Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This show discusses cold case murders and the people who
spend their lives fighting for justice. We hope to raise
public awareness and invite witnesses to come forward with evidence
that could potentially be investigated by law enforcement. We also
remind listeners that everyone has pursued innocent until proven guilty
in a court of law, and that an arrest is
not a conviction. Nothing in the podcast is intended to
(00:22):
state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted
of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. The night
of July twenty ninth, twenty thirteen was warm, mid eighties
and partly cloudy. It had rained earlier that day, like
(00:44):
it does almost every day in Miami during the summer,
and the air was still humid. Just before ten thirty pm,
a call came into the Miami Police Department dispatch.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
There was a called female shot inside of a pastor
of c A and there were other calls of shots
fire to the area.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Minutes later, an officer arrived at the intersection of Northwest
eighth Avenue and forty seventh Street, the southern corner of
Liberty City. The officer spotted a tudor black BMW ridden
with bulletholes. He walked over to the car.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
They noticed a female and a passion seat will suffered
from multiple gunshot wounds.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
The woman was wearing jeene shorts, a white tank top,
and a black baseball cap. She was bleeding and unresponsive.
The officer didn't know if she was alive. He immediately
called for an ambulance, which rushed the victim to the hospital.
She was alive, but she was barely hanging on the
scene was secured and soon more police arrived. One of
(01:46):
them was Lieutenant Roger Jackson.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, my name was Roger Jackson. I'm a lieutenant with
the Bombie Police Department. I've been here for over eighteen years,
currently assigned as the foot Operation Support Commander, and right
that I spent ten years in the Hamici Unit, both
as a detective and a sergeant.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
But back in twenty thirteen, he was an officer, one
of many officers on duty in Liberty City that night.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I responded to the scene a little bit after the fact.
I was dispatched as a backup.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
When police first arrived at the scene, no one was
there except the woman in the car, but shortly after
a man appeared He introduced himself to one of the
officers as Vincent Green. The officer described him as anxious
but calm. He said he had been driving the BMW.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
He said, that's my girl. My girl got shot. That's
my girl. That's my girls. Kinds where my gravy okay,
or something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
He claimed to have run away after he'd been shot at,
but when things calmed down, he decided to come back.
The officer escorted him to a police car to wait
for further questioning.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
He was quickly detained for interview. I transported Thank god.
The boyfriend took the homicide office to be interviewed by
detectives at the time.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Meanwhile, the victim was now at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital.
She's been identified as thirty two year old Lawrence Web,
a well respected and popular club promoter. Lawrence lived with
her parents, Natrice and Jeffrey Christian in the same Miami
Gardens house she grew up in, and because of her
job in night life, she'd often come home late, so
(03:27):
Natrece didn't even bat an eye when at five am
her phone rang I thought it was her.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Calling, And the reason for that is that she knows
that if she's coming here, that she will call first
so that her dad can open the garage door. Because
you know, working clubs and things like that, people know
that you're making money, and you just didn't want to
ever take a chance with somebody's following you home. So
(03:53):
when that phone rang, I assumed that that was her
call it but it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Instead it was a counselor from the hospital.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Ah, right, this is Jackson Murie Hospital. This is a
reference to pasing that the name of Lauren's Webb Prez
called Jackson Hospital at three o five fy fan one fight.
She says, Hi, this is Jackson Moral Hospital and that
uncoly to inform you that Lorence web had been brought
(04:26):
into the emergency room and was shot multiple times, and
to hear that it was devastated.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Natrece raced to Jackson Memorial where doctors were desperately trying
to keep Laurence alive.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
She was shot nine times, and when the counselor met us,
that's when she explained, your daughter was bought in with
multiple gunshots booms, and we thought she was dead on arrival. However,
she yelled out and once my daughter, ye, no doubt
that's when they immediately took her in the operating role
(05:03):
to start surgery.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Lawrence was still alive, but the prognosis wasn't good.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The doctors first told me, They said to me that
she wouldn't made it twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Natrice wasn't in shock, but she was also confused. Her
daughter was responsible and hardworking. She didn't understand how this
could have happened. There was something else that was troubling
her too. Before theatrese had even arrived at the hospital,
a man had already been there asking for details about
lawns or l as she was known.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
The counselor. She told me, she said, ma'am, it's some
guy that's been coming here all night trying to get information,
but we won't provide information because we needed to speak
to the next of kid. And sure enough, he walks in.
He says, Hi, I'm Vincent Green. I played for the
(06:01):
Atlanta Falcons and I was with well when she got shot.
And when that happened, I paused because here's a gentleman
that we do not know. Here's a gentleman we never
seen before, and we're still trying to figure out what happened.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
From a school of Humans and iHeart podcasts. This is
Cold Case Files Miami. I'm your host in pre Casantos.
Laurensnachristia Webb was born May twenty seventh, nineteen eighty one.
(06:44):
She grew up with her parents, Natrice and Jeffrey Christian
and her little brother, Jeffrey Junior and what is now
Miami Gardens. It's a working class, predominantly black city about
fifteen miles north of downtown Miami. The family lived in
a neighborhood where kids around outside together and neighbors took
care of each other. Hard Rock Stadium, where the Dolphins play,
(07:06):
is close by. Rappers Rick Ross and Florida also both
grew up near there. Lawrence's family was tight knit. Friends
would sometimes compare them to the Huxtables, the protagonists of
the iconic TV series The Cause We Show.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Her friends were like, wow, we had parents like your parents.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
They used to call us back in the days the Huskable,
and I never understood like the Huskable because they knew
the love that we had in our home and the
love that we shared in our home.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Lawrence always had a lot of friends. She was warm
and gregarious. People wanted to be near her.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Everybody that she came in contact with, they loved her.
She was a loving person, not just saying it because
it's my daughter, but she was a type of person.
You can have a disagreement with her, but native she'll
be calling you like, hey, let's go to lunch, let's
go shopping. So she was that type of a person.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
And she was especially close to her little brother.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Gosh, she loved her brother. She was Jeffrey's biggest, biggest fan.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Hi, I am Jeffrey Christian Junior. I am the brother
of Lawn's web.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Jeffrey was born eight years after his sister, but that
age difference never met much.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
She was always, you know, in theater, dancing, and I
kind of took some of those things on from her.
Who were always making up shows, always making up silly phones,
always bothering our parents, screaming across the house. We had
an awesome relationship.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Lawrence was also into fashion. How she looked was important
to her.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
She liked to present herself well, so you know, she
likes to dress nice.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
When she goes out the house.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
When I say fabulous, she didn't go anywhere with her that.
She was always fabulous, but she stepped out to even
go to the grocery store. You will see her on
her heel zone and you know, she was always so
fabulous like that.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
The Lawrence eventually found her calling in nightlife. That wasn't
her original path. In high school, she thought of becoming
a dental hygienist, but she pivoted first into bartending.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
This is a funny story, but I was a little
bit upset because who goes to school to become a bartender. Well,
she heard about how well the girls make doing bartending.
Next thing, you know, she was in bartending school.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
From there, Laurnce worked her way into event promotion, which
is also when she got her nickname fabulous l. Her
just l her fabulousness was now officially her calling card.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
She was big in music and so she got into
the club scene and she started to throw parties and
you know, bring out different musical artist. Everyone knew her
from Rick Ross that Joe's so like everyone knew, you know,
this girl from Miami who threw parties, who just was
(10:14):
the life of the party, who brought the entry title made.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
By twenty thirteen, Lawrence had made a name for herself
in the scene. She was working for club play a
popular hip hop club on Miami Beach. It was through
nightlife that she met Vincent Green. Her family doesn't exactly
know how they met, but they assume he was drawn
to her allure her cachet. Vincent did not play for
(10:38):
the Atlanta Falcons like he had said. He was a
twenty three year old from Miami Gardens with a rap
sheet and who'd been released from federal custody about six
months before. We don't know what he told Laurence about
himself or what she believed, if anything, but we do
know that they'd only known each other for a couple
of weeks before he brought her to that Liberty City intersection,
(11:00):
an intersection that had now been turned into a full
on crime scene investigation by police. Detectives were looking for witnesses.
The CSI team arrived and began working immediately, worried that
intermittent showers might wash away whatever evidence might be there.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So the investigated team they take over. What's recovered was
one case in forty five caliber, a magazine with several
live for the five caliber rounds, and there was another
set of cases of millimeters.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
This meant at least two different guns were used the
crime scene investigator also found eleven bullet holes into BMW.
Inside the car, there was a bullet fragment lodged in
the passenger's seat backrest. There was also a purse, some CDs,
a bank with draw slip. In the back seat was
a pair of boots and a PF. Chang's bag with
some leftover chicken inside and a bullet size hole through
(11:55):
the packaging. There was no sign of Lawrence's phone, and
more importantly, no sign of either gun, the forty five
or the nine millimeter. And the only suspect they had
so far was Vincent Green. He was waiting to be
questioned by police.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Eight of you Green he caught her and his girlfriend,
but supposed they only had been dating for like maybe
two weeks or three weeks, some to that effect.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
According to Vincent, he and Lawronce had spent the night
of July twenty eighth at the Grand Hotel near downtown Miami.
The next morning, July twenty ninth, they ran some errands.
Lawronce was supposed to fly to Las Vegas the following
day on a work trip and needed to take care
of some things. She went to the bank to get
some cash. She got her nails done That evening. Vincent
(12:44):
said that they had dinner. During the meal, Vincent was
on the phone with another man, a friend of his
from the halfway house he'd lived in after leaving prison
in late twenty twelve. They planned to meet up in
Liberty City that night. Laronce had had a couple of drinks,
so Vincent drove for BMW back into Miami. Laurrons sat
in the passenger seat. When they arrived at the intersection
(13:06):
of forty seventh Street and Eighth Avenue, Vincent got out
of the BMW. He approached the park car, a white
Crown Victoria. It was later described as looking like an
old style police vehicle.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Once he made it towards the driver's side, rare passenger seat,
the window open, and he saw a guy with his
face harshly covered. He saw a laser.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
The laser is a feature that can be added to
a gun to increase accuracy, a kind of sight. So
when Vincent said he saw laser, he knew it could
only mean one thing. He was the intended target.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
There was one shot that was fired.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Somehow the bullet missed. Vincent Green, You.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Say you believed the gun jam or something.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Vincent then did the only thing he can think of.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He took off through an ad Jason alley and then
while he was running away from the scene, he overhears
several more shots.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Once he was out of range, Vincent said he called
a friend of his who lived nearby to pick him up.
He then called Laurnz to see if she was okay,
but Lawrence didn't answer. Instead, there was a male voice
on the phone, and.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
The person answered the phone and stated something to the
effect of, just so you know your girls, they'll breathe it.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Vincent's friend arrived and drove him back to where the
shooting had happened. By this time, the police were already
at the scene, and they had doubts about his story.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Well, we know we have a female that shot and
ran away from the car, You not at the scene it,
and you show back up out of the blue. So
he was treated as a suspect.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That night, Vincent had become a person of interest as
detectives pieced together the violent assault on Lawns. They needed more, though,
so investigators visited the hospital to try to speak with her,
but she was severely injured and the police weren't able
to learn much. Honestly, it was a miracle she was
even alive. Lawrence had been shot multiple times, including once
(15:10):
in the head.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
When I say she was a fighter, she was a fighter.
The doctors first told me, They said to me that
she wouldn't made it twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
That wasn't an answer, and the trese or Lawronce was
willing to accept.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
That, said to her, you were not born an invalid,
and we're going to get through this here. And that's
what I said, because I was determined that we're not
going to let this beat us.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
To the doctor's surprise, over the next few months, Lawrence
began to improve. It was something the hospital staff noticed too,
Like in this video Natrice took of her doing physical therapy,
try to pass into him.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
She's gonna pass the cone, She's gonna try and.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, now there you go, Jago.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
She was doing so great that even the nurses and
and and the physical therapy and everything like that, they
will be tired, and she'll be like, come on, come on.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
You need it right, you need it right?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
She said, Oh God, that's what she said, right, you good.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Though Laurents still had trouble communicating, na Trace recognized her
vivacious daughter, like when she'd move her leg and excitement
when whatever her friends would visit and share a gossip,
or when she sucked her teeth when someone said something incorrect,
and how she still very much cared about her appearance.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I had a young lady to come in there, do
her nails, do her feet. You don't give her a
manicure of pedicure, and uh it was. It was funny,
but I had to because this is who she was.
And I put up pictures of her in her room
so that she can see. You know, this is who
you are. We're not gonna let this hospital bed define you.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
In November twenty thirteen, Lawrence was well enough that she
was able to go home. She still had a long
recovery your head, but things were looking up.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
No Ver b twenty fifth with us Becci your day.
That's the day I actually brought her home. No vem
Ba twenty fifth, she had Thanksgiving at home with our family.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
This year's celebration was especially meaningful. Lawrence sat at the table.
She couldn't converse, but she was there present. She even
indicated to her mom to wait when the rice tried
to clear away her plate of pie. Before she was finished. Unfortunately,
in mid December, Lawronce's health took a turn. One morning,
she woke up disoriented and the Trice took her to
(17:53):
the hospital, where she was kept overnight.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
While keeping herup for observation. Things look like she was
getting ready to come home. So I said, okay, I'm
gonna let you get your rest and I'm gonna go
home and get some rest. And I always, even right
now today, I still get up that same time, two
o'clock in the morning because I got up just to
(18:20):
call the hospital making sure she resting okay.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
But Lawrence wasn't okay.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And once I got out there to the hospital, that's
when they came and told me that apparently she aspirated,
and when she aspirated, she wanted to cardiac arrest.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Once again, Lawrence was fighting for her life and she
was up against a lot.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
We have to face reality because you know, knowing that
she had been shot so many times. So when that
time came out, I just had to just, you know,
trust trust God all the way in you know, here
toreth well, her dad walked in the room. After she
heard her dad's voice, it's what she took her lass bro.
(19:08):
I just said to the Lord, I thank you. I
thank you for the thirty two years that you've giving
me my daughter. And I feel Lord, if it's your
will that you take her how you take her home.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Just before two pm on December seventeenth, almost five months
after she'd been shot, laurn'ce Webb, passed away. Her official
cause of death was complications from gunshot wounds. So the
assault case the detectives had been piecing together was now
a homicide case. And while Vincent Green had been cagy
about actually naming the person who tried to shoot him,
(19:49):
he had told detectives the name of the man he
was supposed to meet that night. The man, he said,
drove the White Crown Victoria.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
He pretty much gazed the ice idea of who the
guy was, but he wasn't quite sure because the guy's
race was covered. What he was saying, I think is
gonna be this guy. Listen, Tevon Graham. He pretty much said,
Taman's name. He says, that's who I was meaning that day,
(20:19):
and baby, that's somebody who need to look at you.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Although Vincent Green had been unwilling to name Taevon Graham
as the man who specifically tried to kill him. The
City of Miami police had enough to begin looking into
Tevon as a possible suspect. Less than thirty six hours
after the shooting, Tevon came to the police station for questioning.
He gave a DNA sample, and he handed over his
cell phone. The police eventually found the car he'd been
(21:02):
driving that night, the White Crown Victoria, and swabbed it
for fingerprints and DNA. They also found the potential witness,
someone who could place Tevon in the White Crown Victoria
shortly before the crime. On the evening of July twenty ninth,
twenty thirteen. The witness was in the car while her husband,
a state trooper, checked on a rental property they owned.
(21:23):
As she waited, she saw something peculiar. Two men discussing
something and walking towards the Crown Victoria. One of them
put on gloves despite the summer heat.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
She saw individuals getting into that vehicle, a light skinned
mail guinea getting into the driver's seat and a tall
black mail getting into the driver's side or a passion's seat,
putting on some hanglouts, and the end they take off.
She found it quite suspicious.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
The woman's husband finished what he was doing and returned
to their car. They drove home a block away.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
A few minutes later, she hears the shots being fired.
She connected what she saw to the shooting and told
her husband, who approached officers, saying they my wife have
some information.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Later, the witness identified Tavon from a photo. The police
were also able to locate another witness, someone who knew
Tavon from the neighborhood. She had also seen him and
another man getting into the Crown vic.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
She said they said they were going to the store.
She asked for a pack of cigarettes. The car leaves
and a few minutes later she heard the shots being fired.
Her fear was they were shot, so she got her
bicyclette around the corner. She didn't see the Crown Fake,
but that she did see the police in the BMW.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
It seemed an arrest was imminent. Laurence's family was unaware
of what the police had discovered. They were still processing
the magnitude of their loss and having to balance their
grief with making funeral arrangements. Lawrence's service was held a
few days after Christmas. More than six hundred people attended.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
The funeral was so packed and to see so many
people from I don't want to get religious or anything,
but to see so many people from the streets come
into the church and like want to change their life
because of the light.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
My sister was, you know, in typical style. Lawrence looked fabulous,
complete with full makeup and a customed made dress.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Like I said, my sister loved to present herself. She
always presented herself wealth. So when I saw her the
day before the funeral, she looked like her herself. Of course, however,
she wasn't wearing any lashes, and my sister always kept
(23:53):
her lashes though, so I, you know, I was like,
she can't go like that. So I went to the
store and Boston Lashes. Came back to the funeral home
and I put the lashes on for her.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
I just really couldn't let her go out like that.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
When I go out, I want to go out. How
everyone knows how everyone remembers me. Everyone remembers her to
be fabulous, and that's how we allow her to go out.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
I all know that how she liked everything in style.
Everything is style. So when I say she went out
with a signature, she went out with a signature. And
I made sure of that.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
We made sure that she had a nice gown.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
It had the bottom of the gown the tool like
overflowing out of the casket.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
She had an open casket, a full open casket, and
only thing you saw for nothing but diamonds, because that's
who she were. And she always loved that song by Rihanna,
shine Bright like a Diamond, and that's what we He
made sure we engraved on her attunement that says shine
bright like a diamond. It was very hard because of
(25:07):
the simple fact is that you know who wants to
lose that daughter at thirty two.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
In December twenty thirteen, while the police were still compiling
their case against Tevon Graham, a man came forward to
the police with some information. This man was Tevan's stepbrother.
Earlier that year, he and Teyvon had both been in
Miami's Federal Detention Center on separate, unrelated charges. He claimed
that one day Tavon had confessed his shooting Lawns after
(25:36):
failing to kill Vincent.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Said that Tamon told him that he shot the girl
because he wanted to see blood and there was no witnesses.
He wanted to make sure there was no witnesses and
that he used a gun provided to him by his stepbrother.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
This was an important fact. The police had found multiple
bullets casings on the scene, casings which clearly showed two
different guns had been used, and no actual weapons had
been found. Now, Tavon's stepbrother said he had given Tavon
a gun, a gold gun with a red laser.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
According to tay Bond's conversation with his brother is that
the gun jam and the magazine fell out from the
first weapon, and he was able to treat the second
weapon from the driver and fired. Chased them halfway, but
then he realized, okay, he's god, let me just shoot
up the car, and that's what he did.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Tavon stepbrother's statement did two things. It corroborated the physical
evidence the police had found, and it also corroborated the
story Vincent Green had told about that night. But why
would he snitch?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
He pretty much stated that it was wrong and didn't
need to shoot it as an innocent female was like
uncalled for. But there's also this theory that he was
afraid of him though oh, I mean he was afraid
of Taybar. I think there was that fear that Tehlan
would get out of prison, they did start killing some
(27:06):
of the people who may have knowledge of this particular incident.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
With the stepbrother's new information, the police now had an
alleged confession backed by Vincent Green's story about the night
and two witnesses identifying Tavon in the car shortly before
the shooting, and so in twenty fourteen they drew up
in a restawrant, but the warrant wasn't executed, It wasn't
even submitted to a judge.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I can never really quite get why. I spoke to
the lead detective at the time, and he riatho much
said that the state was every usself about having enough
to move forward with the case. The only thing I
can say that one might have kept that from moving forward.
The only thing I could think of was at meeting
(27:53):
what the state attorneys, and they said, we don't have
enough right now.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Burden of proof is an important part of the American
justice system because there's a difference between what the police
need to make an arrest and what the prosecution needs
in the courtroom to prove guilt to a jury.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Our threshold to make an arrest is marble cause the
state attorney's thresshold is beyond the reason about We get
frustrated because it's like, hey, this is what we have,
and the state attorney is like, h the story is
missing a few pieces. You need more. Why would this
person do this? Who would do this? What about this?
(28:35):
What about that? It's so many different questions we have
to answer before we get bring this before a jury,
go back and work on this case. Right.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Lieutenant Jackson thinks this is what must have hampered the arrest,
warrant and the state's pursuit of charges because, for reasons
he can't fully explain, work on Lawrence's case seemed to
come to a halt. It was, for all intents and
purposes cold. There was one, however, who hadn't stopped working
on the case, who hadn't stopped thinking about it. Every
(29:05):
single day.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I sent over six hundred emails I did. I had to.
You gotta trust the police, you gotta help make sure
they be held accountable.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
To Natrice didn't know how close detectives had come to
making an arrest, or that the investigation was now stalled.
She just knew nobody was getting back to her. So
the trice it felt like they didn't care about Lawrence.
So Although she may have stopped hearing from the police,
the police didn't stop hearing from her.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I had to be the one to contact them, you know,
over and over and over things like that. You got
to allow the detectives to do their job, but at
the same time, you got to let them know that
you are a family member that's not going to give
up no matter what, You're not going to give up.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
That Persisi since eventually paid off. In December twenty sixteen, Jackson,
who was now a sergeant in the homicide unit, was
asked to take a look at Lawrence's case. He hadn't
been involved in it since he'd driven Vincent Green to
the station for his interview the day she was shot
back in July twenty thirteen, but he was about to
be so.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
My lieutenant at the time. He called me and he says, listen,
take a look at this case. I don't think there's
anything in it. But we have this woman, the mother,
she calls every day. I want you to deal with her,
and I want you to just reassign the case and
just see, you know, where it goes. It was almost
(30:40):
like him telling me, I don't want to deal with her.
You deal with her and whatever you can do, do
if you can't can't do it.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That mother, of course, was the Trice. Now more than
three years since he'd reported to the scene of the
shooting in Liberty City. On that warm summer night, Jackson
took another look at Lawrence's case. He wasn't expecting much, but.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Once I went back to really take a look at him,
to all the statements reading before I realized, Man, I
feel like we got a case here.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
He reached out to the trees and listened to what
she had to say. This is Christian Is.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
She's wonderful because she kept the foot on the pedal.
She would not let my bosses forget about this case.
She will email whatever she needed to email. She will
email the state attorney to make sure that they were
putting pressure on us. She was calling there every single day.
(31:42):
She was not going to allow this case to go
cold forever.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Nothing was done until twenty sixteen when Sergeant Jackson came on.
When Sergeant Jackson came on the scene in two thousand
and sixteen is when it started to progress and it
did stop. He worked hard on this case, very hot
on this case, and I commend him for that. But
(32:10):
It's just just a heartbreaking part of it to know
that this is a case that could have been starved.
Long timical, long timical.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
By twenty seventeen, Roger Jackson, who was a sergeant at
the time, was fully invested in solving la Rons's case,
a case that had been sitting idle in the Miami
Police Department's files for the past three years.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Any extra time I had, I would spend, you know,
following up on this case, trying to piece it together.
The work was already done. It was just need facilitating
certain days, maybe going back and reinterview certain people, following
up with people, making sure that the DNA he sent
out to ram just kind of piece the days together.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
He also caught an early break.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
We also received a letter from inmate and apparently he
was with Tabor Graham at a facility of Florida.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
In the years after Lawrence's death. Tavon Graham had been
arrested for a probation violation on an unrelated charge and
sent to federal prison in Central Florida. The inmate had
met Tavon there and Jackson was curious about what he
had to say, so.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I said, Okay, well, I'll go pay the visit. So
I went up to the Federal Penitentiary and I had
a conversation with him.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
This man said that one day in twenty fifteen, he
and Tavon had been in the prison library together. Almost offhandedly,
Tavon told him what had happened in Miami two years earlier.
Tevon said he'd convinced a guy he knew to drive
him to meet Vincent green because Vincent owed him some money,
but that was just a ruse. Tavon just wanted to
(34:00):
kill Vincent, so as soon as he saw him, he
shot at him, and then he shot Laurent's web multiple times.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
He said that she's the only person that could have
ideed him. He was happy when she ultimately passed away.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Jackson had looked at the case with a careful eye,
and he wondered if Vincent Greene himself also might have
more to say to me.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
The key is finding out what you miss, revisiting some
of your witnesses, because they may remember things now that
they may not remembered back then, but they're not going
to be proactive in contact to you.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
That's number one. Number two, they may be more cooperative
now than before because being a witness can be hard, right.
You're afraid, you know, if this person's gonna come back
after me.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They're worried. Jackson's instincts were right.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I wanted to reinterview the and when I met with him,
he was very cooperative.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
I didn't think he was going to be that cooperative
he was this time. Vincent Green identified Tevon Graham by
name as the man who tried to shoot him and
did shoot La Rons the night of July twenty ninth,
twenty thirteen. He later explained why it took him so long.
He was afraid of Tevon and what he might do
to him, and he also didn't want to be seen
(35:24):
as a snitch. The police had never located the guns
that were used that night, and the only place Tavon's
DNA had been found was in the White Crown Victoria,
a car Tevon admitted to driving. Still, Jackson felt confident
they had enough for an arrest warrant.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
There's no da NAW on the same boat we do.
I also know that he was Warank Gloves right now.
We do know that's his vehicle. We do have his
brother's statement. We do have the statement right before the shooting.
The ex wife of the trooper who identified him as
getting into the job aside rear passenger to see putting.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Those There was also this statement from the witness who
knew Tavon personally and had seen him getting in the car,
and the alleged confessions he'd given both his stepbrother and
the other inmate, and of course the statement from Vincent
Green himself saying it was Tavon who shot at him,
and that it was Tavon who'd answered Lawrence's phone that
(36:21):
night telling him his girl was still alive.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
So there's solely different moving pieces here that are connects
to mister ground. We're able to put together a case
enough for the state to move onward.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
This time the warrant was signed and executed. Tavon Graham,
who had been out of federal prison since April twenty seventeen,
was arrested by Miami police in May twenty eighteen. He
was charged with one count of murder and one count
of attempted murder. But now there was the trial, and
trials can be unpredictable. Stories can change, Witnesses may not
(36:59):
show up or may not remember details clearly. They may
have ulterior motives for testifying it may or may not
be believed by a jury. There's a lot that can
change for how you think a case will go. And
even with all the evidence the prosecution had, there was
still a big question. Why was Taevon shooting at Vincent
in the first place, and why did he want him dead?
(37:22):
In this case, the reason is complicated. We don't know
all the nuances and probably never will. But according to Vincent,
he'd first met Tavon at a halfway house in January
twenty thirteen. They had been sent there after being released
from federal custody. Vincent said he helped Tavon out, giving
him some clothes and some cash. He said they became friends.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
There's a few motives and theories when it comes to that.
We know that Miston, Grain and Avon became close with
another gentleman.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
This other gentleman was also living at the halfway house,
and according to Vincent, both he and Tavon had developed
a sexual relationship with him. Vincent said Tavon became jealous
of this, especially when rumors started going around about it.
Vincent later said this is why he and Tavon decided
to meet up the night of July twenty ninth, twenty
(38:15):
thirteen to specifically discuss the rumors, the relationship, the jealousy.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Now to day of the incident. There was some text
messages exchanged Green mister Graham and mister Green was apparently
Graham was upset at him about some then that's what theory, right.
There's also this other theory Taymy Graham, I wrecked the
vehicle aloneing to a girlfriend of another girlfriend of mister
(38:43):
Greed and owed him some money. It was just this
whole maze of just conflict, right, so could have pinpoint
the conflict, but we do know there was some motive
within those two because of the conflict.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Vincent Green never mentioned his sexual relationships with men in
those first interviews with police, but he did eventually acknowledge
it as the team was prepping for trial where he'd
testify against Tevon Graham.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
We weren't concerned that the defense was going to zeray
in on that fact that A. You didn't mention x waze,
you didn't mention that you have relations where the men
and doing our prep for trial, he said, listen, that
was personal choice, he said, my mom didn't even know
at the time, and I didn't want anybody to know, so, yeah,
(39:33):
I left that fact out, So that was very powershble.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
The trial began on July tenth, twenty twenty three, almost
exactly a decade after Lawrence was shot. The jury her
testimony from Vincent Green, from Lieutenant Jackson, from the neighbor
who identified Teavon putting gloves on, and many others. On
July eighteenth, Tavon Graham was brought to the stand under oath.
He categorically denied everything that had been said about him
(39:59):
and his involvement in the murder. He said he didn't
have beef with Vincent. In fact, he barely knew him.
He said Vincent had never given him money. He said
he'd never been in a relationship with the man, and
that he hadn't been jealous of Vincent. He said he
didn't meet up with Vincent that night in July twenty thirteen,
that in fact, his car, the White Crown Victoria, was
(40:21):
parked in an entirely different neighborhood. He said he had
never shot at Vincent, that of course he didn't shoot lawns.
He said he'd never confessed to his stepbrother or the
other inmate. In fact, he said he'd never even met
this inmate never seen him before in his life. In
Tavon's account, on the evening of July twenty ninth, twenty thirteen,
(40:42):
he'd gone to the barber shop. He'd then spend the
rest of the night at his grandfather's house playing video games.
The State of Florida Versus Tavon Graham went to the
jury on July nineteenth, twenty twenty three. They deliberated for
around three hours before they came back with a verdict.
Tevon was found guilty of first degree murder and attempted
(41:05):
first degree murderer. The trace was there when the verdict
was read. She had been at everything.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I was at every hearing, every hearing. I didn't move
when the judge broke for whatever reason. That's the only
time that I would get up and walk out. Other
than that, oh no, I stayed for everything. It was
a feeling that I can't really describe to you, because
(41:35):
it was so overwhelming to be able to sit in
their courtroom every day, and to hear testimony at the testimonies,
and to be able to see him like has no
(41:57):
regards to human life.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Now, as the verdict was in, it was time for
the sentencing. One of the prosecutors asking Natrees to give
an impact statement to the judge. In it, she expressed
the pain of losing her daughter, how she's still grieving
Laurns's absence, but how beautiful the thirty two years they
had together were. She also had a message for Tivon
Graham directly.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
I said to him, I don't know you. I don't
know anything about you. And I said one thing for sure,
I can never bring my daughter back. Nothing that I
could do to bring my daughter back, I say, But
what I can say to you is that you have life.
(42:45):
You have life, and the God that we serve is
a just God. And I told him I forgave you
a long time ago, from the beginning. And I told
him I prayed for you every day, and I did.
And I know that my family and my friends may
(43:07):
have thought I was crazy, but I prayed for you.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
It was a powerful moment. And then the judge read
the sentence.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Yet life went out, parole, Yeah, life went out parole.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Tavon Graham is currently in prison. Shortly after his conviction,
his attorney filed the motion for a new trial. He
argued that because there was no actual physical evidence tying
Tavon to the shooting. No DNA, no fingerprints, no gun,
and no actual witnesses besides Vincent Green, there was no
way the state proved he'd committed it. Tavon's lawyer also
(43:47):
argued that the court aired in its response to a
jury request during deliberation. As of the time of this recording,
the court is still reviewing the appeal.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
You don't have to always remember that anytime that you
know a person has gone to trial, they have rights,
just like I have rights. So those are his rights
that he could appeal this judgment. And only thing we
can do or that I could wisdom mother, it's continue
(44:20):
to pray and trust God that everything will come back
afar and that's all I can do.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Next time, on Cold Case Files Miami, we speak with
Miami Dade State Attorney Catherine Fernandez Rundel, where she gives
us a look at what happens behind the prosecution.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
They will do whatever it takes on behalf of these
victims to go to court and fight for them, fight
for the voiceless and for the powerless.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
If you have information to share on any cold case,
please call her, send in a tip with your local
crime stoppers or Law Enforcement Department in Miami. That number
is three zero five four to seven to one tips.
That's three zero five four seven one eight four seven seven.
You can also visit crime Stoppers three oh five dot
com and select give a tip Cold Case Files Miami.
(45:22):
As a production of Iheart'smichael Duda podcast Network and School
of Humans, I'm your host Mbriqua Santos. This show is
written and researched by Marissa Brown. Our lead producer is
Josh thing Etelis pees is our senior producer, Sound design
and mix by Josh Thain, fact checking by Savannah Hugley.
Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me Imbriquasantos,
(45:46):
Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans.
For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
The sid