissa mckinnis, was a
frontline activist during the uprising in fergus in twenty fourteen,
(02:01):
and she believed that her son had been murdered, despite
the police telling her that he died by suicide. You
don't have to listen to season one to follow this season,
but if you do, you'll get a lot of additional context.
In making season one, we became friends with former Missouri
state senator and state representative Maria Chappelle Nadal, who herself
(02:22):
took to the streets during the protests in Ferguson that
followed the killing of Mike Brown.
Speaker 8 (02:26):
Junior.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Maria has joined our team as we investigate the death
of another man from Saint Louis, the well known activist
Darren Seals, who was killed on September sixth, twenty sixteenthty two.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Right now, we're knocking on doors in the twenty eight
hundred block of Gamble Street, asking if anyone remembers a
shooting that happened six years prior. We're working a hunch
that this was the area where Darren was shot and killed,
despite the fact that his body was found nine miles
away in Riverview. As you heard, we didn't have much
(02:59):
sin access.
Speaker 9 (03:10):
What you're looking for is the aftermath of the grand
jury deciding not to indict.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Off The.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Nine year old Darren Seals was murdered before his killer
set his car on fire.
Speaker 9 (03:25):
Once they put out the flames, they discovered Seal's body
inside with a gunshop.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
You want a gun on me?
Speaker 10 (03:34):
Am I am I posing your other brothers focus of PD.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Grab you by my heart, slam me out the corn.
Speaker 10 (03:45):
He says, you might want you might want to pick
your enemies better.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
This is after The Uprising Season two, The murder of
Darren Seals.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
Emergency nine and one Sinleis County at this emergency read
new important.
Speaker 11 (04:05):
It's a fire my apartment line like this.
Speaker 10 (04:07):
Car is on fire.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
There's now there's a car on fire.
Speaker 11 (04:10):
Yes, all right, stand the phone for the fire department. Okay,
they don't even hit the gas yet.
Speaker 12 (04:18):
Fire name Amy.
Speaker 11 (04:22):
Yes, I'm at.
Speaker 13 (04:23):
Ninety six to forty din the drive and it's a
call on fire in my parking.
Speaker 14 (04:27):
Line out on the Frankness Fund of ninety fifth party won.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
The fire department pulled up there, that's see the fire,
let's see.
Speaker 11 (04:35):
All right, well I'm anything.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
This ninety one one call was made at one eighteen
am on September sixth, twenty sixteen. The apartment complex where
Jeep Wrangler was fully ablaze in the parking lot was
in Riverview, a small Saint Louis County municipality. When the
fire department arrived, they had no idea that when they
extinguished the blaze they would find the yearly burned body
(05:01):
of a man inside. The Riverview Police department is too
small to have a homicide unit, so they called in
the assistance of the Saint Louis County Police Department, which.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Took over the case.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
They were quickly able to determine that the jeep belonged
to Darren Seals, but it would take several more hours
for them to confirm that it was his body left
inside the burning vehicle. Then the news of Darren's death
moved quickly across not only Saint Louis, but the world.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
And night to Maria.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Residents say they've lost a voids an activist. During the
Ferguson unrest, twenty nine year old Darren Seals was murdered
before his killer set his.
Speaker 8 (05:40):
Car on fire.
Speaker 9 (05:40):
Seals was found shot inside a burning car in Riverview
on Diamond Drive. Police initially thought they were responding to
a car on fire. Someone who lives in the area
tells News Force she heard a boom before the car
was discovered burning.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Seal's charred body was found in the wreckage of his car.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Investigators say there's no known motive in the killing.
Speaker 15 (06:02):
Seals, who was also a rap artist, frequently tweeted about racism,
police violence, and politics.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Darren having been a major figure in the Ferguson movement,
not to mention his involvement in the local hip hop scene,
had become something of a celebrity, so his funeral was
a packed house event. After several heartfelt and fiery speeches,
the large crowd chanted his name, and passing cars honked
their horns as pallbearers carried his coffin from the church.
Speaker 16 (06:31):
Zoozuzu.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Darren was a complicated man who, though he died at
the young age of twenty nine, had already lived a
complicated life, and the story of how and why he
came to be shot in the head and left in
a burning car is of that complexity. On his Twitter bio,
Darren described himself as quote businessman, revolutionary activist, unapologetically black,
(07:11):
all caps African in America. That's three k's in America. There,
fighter leader, but he was so much more. Depending on
who you ask. Darren was a son, a big and
little brother, an employee of General Motors, a convicted felon,
an artist, a protector. Again, Darren was complicated. I knew
(07:37):
Darren not well, but I had seen him out in
the streets of Ferguson during the protest that followed the
killing of Mike Brown Junior by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
I remember him being fierce and brave. Darren explained how
he came to the protest. To filmmaker J Black on
his YouTube channel.
Speaker 16 (08:00):
Pretty good, Now, how did you first start with the
organizing and mobilization and first and after white brown and.
Speaker 10 (08:06):
Then he was murdered because he died so close to
my home. I just went out there, and I really
didn't even know what I was doing.
Speaker 8 (08:14):
I just knew I wasn't going.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Nowhere until we did something body.
Speaker 10 (08:17):
There was just people in the community coming together, a
small group of people, black men, black women.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
We were trying to see what the hill was going on.
And I was he gunned down like that?
Speaker 10 (08:26):
Yeah, we were just trying to check up on his
mom's And originally when it first had happened, I was,
of course I was concerned, but black mother just lost
her son.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
But I walked her home and she cried to me.
She threw up, She was real sick.
Speaker 10 (08:43):
She was just really just lost, you know, and she
didn't know what was gonna happen, what to do, And
I told her, I gave him my word.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
I said, I'm not leaving. I'm not stopping until we
get justice. We're gonna figure out happening to the son.
Speaker 14 (08:56):
Actually he was standing up on that ledge right up
by the brook sent Police Department and all of us
be out there.
Speaker 6 (09:03):
We got our signs, we got everything.
Speaker 14 (09:05):
And so I heard Dr Durne said, I tried to
tell you guys this last year when it happened to
Carrie Ball Junior.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So all of my family.
Speaker 12 (09:13):
He turned around me like, who is this man.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
This is Tony Taylor. She's the mother of Carrie Ball Junior,
the young black man who was shot twenty five times
by the Saint Louis Metropolitan Police after a high speed
chase back in twenty thirteen. She is describing meeting Darren
Seals for the first time during the Ferguson protests.
Speaker 14 (09:36):
And so when he got down off the ledge, I
went over and I tapped him on his shoulder.
Speaker 7 (09:41):
I was fitter saying, now, durn I'm carry's mom.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
But he's seeing my poster.
Speaker 7 (09:46):
So he instantly said you.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Carry his mother.
Speaker 14 (09:49):
And it just blew up from her and he was like,
and everybody, you see the hand in the face because
it's like the police started trying to rush at us.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
And he's like, no, that's up.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
It's a mother.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And I just went grow like I told his mom.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
I looked at him as like my son.
Speaker 14 (10:05):
Him and carry was the same age.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
They was born in the same year.
Speaker 7 (10:08):
They just months apart.
Speaker 14 (10:10):
It was an energie and then the things.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
That he said to Carlos.
Speaker 14 (10:13):
He was like, you still got a big brother.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Carlos is Carlos Ball, Carrie Ball's younger brother. He was
with his mother outside the Ferguson Police Department that night
when they heard Darren telling the crowd about Carrie.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
He said, I was trying to tell y'all just having it.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Darren looked over and he saw her.
Speaker 11 (10:33):
He was like, this is who I've been telling y'all
about carry Ball.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
This is his mom.
Speaker 15 (10:38):
Like if we just stood up like this neck last year,
like we're doing right now, we.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Probably wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Carlos and Darren formed a close friendship that lasted the
rest of Darren's life. Carlos told us that Darren had
a lot of plans for how he thought he could
help uplift the community.
Speaker 11 (10:55):
Darren was trying to come up.
Speaker 15 (10:56):
With some type of like platform similar or what if
we sell news it now, but like incorporating music podcasts
a different stuff of their nature, but just getting our
true stories out.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
He was trying to just create like our own platform
just for.
Speaker 15 (11:09):
The people, bringing better people.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
He was for his people.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He was for his people, and he was.
Speaker 15 (11:18):
Literally the true essence of Malcolm xIC by any means necessary.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
After Darren's murder, Tony Taylor met Darren's mother, Fannie, and
they formed a friendship.
Speaker 14 (11:30):
I didn't meet his mother the first year after losing him.
I think I left her a year or two later,
but Darren had already had told me about his mom.
Speaker 8 (11:41):
That you know, she was on dialysis.
Speaker 14 (11:43):
She didn't really believe in the protests and then all
of that until she went out there one day and
singing for herself. Now that me and her as close up,
she called me that too.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
She was like, I don't want my son out there.
Speaker 6 (11:55):
She was like, I was so scared for him. But
do you know what, from the time that Durrance out
to those streets, he was confined and his love that
he knew the police was going to kill him, and
he was preparing, she said.
Speaker 14 (12:10):
Mostly every day when they would talk, Darren would tell her,
all right, mam, I told you be prepared. They are
going to try to kill me.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
More after the break.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
Now back to the show, I do know that there
is a lot of sentiment in the community that they
want justice, they want the truth, and we hope to give.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
That to them.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
This is Benjamin Grande of the Saint Louis County Police
speaking to the media.
Speaker 8 (12:50):
We can't do it alone, so we're hoping that friends,
family members, acquaintances, so or just any members of the
community can come forward and help us out with this
with any information they may have.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Also representing the Saint Louis County Police, Sergeant Sean Maguire
was more blunt.
Speaker 8 (13:06):
At this point.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
We don't have anything, and that's where we're at the
brick wall, you know, as we're waiting for evidence, we're
waiting for just clues. We were able to get the
incident report regarding Darren's death, but that didn't reveal much
beyond when the nine when one call came in and
where his burning car was found. So we called the
Saint Louis County Police to see if we could get
(13:27):
any further information.
Speaker 17 (13:28):
So what are you looking for? And I'm trying to
pull up Darren zieals but I may not be spelling
it right. We get a lot of cases and this
doesn't jump out at me, So.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, totally, Yeah, so, and it was back in twenty sixteen,
and it seals seal even yeah, okay.
Speaker 17 (13:43):
Even more so than it wouldn't stand out to me.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So okay, let's see s als. Yeah, it was in Riverview,
September sixth, twenty sixteen, burning jeep.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
He was shot.
Speaker 17 (13:55):
I vaguely remember that, all right.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And I also just wanted to call and introduce myself
because we had previously, I think on season one, when
we were looking at a different case. It was Sergeant Gronda,
who was I think in your position.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
So I just wanted to kind of.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Call and say hi and let you know who we are.
I'm being extra polite because if you listen to season
one of our show, you'd know that our relationship with
the Saint Louis County Police wasn't the best, and I'm
trying to repair that. So there's no reason for them
to keep us from accessing information we might need to
solve Darren's case. The officer i'm speaking with, Sergeant Tracy Panis,
(14:35):
is new to the post, which fortunately gave us a
fresh start with the department.
Speaker 17 (14:40):
Yes, now I've got this report opened up, and I
do remember this one. Yeah, we really this is still
an open and active investigation, so there's really nothing that
we can share in it unfortunately. So yeah, there's really
not much that we can do with it. I will
touch base with our the investigator, the detective on the
and make sure there's nothing new.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
With the case still officially open, the police weren't going
to give us anything, so we began reaching out to
people who knew Darren and who'd gone to the scene
of his murder immediately after it happened.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
I not only walked up the cars, but I had
knocked on doors also, and a lot of people were
scirted even say anything. I don't know why they were scared.
It was me and some other brothers that were walking
up and knocking on doors and walking up the cars,
and a lot of people who wasn't trying to talk
(15:35):
to us for real.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
This is La La Moore.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
She's an activist in Ferguson and she knew Darren based
on what she knew of his character. She had certain
suspicions about his killer.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
Probablieve that whoever did it knew him, and Darren knew
them made him comfortable for them to pull it off
like that because Darren wouldn't go nowhere with nobody, no
random person that he don't know. I believe whoever it
was was close to him, because I ain't no way
(16:09):
you gonna let a stranger get in your car and
you just talking.
Speaker 12 (16:13):
And do you think it's possible that there was an
infiltrator that was trying to corner Darren because he was
so visible.
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Me personally, I think the police had something to do
with it because of the lack of them trying to
help find the killer or killers. You should have seen
the crime scene like everything was still there, like everything
was still down, shells, bullet shells and all that stuff
(16:44):
was still at the crime scene, either somebody close to
him or the police. Didy Darren was finna expault on
some police activities. He had got pulled over by FUCU,
said police department, and got down to the ground him.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
They had looked this incident that Lala is referring to,
in which Darren was pulled over by the police, was
actually captured on video by a bystander who filmed it
with their phone.
Speaker 13 (17:12):
So I'm out here and I guess it's considered Ferguson
right off of West Floyd saying, and they got one two, three, four,
five police like five six shit and jump out boys police.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Which wants to jump out?
Speaker 10 (17:30):
Boy car.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I'm kind of good views here with a young deal over.
Speaker 13 (17:34):
That is actually one of the Ferguson processes that they got.
Regardless of whatever happened, one black man and eight police officers,
some that even jump out.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
After the police left, Darren came over to the person
who had been filming to give his account to the camera.
Speaker 10 (17:54):
Now I'm getting my version. Now we uprad the Dalas
Center on West FLOYDSA. It's me and my baby brother,
a ten years old. So we turned in some paperwork
for my mother. She's in the hospital right now. As
I'm pulling off, I get pulled over right here. They
pulled out point the guns at me. You've seen the
whole thing, right they pointing the whole They pointed guns
on me and my in, my fourteen year old though
(18:15):
brotherers focusing PD.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
They pulling.
Speaker 10 (18:17):
They pulled guns on me and my little butler. They
run to the car, They pull them out, grab you
by my heart, slamm me out the car, pull me
in cuffs, search my car illegally without my permission. Yeah,
I have no I gave them no permission to search
my vehicle. I told them they don't have consent to
search my vehicle. They searched my vehicle anyway. Then they
pulled me off the ground. They making costs of detective.
(18:38):
The detectives come that searched my car, say it stepping
in there. They say, did you go to the Trump rally?
I said yeah. He said, you pull some shit about
TRUP on Facebook. I said yeah. I said, what's that illegal?
Speaker 6 (18:50):
Now?
Speaker 10 (18:51):
He said no, that's nothing wrong with that, but you
might want to you might want to pick your enemies better.
I said, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 18 (18:59):
He said, uh.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Some people quote unquote called.
Speaker 10 (19:02):
In and said, I slank a lot of dog so
I make a lot of money and I post this
against Trump. I said, this bullshit. Everyone who followed my
page knows I worked fucking sixty days a week.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
Right, what drug deal?
Speaker 10 (19:13):
You know? Gonna be a public activist, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
So this ain't about to do enough drug. This is
about they're trying to pump fear into us.
Speaker 10 (19:20):
Young black man who got who got barred to stand there,
but against people like Trump, people like here llar Me,
people like all these motherfuckers. I'm hot bro thinking about
my brother. Man, I shit got me so fucking hot
man that shit't put a gun in a.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Fourteen year old face like like like it ain't nothing.
I ain't even mad about me though.
Speaker 10 (19:37):
They put a fucking gun in my brother's face and
putt him in the cuffs like he's a fucking nigga,
my little brother, like nobody's nigga. Cause they know I
don't play this shit. They know more than one's gonna
stand up. But you can keep on. Fuck on me,
bab They're about to kill me for me to stop.
Ain't no bitch that what they that what they gonna learn.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
I ain't.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I ain't the one. I don't for nothing, on for death,
on for noneing.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Because of this incident and others like it, and because
of everything Darren had been writing on his social media
pages right before his death, there was a growing suspicion
in the community and online that the police had something
to do with his murder.
Speaker 16 (20:19):
Activist Darren Seals, one of the original members that God
the Ferguson Uprising started, was found executed. Now. The reason
why we say he was executed is because we're going
to leak out the details of how this brother was killed.
This man was shot, put in a vehicle, and the
(20:40):
car was torched. That's not how your average thug, at
least black ones operate. That's someone they wanted to kill
him and destroy DNA evidence. Now, this man also stated
he was stopped by police twenty seven times. You have
a kind of an idea made. Who has something to
(21:01):
do with it. We're not saying that's what happened, but
a lot of people starting to get that idea all
over social media. We're seeing a pattern here.
Speaker 12 (21:09):
Do you think there's some movement people and police working together.
Speaker 7 (21:13):
We still don't know, because when they lock us up
for all our foss tap, when I tell you our
foss tap were prying to echo Facebook. We didn't trust nothing.
We didn't trust nothing and nobody. If you weren't out
there with us getting tick gas you, we didn't trust you.
But we did have fun that we thought was working
(21:35):
with the figs. I'm gonna leave them nameless.
Speaker 12 (21:39):
They didn't get.
Speaker 7 (21:39):
Far because we wouldn't talking around them. My other brother,
mye ain't not brother, he's dead too.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Now, So.
Speaker 7 (21:52):
Well, we still don't know.
Speaker 12 (21:55):
Well, oh lord, well I hope I do not upset you.
I hope I didn't upset you on that.
Speaker 7 (22:12):
This is a difficult situation to talk about because both
of these people was strong.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
People, my brothers.
Speaker 16 (22:23):
They deserve to be here, and we.
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Lose and ferguson front liners like left and right, and
nobody is trying to investigate about what is going on,
like ain't no way dar Ain't got shot in the
head and then burned up. They assassin in him, and
I really believe is somebody close to him or the
(22:48):
police did because they're not trying to investigate. They're not
trying to figure out what happened to them. They're not
trying to do nothing about their steals murder. You should
have seen the crime scene, like everything was still there,
like everything was still there.
Speaker 12 (23:04):
They didn't they didn't.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
Put you know how when police is put it like
uh what the uh yeah they put and what numbers
on shells, bullet shells, all that stuff was still at
the crime thing.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
What Lala is saying about the messy crime scene and
the bullet shells being left in place on the parking
lot was repeated by other activists and well documented by
the photographs they took and posted online. Reviewing those photographs,
one can see that the door to Darrens burn jeep
was left behind, and there's debris everywhere. That includes the
(23:45):
blue latex gloves the police investigators would have worn, and
that they seemingly left lane on the parking lot.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
Like the same was just everywhere, like people couldn't tamper
with the evidence, and it was shellcases on the ground
like he was picking it up, and like the yellow
tape crime scene tape was you know, all over the
ground on and people was can't remember with everything.
Speaker 11 (24:10):
I find you on Instagram with one of the bullets.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
But you can tell that the cops really didn't care,
you know, about his death.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
That's why, like a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
Had their theories on what happened to him, you know,
if the cops doing was it some old street big.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
This is Bodine, a Saint Louis rapper and friend of Darren's.
I asked him what he loved about Darren and why
he thought he was such an important figure in the movement.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
When I first met him, I had met him at
a show. He had already knew of me, but he
had introduced himself. He just had a real big personality,
like he's like, hey man, I'm seals meet too. He
just had a real, like big personality and but at
the same time it was like welcome men.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
You can tell just.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
By his like presence and how he carried him of that.
He was like a strong brother and like he was
a He was a man's man. He gonna get respect,
but he's not gonna take disrespect. He just had that
type of attitude, you know what I mean. He just
had a real confidence about himself. He wasn't scared to
speak his mind. If he felt you were being found.
(25:19):
If he can't agree with what you was, you know,
moving how he was moving, He's gonna call you out,
whether you were homie or just a you know, a
regular Joe or somebody random. He don't come you out
if he felt that, you know, you wasn't authentic.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
In short time, Daron and Voting became close.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
He invited me and my brother to a Sunday dinner
with his mother. I met his mom, met his little brother.
Speaker 12 (25:46):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
So like family was important, you know what I'm saying.
To like him, like if he really rock with you,
you know, he treated you like family and that translated
through the you know, the movement piece as well. He
was really one of the few people who could connect
with the street guys and just the everyday people, and
people would take what he said as the real deal
(26:10):
in regards to police brutality and what's going on out
there during that time, because he was also once out
in the streets, you know, living that lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Now here's my next question. Do you think it was
possibly gang related?
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Don't?
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (26:27):
It might have maybe from my knowledge just had a
conversation with him. He wasn't involved in that lifestyle anymore,
but it could have been an old beef. I like,
think what change his life around to make him do better?
He got shot, He got shot a couple of times,
and he almost you know, he got shot like five,
five or six times, and that.
Speaker 11 (26:48):
Changed his life.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
In twenty thirteen, while waiting outside a family member's house
on Fourteenth Street in Saint Louis, Dary was shot six times.
After he recovered, he went before the Saint Louis Board
of Aldermen to complain about the treatment he'd received from
the Saint Louis City police, who'd arrived unseeen out.
Speaker 18 (27:10):
Of the fuck we set up to the scene. Thirty
five forty minutes later. They had no curtesy forgetting me,
any type of letter, what test, any type of health,
nothing like the only.
Speaker 11 (27:22):
The sound was who robs? Who shots?
Speaker 14 (27:26):
Who is?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
And they asked me about three forty four times?
Speaker 5 (27:29):
So I said it or you wanted to?
Speaker 18 (27:30):
He asked me about when he shot.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
At me white, you don't want to do some help?
I won't let him die. He said exact words I called.
We don't need to damn any die. It wasn't just
three white cops. It was a black hawkster. So I'm
gonna fix two hundred dollars a week of my aren't money.
I need some holies to get it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Dam I'm gonna die.
Speaker 11 (27:55):
That's what you know.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
Made him become the man we seem to today. Was
like being out there and fighting for the people and everything.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I wanted to know what Booting thought about the fact
that Darren's car and body were set on fire after
he was shot. To me, it seemed so unusual for
a typical street level killing.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
We heard the.
Speaker 6 (28:16):
Story on the news. The man said that he's seen
somebody drag verbody out a car and put it into
like the other car or something like that.
Speaker 8 (28:26):
Where was this?
Speaker 5 (28:27):
This was on the news.
Speaker 6 (28:29):
This was a little bit. I think he got killed
about like a couple of days after, and they had
like a dude on news talking about it. They like
blurt out his face and everything. But like he said
that he's seeing what happened. And now I'm not sure
if you a remember, like on Facebook, somebody recorded the video.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Of his car being on fire, this story about a
witness who'd seen Darren's murder.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
That was news to us.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
We searched the internet but couldn't find the news story
Booting was talking about. We also couldn't find the video
of Darren's burning jeep on Facebook and presumed it must
have been scrubbed for terms of service violations.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
When he died and I told my dad what happened,
he said that whoever did it, it was definitely personal.
Speaker 11 (29:13):
When he was coming up.
Speaker 6 (29:14):
You know in streetcats had issues. That's how they kill people.
You know, they would set you on far so to
get rid of the prints and everything.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I wanted voting to tell me about what Darren had
going on in his life. In twenty sixteen, just before
he died.
Speaker 6 (29:31):
Just working on a project working on his red skills,
just trying to get them better. He was managing a
group called the Bottom Boys, I believe him, that was
her name. He was managing them at the time, so
he was putting all this resources and tough into them.
So like that last come vote that I talked to
him like he was excited about that. So you know,
(29:54):
like I said, he had a lot of things that
was going on, some good things, you know, like that.
The last conversation was a very good conversation. And I
wish I would have stayed on the phone with on
the follower.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
If I would have known.
Speaker 11 (30:08):
It that was the last time I would have talked
to him.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
I definitely would have just let him keep on talking
and you know, just just.
Speaker 11 (30:14):
Talk the day away.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
But that's life.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
We never know. But I'm glad that you know that
last combo was a good one. We are left on good.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Times more after the break.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Now back to the show.
Speaker 11 (30:45):
So he was shot once, Yeah, she was shot once
behind his ear and it came out the other side
of his ears. Sorry, and he died instantly and through.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
The driver's side window.
Speaker 11 (31:00):
Well yeah, so he's sitting in the in the driver's seat.
It's like someone comes up to the car from the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Was he apparently trying to pull away at that point
in time or was he like party?
Speaker 11 (31:13):
And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Did you ever get any kind of like a report
or anything you might be able to pass along.
Speaker 11 (31:19):
No, I didn't that. I don't feel like they put
into the case.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
On this call, I'm speaking with Dante Joshua. I know
it may sound like we're talking about the murder of
Darren Seals.
Speaker 6 (31:30):
We're not.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
We're talking about the murder of Dante's twin brother, DeAndre Joshua.
DeAndre is one of the people whose death gets listed
as one of the Ferguson Mystery deaths. This is because
DeAndre was close friends with Dorian Johnson, the young man
who was walking with Mike Brown Junior when he was
killed by Officer Darren Wilson, and because DeAndre happened to
(31:53):
have been murdered on the night when it was announced
that Darren Wilson would not be indicted for that killing.
The reason we're calling Dante to talk about his brother
is because the manner in which he was murdered is
so strikingly similar to that of Darren Seals. Both men
were shot in the head while in cars that were
set on fire. Though the car DeAndre was in didn't
fully burn, we figured the similarity in tactics was worth
(32:17):
looking into. The police still haven't solved his brother's murder,
so we asked Dante if he thought he knew who
was responsible, and surprisingly he had a name.
Speaker 6 (32:29):
Did you all ever have a suspect?
Speaker 11 (32:31):
I really don't think I should straying these We assumed
somebody did it, and our podcasted because it was like
our friends. So now that he just got locked up
with a sick murders and two of them was in
the area that the siding, should he killed my brother?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Was it similar where he tried to burn the bodies
one of them?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You?
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Now, can I ask you if if the person's facing
charges on six murders, then what is the harm? And
thrown the name out there?
Speaker 11 (33:02):
I mean it was read.
Speaker 7 (33:03):
It was ok.
Speaker 11 (33:04):
They used to shoot Dicelt all the time.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Darren Seals was killed in the early morning hours between
September fifth and sixth, twenty sixteen. We started our investigation
into his death in early twenty twenty two, with the
police unable to give us their report detailing what leads
they had and which ones were worth pursuing. We were
going to have to talk to everyone we could who
knew Darren or who had any information regarding what was
(33:32):
going on in his life right before he died. As
DeAndre Joshua was killed two years before Darren, did it
matter that both men were executed in a similar fashion?
Could their deaths be connected? Or is the fact that
both men were shot in the head and left in
burning cars merely a coincidence? And what should be made
of Dante Joshua's suspicion that his brother was killed by
(33:54):
the now incarcerated Perez Read a man who, as of
this writing, has been accused of seven murders, A man
who's been dubbed a serial killer. That's next time on
After the Uprising. After the Uprising is a production of
Double Asterisk and iHeart Podcasts in association with True Stories.
(34:18):
Season two was written, reported, and produced by Maria Chappelle, Nadal,
John Duffy, Malory Kenoy, and Renovashwski. Executive producers are Niki
Atore and Lindsay Hoffman for iHeart Podcasts, John Duffy and
Reinovishewski for Double Asterisk. David Cassidy and Ruth Baka for
True Stories directed by John Duffy and Renovashlsky. Theme song
(34:39):
and score by Zachary Walter. Sound engineering and mixed by
John Autry. Fact checking by Muffin Humes. Marketing by Alison Canter,
Fair Use legal by Peter Yazzi and Brandon Butler. Legal
by Holly Decan for iHeart Podcasts and Keith Sklarr for
Double Asterisk Missouri. Sunshine Legal by David Rowland. Show logo
(35:00):
by iHeart Podcasts using a photo by at Tillo Dagostino.
Our interns were Hannah Madura and Rosemary Fiery. Website by
Stephanie Clark, recorded at David Weber's Airtime Studios in Bloomington, Indiana.
We want to acknowledge additional investigation that became part of
this podcast was conducted by Detective Adams in the Saint
(35:20):
Louis County Police and the FBI, who did not participate
in this podcast, and by a Mere Brandy Mosey Secret
and Darnell Singleton. If you like our work, check out
our other podcasts. You can find us at Double Asteriskmedia
dot com and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Support us
on Patreon. If you're enjoying the show, leave us a
(35:42):
rating and review on your favorite podcast app. Thank you
to Jamie Dennis, Danny Gonzalez, Jonathan Hartwig, Bethan macalouso, Matt McDonough,
Melissa McKinnes, Ryan Mears, Tony and Valenovoshlski, and the family
and loved ones of Darren Seals, Bottom Boys, and Doa.
Tracks used via Fuse. So was the News Reporting. Archival
(36:03):
copyright twenty twenty four double asteriskkink
Hosts And Creators
Ray Nowosielski
Maria Chappelle-Nadal
John Duffy
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