Court Report 4: The “Free Willy” Red Nissan Incident

On September 11, 2013, police arrested three men who had committed an armed robbery and exchanged gunfire with police in a stolen red Nissan that they crashed into a laundromat. Young Thug was not one of those three. But now, more than a decade later with the help of Georgia’s RICO laws, prosecutors are trying to put him in the car. Journalist Jewel Wicker joins the King Slime team to discuss this incident and what it says about the case.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I hear a gunshot go off, and I tell her that,
I say run, run, and he looked and he couldn't
get away from the dude and he just took off
run and shots was going off.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
He hit them and I fired another shot after that.
Now at this time, he's being reckless. The whole incident,
they was being reckless.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
My life was in.

Speaker 5 (00:29):
Jepany, my partner's lives in Japan, and soul was everybody
else's lives around us.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Have you ever seen a car fly over your patrol car?
My patrol car.

Speaker 6 (00:39):
Now, my eyes blinked, and I thought that we were
extras in the movie Fast and the Furious.

Speaker 7 (00:46):
I think you're in a bad place back there, Yes, sir,
thinks better a lot, sir, thankfully, until this came up again.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
I'm Christina Lee and I'm George.

Speaker 8 (01:16):
And this is King Slime.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
So this week we're recapping some pretty eventful days of
the Ysel trial, Day thirty something, joining us of Courses
executive producer Tommy Andres.

Speaker 8 (01:31):
Hey, Tommy, Hey, thanks for having me, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
And so just so we're clear, George has COVID and
that's why he is joining us virtually for this week's episode, which.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Is why I am not at the studio and I suck.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
And we have a special guest award winning entertainment and
culture reporter making good use of her Roll twenty two
being one of the few Atlanta based reporters covering this
Ysel trial. It is my friend, Jewel Worker.

Speaker 9 (01:58):
Hey, Jewel, Hey, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh of course, I mean we had to. You've been
covering this trial pretty extensively. You've done so for Billboard
and for your newsletter. Right, what do you think of
this trial?

Speaker 9 (02:12):
I'm tired.

Speaker 10 (02:13):
In conclusion, it's just very long and arduous, and it's
just a lot. It's just a lot, is the synopsis
that I have of this trial. I've been covering it
since the indictment, which was two years ago.

Speaker 8 (02:30):
Has Atlanta seen anything like this before?

Speaker 10 (02:34):
This is the longest trial in Georgia history, So no.
But obviously, right, there have been high profile reco cases before,
like the teachers, they be a cheating scandal trial and
things like that. But I definitely think this is in
a league of its own at this point.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Well, we're definitely here to talk more about how this
is a league of its own, starting with a pretty
interesting incident that happened on September eleventh, twenty thirteen. Do
you want to walk us through what the hell happened?

Speaker 11 (03:02):
Yes. So this incident I referred to as the red
Nissan incident. So in twenty thirteen, Svember eleven, twenty thirteen,
like you said, police were called to the Summerdale Apartments,
which is right off of Cleveland Avenue in Old Hateville Road.
They arrive, but they're in an unmarked car to Ford Taurus.
There's two female detectives in the front seat, and then

(03:23):
they're training sort of a young up and coming officer
who's wearing a full uniform. He's in the back seat.
And when they arrive, they see this man running through
the parking lot in a red shirt shooting a gun.
So this officer who's in the back, the only one
wearing a uniform, gets out of the car. His name
is Officer el Malik Robison. L.

Speaker 5 (03:44):
Now I have my weapon on him and I'm telling
him to drop the weapon. I'm telling him to drop
the weapon, but he didn't comply and he just took
started running towards me.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
I was standing right next to the car. I didn't
know that he was running towards this car. So he
got into a maroon car and as he pulled off,
I jumped out the way and I shot a shot.

Speaker 11 (04:05):
This guy jumps into this red Nissan with other individuals.
They drive this car away very quickly. They end up losing.
They hit the police car on their way out, then
hit the gate of the apartment complex at a speed
that is high enough to send them careening over a hill,
which they then leap over. This sounds like a buddy

(04:26):
cop movie. They end up leaping over this embankment and
crashing into a laundromat. There happens to be another police
car actually already there, which is leapt over. If do
you want to make the reference, I'm gonna let you
make the reupiens.

Speaker 8 (04:39):
Oh I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
I called it a free Willy.

Speaker 11 (04:43):
It's pretty great free Wily.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yep.

Speaker 11 (04:44):
So they free Willy over this police car and crash
into the laundromat and then are subsequently arrested. We'll sort
of unwrap this a little bit more as we go,
but those are the basic details. So let's just start
there with those basic details and let's talk about what
this incident is and why it's being brought up in
the trial. Just the real basic you know, a to

(05:05):
z here. So, Christina, why don't you start us off?

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, absolutely, So the whole reason we're hearing about this
Free Willy incident is because it concerns over acts five, six,
and seven on the indictment. So if you're following along
as you are in charge with your Bible and stuff
like that, you're going to see Walter Murphy sited in
each of these acts. So that is the reason why
we are talking through and trying to piece together what

(05:28):
the hell happened. Walter Murphy is charged with the following
attempted arm robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and
possession of a firearm by a first offender probationer. And
so we do end up hearing testimony from somebody who
was related to the target of this attempted arm robbery,
right exactly.

Speaker 10 (05:46):
So the person who is mentioned in the in the indictment,
Derek Dotson, he is no longer with us, he's passed away,
so he does not testify. But Leonard pass who was
in the car with Derek at that time, testify and
kind of gives this story that they are at the
Summerdale apartment getting out of the car and he hears

(06:06):
somebody called Derek Dodson by his nickname and say you
know what time it is?

Speaker 9 (06:09):
Right? As in they're about to be robbed?

Speaker 4 (06:11):
What did this guy say when he approached you all?
He said?

Speaker 12 (06:17):
Do do you know what time to do?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Now?

Speaker 4 (06:19):
What do you know? What do you take? You know
what time it is?

Speaker 12 (06:22):
To mean? I mean, really everything you got and you
gotta get up?

Speaker 4 (06:27):
So? Does that is a fear?

Speaker 13 (06:28):
Said?

Speaker 12 (06:29):
It's like robbery, especially what it is now?

Speaker 13 (06:32):
Did this suspect adam the thing his hands?

Speaker 12 (06:35):
Yes?

Speaker 11 (06:36):
What are you at?

Speaker 12 (06:37):
It look like us on hang them.

Speaker 10 (06:40):
And they both kind of run away in opposite directions.
We also hear from some of the officers. We also
hear from the people related to the actual red knee
Son that comes into place.

Speaker 9 (06:53):
So we hear from a lot of people. But I
think the question is do we need to right? Are
some of these estimodis like what are we showing here right?

Speaker 10 (07:03):
Other than the car was stolen? Or other than that
you know how this red Nissan got here? Or you
know that Derek Dodson was indeed kind of robbed. But
what is this play into the larger kind of gang conspiracy?
I think is the bigger question that I've had this
whole time.

Speaker 11 (07:19):
Yeah, George, you want to speak to that. What do
you think about how the prosecution is trying to tie
this to Wayaseel.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
So I think there's a lot going on here. First,
I like there's a lot of guilt by association that
happens in this trial. Because it's a RECO case. The
RECO rules allow for kind of evidence to be introduced

(07:47):
that you would not normally see in a prosecution like this.
Some of this, I think is because they want to
introduce the summer like this. This apartment complex, Uh, the
Summerdale Apartments are notorious in the in the in that

(08:08):
area of Cleveland Avenue and in the community as sort
of a Wiseel stronghold. Oddly enough, the first time I
met Young Thug's dad was by accident. As I was
looking at a like a big there was a shooting
and an arrest over the Summerdale apartments and he happened

(08:29):
to be in the parking lot and we struck struck
up a conversation. I had no idea who he was
at the time o the like, there's a an element
of fear within that apartment complex, and I strongly suspect
that they're going to revisit the apartments over and over
and over again, and they're trying to establish a timeline here.

(08:54):
The problem is like there, it's like young Thug is
just barely mentioned, Like he's just sort of at the
edge of what's going on here in the sense that
like he's in the police reports because somebody said his name,
but not in a way that ultimately leaded it up.

Speaker 10 (09:14):
In her unrest, right right, Well, yeah, because he's not attached.
When you look at over at acts five, six, and
seven in the indictment, young Thug doesn't come up like
he's not attached to those over acts, but he I
think a lot of this is like prosecutors are really
trying to get his name into testimony here and really
kind of show that he was involved in this in
some way. And I think that's the more interesting part

(09:37):
of the past few days.

Speaker 11 (09:39):
Yeah, let's take a step back and just tell a
little bit more about what happens. So once the police
get these guys, they pieced together that what had happened
is that Dotson was robbed right by Walter Murphy, who
went to prison for this crime. This is what he
just got out for in twenty twenty two, So he
was in prison until twenty twenty two because of this.
This is we talked about Murphy before, because he's the

(10:00):
one who was released and then brought back like served
his entire sentence, was brought back into the Rico trial,
and they used this same incident to charge him with again,
which is you know, we talked about how the double
jeopardy implications of that in the show already. So and
then you know these two other men who are arrested
with him as well, Frederick Prothrow who is still in

(10:22):
prison for this incident, and then Adrian Bean, who is
another person that was involved here. So we have these
three people and then the police start taking the stand
and we hear sort of wildly different accounts of what
happened that day, which I think is an interesting sort
of lens into memory from ten years ago and what

(10:44):
police can recall. They have the reports and that's all
they really have to go on. So let's talk a
little bit about that jewel. I'm going to throw it
to you. First, let's learn from the police kind.

Speaker 10 (10:52):
Of this idea of some people say there were three
people in the car. Some people say there were four
people in the car.

Speaker 9 (10:56):
Do you remember how many people got out of the
car and you sit here today, yes?

Speaker 12 (11:01):
Yes, uh, it was about four males.

Speaker 9 (11:05):
You about four males?

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Yes?

Speaker 9 (11:07):
Do you remember exactly?

Speaker 12 (11:10):
Yes?

Speaker 9 (11:11):
It was for when you looked at the driver, was
it a male or a female?

Speaker 4 (11:15):
It was a male?

Speaker 12 (11:16):
Did that?

Speaker 6 (11:16):
Did that male have a wig on?

Speaker 4 (11:18):
No?

Speaker 9 (11:18):
Did the male have any blond hair?

Speaker 12 (11:20):
No?

Speaker 6 (11:21):
It was a man, yes, clear, you know it was
a man.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yes?

Speaker 12 (11:24):
No, if in the bus it was a man.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
It was a man, all right.

Speaker 9 (11:27):
I thought the driver was a female.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Why did you think that the driver the vehicle.

Speaker 6 (11:31):
Was because that individual had shoulder length hair and it
was bouncing and waving like most women here.

Speaker 10 (11:40):
It's really I feel like this is indicative of so
many of the incidents in this trial where sometimes I
leave with more questions than I have answers, right, Like,
there's a lot more pieces that feel like they need
to be filled in than they than there are from
the testimony. And so yeah, I think that was the
biggest takeaway that I had from those cop testimonies was

(12:03):
as much as we agree on the kind of general
outline of this incident, this thing happened carfree really is
into the laundring mat Like we we agree with the outline,
but it's some of those like finer lines about how
many people were in the car and kind of.

Speaker 9 (12:16):
Those details that seem a little more wobbly.

Speaker 8 (12:20):
Yeah, I mean, okay.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
So it's interesting that you bring up that there's more
questions and answers, because I pretty much came away from
the same sort of takeaway. Right, So, given everything you said,
George about the reputation of the apartment complex, it makes
sense to me now why there would be cops just
sort of patrolling the area just so happen to bear
witness and then be part of the shit show. What

(12:44):
isn't answered is basically comes down to the fact that
the lead detective and all of this, detective David Quinn,
has yet to take the stand. And so what ends
up being really frustrating is that we're hearing from detectives
who are serving scene, who are in charge of like
taking in the evidence and the firearms. Where I'm talking

(13:04):
about you, Summer Betton, who like gets grilled with all
these questions about like okay, well can you test this
one d styrophone cut for DNA?

Speaker 9 (13:13):
What is this in the car? And what is this
in the car? Is that a toolbox?

Speaker 8 (13:16):
I see?

Speaker 1 (13:16):
And she is just like that was not my job.
That was not that was not what I was instructed.
That was supposed to be my job.

Speaker 7 (13:23):
You said that you collect any evidence that may be important.

Speaker 12 (13:27):
Did you say something like.

Speaker 11 (13:28):
That, That's not what I said.

Speaker 9 (13:29):
I said.

Speaker 14 (13:30):
My job on scene was to photograph the scene, preserve
what was inside except for the firearms and the cell phones.
I took those out, and that's because I was advised
to place the made rendered the firearms safe handed, the

(13:51):
cell phones, I believe, over to Detective Quinn, and then
anything else that was involving that car was to be
processed at a later date.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
There's a whole lot of questions about surveillance footage that
gets mentioned in in the police radio talking about how
they need to get access to a surveillance tape. I
guess like that was being recorded at a camera that
was a fix of the coin laundromat that the car
ultimately free Willi's into Detective David Quinn would have been

(14:20):
in charge of getting all that, but basically everybody's kind
of throwing up their hands and being like, well, that
wasn't my job. I was just here, I was here training,
I was here patrolling. This was not my business originally,
I just happen to be here.

Speaker 10 (14:32):
They've also been debating what is appropriate for evidence for
handle my god, handling of evidence, which I found to
be really interesting because there was an incident where I
think it was a statement was taken and the detective
felt like maybe it wasn't quite accurate, so he deleted it,
which he said was totally fine.

Speaker 13 (14:52):
Is a police policy to record a statement from a
witness and any racist statement?

Speaker 2 (14:59):
There is no i'll see that exists that specifically addresses.

Speaker 13 (15:02):
It, okay, is that proper protocol?

Speaker 12 (15:05):
That could be people?

Speaker 6 (15:08):
And I think in contexts typically interviewing witnesses and sometimes
even suspects, more often than not they lie.

Speaker 10 (15:17):
But the defense seems really adamant to point out that
that's not proper protocols, so they keep asking every subsequent
detective that comes on the stand, would you delete testimony
even if you thought it was a lie?

Speaker 13 (15:28):
It is improper as a as a detective to delete evidence.

Speaker 12 (15:33):
Correct, that would be improper, that would be wrong. Yes,
tell the jurors why that would be wrong.

Speaker 9 (15:40):
That's evidence.

Speaker 10 (15:41):
And some of them are like, absolutely not. That is
obstruction of justice, extremely inappropriate. And some of them are like,
I guess why are you asking me to What does
this have to do? They're like, why am I being acted?
So I think even this kind of sidebar about what's
appropriate for taking kind of witness statements and taking down
evidence on the scene has become an interesting kind of sidebar.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
I know in this poor Sharon Lattner's she's the nine
one one coastodian who absolutely doesn't want to be here.
Every time she gets welcomed back, she's like, whatever, leave
me out of this. What am I doing here?

Speaker 4 (16:13):
Welcome back?

Speaker 6 (16:15):
Okay?

Speaker 9 (16:18):
You all that I am, thank you.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
But then also just a backtrack, so the car that
was ultimately part of all this was borrowed right from
a Kansas State University student.

Speaker 8 (16:31):
Her boyfriend decides.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
To borrow it, goes on this ride to try to
find weed. He's high the entire time, and so the
whole reason why there's this debate over whether the elite
statements or not was because dude was like listen, I
was high. I realized that the car was taken, and
I didn't I was doing everything I can to just
extricate myself from the situation. I was willing to say
absolutely whatever, house.

Speaker 12 (16:56):
Yes, it was apparently borrowed.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
How they get as you say borrow, what do you mean?

Speaker 7 (17:03):
Don't exactly know how this happened. I do remember being
really faded kind of in and out of what I
would say consciousness. I was pretty messed up trying to
look from next high.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
And I guess like it was acknowledged by the detectives,
like when you recognize that a statement is bullshit, I'm
just gonna go ahead and scratch that, and we're gonna
move on, and you're gonna give me the truth. So
that ends up, like you said, Juel, being this whole
entire sidebar based on the testimony from this poor guy
who was just like I was high. I do not
understand the passage of time. When I'm high, I didn't

(17:37):
know where I was. Sometimes when you get a we
connect you up in a place when you don't know anybody,
and you just sit there and you think to yourself,
and I just found so much.

Speaker 10 (17:46):
Yeah, because then the defense brings it up where they're
kind of saying like, well, if you're deleting things because
you perceive them to be untrue, is there evidence in
that that we could use to defend our client or
is there like pertinent information that is also delete it? Like,
what's the protocol for that? Is that proper conduct? It
was really interesting.

Speaker 11 (18:06):
Yeah, I loved that they brought in all these people.
So you have this the woman who lent her car
to her boyfriend.

Speaker 7 (18:13):
Do you recognize that vehicle in stations in the thirty
sixth Charla.

Speaker 12 (18:17):
Yes, sir, that's a vehicle that I owned.

Speaker 11 (18:20):
The boyfriend who went to smoke weed at this house
and then the car was basically stolen while he was
at this house.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Somebody stay off hand, I need to borrow a car,
and next thing you.

Speaker 15 (18:30):
Know, it was gone.

Speaker 11 (18:31):
His car's gone. Yeah, so and then this car is
of course used in this incident. But you have these
people brought on the stand. So you've got the poor
woman whose car was stolen, who has absolutely nothing to
get well.

Speaker 9 (18:42):
She reminds me of the first woman the stage. Mom,
do you remember what I'm talking about?

Speaker 10 (18:48):
Whose car gets stolen and she's like, my card was stolen,
but she has no other She's like, I don't know
who stole it.

Speaker 9 (18:54):
I can't tell you anything else.

Speaker 10 (18:56):
I just know I'm missing a car, and the car
show us up somewhere else, right, Like she's brought in
and I get she's brought in to tie into the
fact that the car was stolen, which is later found.
But I just it feels like sometimes we get all
these extra testimonies that just kind of like drag on,
and they're not soup. They don't know anything about the
actual like crime.

Speaker 9 (19:15):
You know, I don't know. It's interesting.

Speaker 11 (19:17):
We spent like over an hour, maybe even two hours
with that woman, and then several hours with the boyfriend,
who also doesn't really fit into the bigger narrative in
a way that is meaningful. So George, I'm actually curious
to hear from you. Like there's also the DNA expert
who who tells us all about how DNA works and
then reveals that his findings were inconclusive.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
So it's like here he was flown in from Maryland
to tell everybody.

Speaker 11 (19:46):
He wasn't He wasn't able to testify the day he
was supposed to, so they had to keep him a
whole extra day probably changes flight. Then he goes you know,
and then he gets up on the stand and he
says basically nothing. I mean, I've learned a lot about
DNA and how it's analyzed, which was cool.

Speaker 8 (19:58):
But Bill, Bill and I the science.

Speaker 11 (20:00):
Then they analyze these three guns and it's like, yeah,
we couldn't really figure out whose DNA was on this.
Maybe Walter Murphy was on one of them, which, yeah,
Walter Murphy's DNA is most certainly on it. He was
caught shooting. I gut like, this is not the question
that we need to answer. But anyway, George, I'm curious,
is there a strategy behind all of these like minutia
details being brought out in court one after another.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
So I think part of this is like a legal
requirement to establish the basis for evidence, Like we have
to say, all right, we have this piece of evidence.
This is how we know it's evidence. So here here
is our presentation. And in a trial that wasn't looking
at seven years of data, this probably wouldn't, you know,

(20:42):
be this kind of prosecution say, but we're going to
be going through this over and over and over again.
It's some of this is extraneous and it's obviously so No.
I think the prosecution ist dragging some of this out
because they want to lay on the most important pieces
at the end, and they know that they've got to

(21:04):
do some of this stuff, so they're getting the boring,
ridiculous stuff out of the way early. On the other hand,
I think they are burning goodwill in the.

Speaker 9 (21:15):
Process, that's the question.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Yeah, then I don't understand, you know, assuming they've got
the evidence that we have heard that they have phone calls,
wire taps, insider testimony, never mind things like the body
camera of the police officer who was shot at that

(21:40):
apartment complex. I might add by Christian Eppinger, the you
know they're there. I see that they're trying to lay
up the blocks so that they could say once they
introduce the eperture, you know evident that Hey, do you

(22:02):
remember this apartment complex where where these guys were in
this this car chase that was like out of you know,
dousha hazard thing, and now you've got some guy shooting
your cops six times. What's in the back of the head.
You know these things are connected, but it's a long

(22:24):
slog from here to there. I have no idea, what
the what the journey is actually going to remember. I
think that they're looking for impressions to.

Speaker 10 (22:33):
Your point to George, I think, you know, they do
have this responsibility to lay this foundation, so they do
have to bring certain people in. But we also have
to keep in mind that these things happened ten years ago.
So you have somebody like a Leonard Pass who you
have to bring in. Derek Dootson is dead. You want
to establish that this crime occurred, that they were robbed,
you have to bring him in.

Speaker 12 (22:52):
Now this past. How is your memory? I guess I
can say it's not good.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I mean, I I had like a concussion when I
played football once.

Speaker 10 (23:06):
But then you also got to content with the fact
that he's like I got a concussion, and maybe I
said he was six ' three, but maybe he was
you know what I mean, Like you're trying to discuss
like the height of somebody, or you're trying to discuss,
you know, what the person who did the robbery looked like,
and all of those things, and those things become fuzzy
because even for somebody who doesn't have a concussion, it
was ten years ago, and so it's you know, there's

(23:26):
no perfect witness kind of thing not.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
To mention when you're dealing with a traumatic incident like
that with getting robbed. You don't know anything, you don't
have a height hirt next to you. Everything is happening
so fast. And it was Leonard who was like, we
need to run. Yeah, So if you were bolting that
fast from somebody who has a gun, nobody has time
to gage somebody's weight or telling you.

Speaker 9 (23:44):
What that man's nostrils look like.

Speaker 10 (23:46):
You know what I mean, Like I was in fight
or flight the mode. I don't know what his eye
shape was. I was running, so I think, yeah, I
get it.

Speaker 11 (23:53):
All right, Well, let's take a break and we'll be
right back talk more about this incident. All right, Welcome
back to King Slime. So, all right, we've been talking
about all these people coming up and testifying, and we
learned these details. And I want to sort of get

(24:14):
a gut check from all of you on this because
we have some cops saying there were four people in
the car, some cops saying there were three people in
the car, that the people scattered when the car hit
the laundromat in different directions, And there is this idea
that one of the people got away. Now, some of
the cops said. The two female cops who were in
the unmarked Taurus with the officer, one of them ends

(24:36):
up arresting Walter Murphy on the ground. And these folks
testified that a woman was driving the car with a
blonde wig. And there's this actually really funny moment where
I see they must have at some point described her
in the reporter or something as like large chested? Is

(24:57):
there something like that. It's like, we'll play the you'll
hear it.

Speaker 13 (25:00):
Do you know what it means when someone a woman
is described as heavy chested? Yes, okay, what would you
what would you imagine that? Not imagine what would that
be if you were to describe a woman as heavy chested?
What would what would your description mean?

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Isn't it I'm going to sustain on what's relevance? I'm
moving bye, thank.

Speaker 11 (25:24):
You, which is funny because that goes back for it.
But I'm trying to figure out what's happening when when
they're talking about this and it seems like was there
some they show pictures of young thug at the time
to like show what he looks like the defense does
and like they're trying to counter something, is what's happening
here that they're saying Young Thug was the fourth person
in this car, and are they saying that Young Thug

(25:46):
was potentially confused for this female driver. I'm just going
to ask those questions because those are questions I had
when I was watching this, So Christina understand.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean the we kicked off very confusingly, because yeah,
one of the first things that we're seeing is like
Thug's a rest record, and then like a mugshot, and
then basically you have an officer confroning, yes, that's a mugshot.
Any other questions, No, I guess I'm permanently excused now.
But yeah, they were like trying to parse whether Young
Thug's hair was blonde or black at the time. So

(26:14):
you're being introduced to this and you're like, what the
hell is this going on? Like don't we know this
cop sh already? And then turns out, I guess the
lead up supposedly is that what we hear over police
radio is that they are still in search of somebody
who may have escaped, jumped over the fence of the
hill from which the car free willid and is on

(26:35):
the run somewhere and the entire time that police are
trying to track down who this fourth person is. The
only bit of information that they've held on too is
as this person is a woman. This person is a woman.
There's a blonde wig and stuff like that. I guess
this is what they're leading up to and attempts to
connect Young Thub. But right now it still still feels
like it's an open ended question whether there was a

(26:56):
fourth person or not.

Speaker 8 (26:57):
We're still not even sure which.

Speaker 10 (26:59):
To your point, it seemed really determined to try to
place young Thug in that car, and I think that
speaks to the Adrian being of it all, which I'm
sure we'll get to because you know, there's these call,
these jail calls where he says that young Thug was
in the car, but they haven't been played to Durry yet.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
I just went to wrong mom, Fuck away, man, I
should have follow Thug.

Speaker 10 (27:22):
And he's gotten on the stand so far and has
said twenty thirteen, I don't know what happened in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
I suffered from Molly.

Speaker 12 (27:35):
I don't know if you're all familiar with that. He
suffered from Molly.

Speaker 9 (27:39):
Just ma'am, I suffered from Molly.

Speaker 10 (27:42):
I suffered from Molly, which was his way of saying
that he was he had a substance use issue with
Molly and that he was high for most of that
time and that he cannot recall or remember anything that
happened in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 9 (27:54):
And so the.

Speaker 10 (27:55):
The prosecutors kind of drilled down where they're like asking line,
line kind of some of the things he said on
that jail call, one of them being that young thug
was in the car right, and he just every time
says I don't recall, I don't recall, I knows music.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
What the question here is what will the jury believe right,
will believe you've been right now saying I don't remember,
I don't know, or wouldn't believe that he was saying
something true when he was speaking at the time in
twenty exactly.

Speaker 10 (28:25):
And to your point, they're set they're setting it up, right.
So prosecutors have had this discussion outside of the jury
where they say, we have this jail call. Bean says
thug's in the car. He you know, says that Walt
Murphy was shooting at cops. YadA YadA ya. We have
this jail call. If Adrian Bean gets up there and
is like, I remember it all like it was yesterday, Yes,

(28:46):
young thug was in the car and Walt Murphy shot
at the cops and you know, blah blah blah. Then
we don't need the jail call because he has corroborated
everything that we have said. If he gets up there
and he's like, it's all a blur, I can't remember,
which is exactly what he does, then we want to
bring in the jail call to show that that's not
what he said ten years ago. And so you know,

(29:06):
the judge has kind of agreed, you know, if it
plays out how y'all think it might play out, then
we can bring the jail call in.

Speaker 9 (29:12):
If not, then we don't need the jail call.

Speaker 10 (29:14):
So, really, what the prosecution is doing when they're asking
him line by line, did you refer to Big Jeff,
did you refer to you know, y'a either going line
by line based on what he said in those jail calls,
is because they want him to say I don't remember
or I didn't say that, so that they can then go, funny, you.

Speaker 9 (29:33):
Should say that here's the jail call.

Speaker 15 (29:35):
Right.

Speaker 10 (29:36):
They're setting it up so that they can play that
jail call. And to your point, George say, all right, jurors,
who do you believe. Do you believe twenty thirteen Adrian
Bean or do you believe twenty twenty four Adrian Bean.

Speaker 11 (29:47):
And because they were debating about whether this was going
to be put in his evidence, we got a chance
to hear the nine the jail call, so we you know,
the jurors haven't heard it yet, but we did. And
so what he specifically says is he's talking to his
wife from the jail after he's arrest and he said,
I wish I would have run with thug because he
got away. That's exactly what he says. So it is so, George,

(30:11):
you sound like you were about to chime in there.
What do you make of all this?

Speaker 4 (30:14):
Well, it goes to this question of conspiracy and what
the jury is going to be thinking, because if they're
here in Bean deny knowledge of this call in twenty thirteen,
then it will it will feed into this idea that
the gang is still trying to protect themselves one way

(30:36):
or another, that they're engaging in a no stitching thing
where they protect young Thug and maybe themselves in the process.
The ility is by saying no, I only lever, I
don't know anything. I was high. A juror may conclude, well,

(30:57):
they're all lying. There must be a real gang. This
is a conspiracy. That's what racketeering is. In boom condision
like it is really insidious.

Speaker 9 (31:08):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
Because because if there's I, let's the Simi's telling the truth,
like there's no there there there are no conditions under
which you could say anything one way or another other
than no, I didn't say that. This is a lie.
Where where a juror who already had skepticism of the

(31:29):
people who are testifying, would would would lower their skepticism
of what they're saying. Like in that, I can see
why the prosecution would want to keep trying to set
up situations like this to just sort of create this
parade of witnesses who are saying I don't know, I

(31:51):
don't recall, this isn't true, like in order to all
look like they're guilty.

Speaker 10 (31:56):
And Adrian Bean's thing is like I'm not you know,
he explicitly says, I'm not in YSL.

Speaker 9 (32:00):
They don't have nothing to do with me. I don't
want I want to put this time behind me.

Speaker 10 (32:03):
I've served my time, I don't remember nothing, to stop
asking me questions, right. But then there's also these moments
where Adrian Love says, do you recognize anybody in his courtroom?
And he's like no, And then he's like, oh, I
do know young Thug, but I know him through his music, right,
And so then you have to ask yourself, is the jury,
how is the jury gonna perceive that when they hear

(32:24):
these jail calls where he's like, I should have run
with Thug And it's like, well, you said you didn't
know Thug, You said you only knew him through his music,
or you you know, you said you didn't really know
you knew of him from the neighborhood, but that you
had never really had any personal dealings with him. That
is I think what goes to your point, George, of
does the I don't recall or the no ma'am's and

(32:46):
kind of the not responsive the non responsiveness then kind
of play up this idea of look at them continuing
to protect kind of the quote unquote gang or themselves,
whether or not Adrian Bean says he's an official member
of YSL or not.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
So that's something for the jury to look forward to.
It seems they're going to be able to hear that call.
It's most likely. In the meantime, you know, as all
this testimony is taking place, we are seeing debate between
prosecution and defense over whether to admit yet another call
this but specifically like a nine to one one call.
It also took place September eleventh, twenty thirteen. Confusingly, it

(33:25):
occurs at the next phase of the Summadale apartment complex
that we've been talking about, So it's literally just kind
of like around the corner. And in this call, we
have a nine to one one caller reporting a shooting
and she says that there is a shooter hiding in
her friend's home. And she says, they came to my
house and told me that the guy who shot somebody's

(33:45):
name was Young Thug, whoever that is supposed to be.
And she also says, please don't tell anybody I made
this call.

Speaker 11 (33:53):
It's not an emency.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
We got shot the gun making hand.

Speaker 7 (34:01):
Again, she don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
We have prosecutions, saying like, of course this brings young
This situates Young Thug into the malay that basically happens
around Cleveland Avenue around this day on the other hand,
defence is essentially saying, look, we can't cross examine this caller.
She did not want to be identified and she refuses
to be found, so I can't cross examine this person.

(34:23):
And also, this is the only mention of Young Thug.
She's not even sure whether it's Young Thug she said
Young Thug or somebody. So before we get into what
actually happened with this call, what did we even think
about this being considered as evidence.

Speaker 11 (34:37):
Well, there was a negotiation that happened over this call,
and what they ended up doing is playing the call
for the jury, but they cut out the reference to
Young Thug, which was interesting. So just to set that up, Jewel,
I mean, what did you make of all that? And
the final thing that the jury got to hear?

Speaker 10 (34:54):
Well, I think the point of introducing the nine one
one call is to introduce Young Thug as being involved
in this, and so if you cut the reference to
Young Thug out that it just becomes a nine one
one call about chaos being in a neighborhood, which we
already know that there's a shooting in the neighborhood.

Speaker 9 (35:12):
We already kind of have some of these pieces.

Speaker 10 (35:14):
I think the pertinent piece of that call was that
somebody named young Thug who was involved in this shooting
is in this woman's house. If we don't hear the
name young Thug, then what is that kind of bolster?

Speaker 11 (35:26):
Yeah, I mean it does suggest that someone maybe got
away from the shooting just in her apartment. And even
if you don't name that person could have been young Thug,
which is what they've been sort of insinuating with this
person that escaped that may have looked like a woman
that may have had blonde dreads or blonde hair or
whatever and maybe was hiding out in an apartment.

Speaker 10 (35:47):
I think it's important to note when it comes to
this nine one one call too, that the reason defense
attorneys were so adamant that the young Thug reference not
being brought in, and the reason that it wasn't brought
in was because the calls are made by people who
insisted on being anonymous, and so they are not going
to be called to the West witness stand, they're not
going to be testified, they're not going to testify, and

(36:07):
because of that, defense attorneys won't get as chance to.

Speaker 9 (36:10):
Cross examine them.

Speaker 10 (36:11):
Right, So then it becomes a well, you can't bring
up my client if I don't get the opportunity to
cross examine you on this thing. And so that is
one of the that's the big reason why Young Thug's
name has been omitted from this nine one call.

Speaker 11 (36:24):
Yeah, and defense argued that this was double hearsay. Yeah, right,
So it was hearsay because you're getting this woman who's
not actually witnessing anything happen. She's saying, my neighbor's telling
me that somebody came into apartment, which that whole situation
is a little bit strange. It's like this woman comes
over physically to her neighbor's apartment, tells her there's someone

(36:45):
in her apartment and her baby's there and whatever, but
then goes back to the apartment and has her phone
with her, but doesn't call the police herself. So it's
just kind of a strange situation to begin with. But
so you have this one layer of hearsay, and then
the second layer of say is because they can't bring
anybody in to talk about this, so you've just got
basically you're relying on Love's interpretation of this, and that's

(37:09):
a dangerous thing to put to the.

Speaker 8 (37:11):
Much interpretation over this call and is this person frantic?

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Are they not frantic? Is this an emergency? Is it
not an emergency? Where are they? How in close proximity?
How close in proximity is she to the cop cars?
How close is she to the actual situation concerning the
coin laundromat. There's so much speculation that I kept wondering,
could easily have just been resolved much more expediently with
a testimony.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
Some part of this I think might be things the jury,
Like the jury has got no basis in what YSL
is or game life is, you would think, I mean,
if they're serving on a jury, it's unlikely that the
convicted of a felony or have been living a gang
life themselves. And so let me just say this, like

(37:57):
this apartment complex is notorious. The people who have lived
in this apartment complex have lived like sort of with
YSL for a long time, Like this is that's home base.
And the idea that there's a shooting or cops are

(38:18):
chasing somebody and somebody goes into a random apartment and
they don't call the cops, it's not or somebody else
calls the cops. It's not reasonable for that apartment complex
given that condition, but it's not something the jury would understand,
it's something the cops would understand. And maybe and so

(38:40):
maybe they're thinking, look, we need to just demonstrate the
dysfunction of this place by showing this. Excepting that they're
like they're either we're really early in that process or
they're just not going to get it to that. That
have made that point very clearly.

Speaker 10 (38:56):
Yeah, because there's even the the I think I was
thinking about that in terms of the now one one
call and like why it's really it maybe is not
that unusual that like she would have gone back into
the house or whatever. Like it's there's this like nuance
of community that even when we talk about the Derek
Dotson robbery and they call him by a nickname and
so it he clearly knows kind of he's familiar with

(39:18):
the person that's robbing him. The person that's robbing him
is familiar with him. There's a communal and familiarity element
there that like we haven't really drilled down into, but
I think matters and explains behavior that if you're not
familiar with this type of community would seem strange.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
This is all a really good point that a lot
of this just hasn't been established certainly over like the
past couple days or whatever, and I'm going curious to
see whether they actually get to explaining the culture of
that area and just like how that informs the way
that police navigate this area, which would ultimately lead us
to this one, this case in particular.

Speaker 11 (39:55):
And this whole idea of sort of your frame of reference,
your personal frame of reference, is really interesting. We talk
about like, I think the three of us, Christina, George
and myself at least we've gotten to know each other
pretty well in this process. We're all journalists, we're all
fairly skeptical, but we're not jurors, and we don't know
what jurors think. So, uh, you know, I'm curious, Juelle,
what you think now that we're bringing you in as

(40:16):
a guest this week about what the jury like. We
sort of assume, oh, the jury's thinking this, but we
really can't make any assumptions, can we.

Speaker 10 (40:24):
You can't, cause I think people the way that I
always try to explain it is you can have the
same exact experience experience as the person sitting next to you,
and you can have a completely different perception of it.

Speaker 9 (40:35):
That's just human nature is how it works. Right.

Speaker 10 (40:37):
And I think specifically for people in Atlanta who have
interacted with crime in some way, I been victims of
crime or you know, they've had things occur around them,
they might leave that situation with a completely different perspective
than the person next to them who experienced the same
exact thing. I always tell people my family, for instance,

(40:58):
this was probably seven or eight years ago, my cousin
was killed by fifteen and sixteen year old gang members. Right,
And even within our family, the perceptions of justice and
what's a reasonable punishment versus an unreasonable punishment differs based
on age, based on other experiences that we've had.

Speaker 9 (41:16):
Right. There are people who.

Speaker 10 (41:17):
Have very strong maybe are tougher on crime than others. Right,
And this is all our relative. This happened to our relative.
But we just have completely different perceptions of crime in
Atlanta and how prevalent it is, right, and kind of
punishment and justice. And so I think it's really hard
to speculate and to be certain what someone's perception might be.

(41:42):
Even though we're all experiencing the same evidence, we're looking
at the same testimony, we might be interpreting it completely different.
You know than what somebody else is who is also
an Atlanta native and also maybe is familiar with these neighborhoods,
et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 12 (41:56):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
I was about to say, if like these jurors already
have this understand of like how communities like this work
and just like how communal everything is, like, they might
just take a lot of things for granted. It's like okay, well, like, okay,
we recognize all this based on our prior experience with
crime here in Atlanta. There's probably not a whole lot
that they need to question about the testimony.

Speaker 10 (42:19):
But you could also have a different relation to police, Like, right,
there might be people who are familiar and are like
get them basically, like cops need to be tough on this.
I'm tired of my neighborhood being you know, a part
of this narrative, right, And there are other people that
are like the cops are making it worse, or they're harassing,
or it's it's uncalled for, it's too tough. Right, People

(42:40):
who grew up in the same exact neighborhood, are had
the same exact experiences might just really have a different perception.

Speaker 11 (42:45):
You don't know, I guess my overall question with all
this and George, maybe I'll throw this one to you
because I'm curious what you think about this. If this
is a gang related incident tied to YSL, I guess
I have two questions. Why are Frederick broth Row and
Adrian Bean not in the indictment? And my second question
is if they think young Thug is tied to this incident,

(43:08):
why wasn't he arrested in twenty thirteen when this incident happened.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
Well that's let me take the second first, because Talithunk
wasn't arrested because they didn't have enough evidence, which raises
the question why are we hearing about it now? Like
how in the world does a phone call that results
in you know, there's an investigation but no arrest, suddenly

(43:34):
still get in front of a jury when you're considering
he is kilt as an accused gang member. And the
answer is rico. Rico and gay cases allow for a
quality of evidence to be introduced that you would not
get in a regular trial, and it's why the defense

(43:57):
bar hates Rico trials. This would not be fair in
another trial if he was on trial for a murder
and not being charged as a gang member. None of
this would be admissible and they know it, so they
charged it with Rico and they can throw the kitchen
sink at him. And the question is whether or not

(44:20):
the jury understands this and to what degree they accept
or discount that. Your first question was why weren't the
other guys brought in? And maybe it's because it's just
a super complex case as it is, and there's no

(44:41):
point Prof Ro is in prison. He's in Telfair State
Prison with a backs outdate in twenty twenty eight. It
isn't clear that they get more from him, Like can you, like,
do you convict him on a gang crime on top
of that and extend is sentence? I mean, okay, that's

(45:05):
something like, but I don't know from a position of
criminal justice sense, it makes sense to stick an extra
five year this guy in jail for nextra five years.
You know, he's been in jail for the last ten
I take its triage.

Speaker 11 (45:21):
Even if young Thug is in this car, even if
they even if people believe that young Thug is in
this car, that he got away and he was tied
to this incident, how are they making the argument that
this is a gang crime that is tied to Ysel
because that seems you know, we talk about that third
box all the time, the infurtherance of a gang box.
Talked a lot about that last week. How is that
case being made? And I'm from what you've been saying

(45:43):
so far, it sounds like maybe that's just a slow
thing they're trying to trickle out over time. Is that right?

Speaker 4 (45:50):
So? I think so? Like the hard part here is
that a lot of a lot of the prosecution strategy
is inscrutable. I don't I'm guessing at it. I feel
like a kremlinologist trying to understand what Moscow is doing.

(46:10):
They're not telegraphing anything either. They've gone out of their
way to avoid, you know, presenting you know, a list
of what witnesses are going to be coming next and when.
So we're left to guess at what their long term
strategy here is. They want to show a pattern, like
it's to describe somebody as a gang member. You want

(46:34):
to show a pattern of gang crime.

Speaker 11 (46:37):
There was some language in the testimony here that made
me perk up with this gang stuff too, because they
talked about sort of like drug money in the car
being used to buy a lean. At one point, Walter
Murphy was described as like young thugs, like guy like
his henchmen or something. There was a term that was

(46:57):
used that basically insinuated. And so I can see the
pieces sort of like slowly being assembled, but I'm surprised
that they aren't with every one of these incidents being
like this is why this is a gang.

Speaker 9 (47:09):
Incident more deliberate.

Speaker 10 (47:11):
There was a funny moment about the lean I thought about,
especially when I think about juror perception.

Speaker 9 (47:16):
They asked Adrian Bean if he knew what a leen was,
and he was like no.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Do you recall the tech telling detected David Quinn that
after you all determined that nothing was going on with
that situation, you all, you.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
Dk were the person with the.

Speaker 14 (47:29):
D and the K on his face, big bread and
young thug.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
We're all going in on some lean.

Speaker 12 (47:38):
No, ma'am.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Do you know what lean is?

Speaker 4 (47:41):
No, ma'am.

Speaker 12 (47:43):
You don't know what lean is, no, ma'am.

Speaker 10 (47:45):
And then they asked him if he knew what a
lick was, and he was like no, And I'm like, somebody,
you sir.

Speaker 9 (47:51):
Okay, like the the the I don't recall. They're getting
a little fast and loose, Adrian Ban you don't know
what lean is and you don't know what a lick is.

Speaker 10 (47:58):
It was an interesting he said, no, ma'am, he said, no, ma'am,
I don't know what a leaky is.

Speaker 9 (48:02):
What is it?

Speaker 11 (48:04):
The no mams were interesting because at first I was like, oh,
they're getting nothing from this guy, and I thought that
he was like stonemalling him and it was. But what
you realize is that this strategically we talked a little
bit about this already, but the nomams add up, and
so by the time they gave the prosecution an opportunity
to read every single piece of that police report and

(48:25):
comment on it, and the jail call and all these things,
they were basically able to assemble that entire narrative around
these nomams, yep, which was kind of fascinating to watch.

Speaker 9 (48:35):
It's basically like a little preview y'all gonna hear something
a little later. Just here's a sprinkling of WHI y'all
might here in a few days, you know.

Speaker 8 (48:42):
Yeah, it's a little preview next time on the Wise trial.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
All right, So.

Speaker 11 (48:47):
Overall, let's let's wrap up the Red Nissan Conference of
the Free Willie incident, whatever we want.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
To call it.

Speaker 11 (48:51):
Let's wrap up the conversation on this. So I'm going
to ask each and each one of you do you
think this incident helped the prosecute more, or the defense more,
or or was neutral?

Speaker 4 (49:03):
Jewel will start with you.

Speaker 10 (49:06):
I want to see a little more. I want to
see the jail call be introduced. I'm not sure yet.
So far, I am more neutral than anything. I think
there have certainly been moments that have helped their case,
but I still haven't seen it be brought together in
a way that I think really.

Speaker 8 (49:24):
Coheres.

Speaker 10 (49:26):
It's not really coherent at this point, but I think
if we tie in those pieces right Walter Murphy is
on the witness list, we have this jail call coming up,
there are some pieces that I think very well could
tie it together and make it a strong presentation for
the prosecution.

Speaker 9 (49:43):
But I'm not sure.

Speaker 10 (49:43):
I've seen it be as cohesive as it should be yet.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Christ it's interesting now that we have to factor in
Adrian Berean's testimony and the possible strategy leading up to that.
I could certainly see how prosecution ultimately will benefit like especially,
I mean, we'll see how the coming days you know,
turn out. But what I was taking away from all this,
even prior to that, was that nobody remembers a damn thing.

(50:10):
Nobody knew a thing back then. But certainly when you're
talking about a police officer who typically wears corrective lenses,
if only for reading, couldn't even see in the car.
And she was the one who said that there might
have been she identified a female driver.

Speaker 13 (50:25):
Why weren't you wearing your glasses on that day?

Speaker 6 (50:28):
I normally don't wear glasses. I liked personally, I like
to wear them just to suit up my attire.

Speaker 9 (50:36):
Okay, it's just my forte. But they are prescriptions that
absolutely It's.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Like, how much can we really like take into consideration here?

Speaker 8 (50:47):
There was a lot.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
I mean, as we talked about, you know, it's really
hard to remember incidents like this where everything just happened
so fast. And to me, this was just testimony, I guess,
to just how imperfectly the human the human mind is
when it comes remembering something this long ago.

Speaker 11 (51:03):
And one quick thing before we get to you, George. So,
the other thing that was interesting about the cops was
you learned how siloed each one of those positions were
like the people. I was the shot that the cops
that made the arrest then just have nothing to do
with the rest of the process. Like Detective Queen comes
in and then so these cops had no idea what
happened after the incident. They didn't And so you don't
have one person on the police side, I mean, Quinn,

(51:28):
maybe it's that person, right, It didn't first hand witness anything.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
The radio ends up being like a really app metaphor
for all this, right, because we get into all this
technical jargon whatever about how like at some points you
can tune into the main channel and get in what's
going on. You could relay messages there, but then you
could silo off into this other channel and exchange information
that way. And so as all this is sort of
a mounting together, we hear thirty minutes of people just

(51:53):
trying to figure out what the hell is going on
and just being like, okay, are you hit to this.
We're finding a woman. Now, we're going to find a
woman who's hopped over the fence. And we're like, wait
a second, a woman.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
You have a female and custody black female with blond
here all right, fifty three to one.

Speaker 14 (52:05):
We know we're missing a black female with a blonde.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Wig, and it's just like it is chaos. And so
we did kind of see that unfold on the stand
where people were just like I was here to do
one job, and one job only. I don't know the
other persons job. Maybe I'm aware of it, but who knows,
who knows honestly?

Speaker 11 (52:22):
So, George, what did you think? What's your overall impression
of this incident and whether you think it helped the
prosecution and defense more so, I'm kind.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Of a jewel on this one. It's kind of TBD.
I'll be neutral, Like my vote is neutral. If they
can tie this very clearly to other evidence that's stronger
than what we've seen, and this makes all the sense
of the world. It's a building block here building it,
you know, building a wall brick by brick, but if

(52:49):
there's nothing that, it's just a brick. And I don't
need a brick, just a brick.

Speaker 10 (53:00):
Yeah, that's the metaphor for this entire trial. I'm like,
I got a bunch of bricks, right, I don't know
what we're gonna make with it, but we got a
bunch of bricks.

Speaker 9 (53:08):
TBD. On what's gonna come.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
With the bricks.

Speaker 8 (53:10):
Maybe a retaining wall could be a retaining roll to
fix that launder.

Speaker 9 (53:13):
Yeah, we got to fix the lundroment.

Speaker 11 (53:15):
All right, Well that's great. So well let's take a
break and we'll come back and we'll talk a little
bit more about the media's reaction to this trial.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
We are back, and we figure with this part of
the conversation. We just have to we just have to
ran you, guys, we have to make sense of our
experience covering this trial as journalists, especially with Jule and
I being entertainment reporters, and this concerning like one of
the biggest rappers to come out of Atlanta. This is

(53:51):
somebody who you'd be covering. You've profiled Gonna for GQ,
I profiled them for Double XCEL. So like this is
very much in our orbit. I'm gonna be an with
the story. Okay, because Juwel and I have both been
on CNN. We've been on the show first of all
with Victor Blackwell, both talking about the Ysel trial. So
there was a moment Juel where I was literally about

(54:11):
to step on set. They had me all micd up
and everything, and this was I was on there to
talk about the arrest of y Cel defense attorney Nicole Fagan,
which is this whole thing. I'm about to step onto
set and one of the camera crew was like, this
isn't even the first attorney to be arrested who's connected
to this trial? And I was like, that is correct.

(54:33):
I felt like such a proud teacher. I said, how
have you been keeping up with this trial? And he
said Instagram?

Speaker 9 (54:42):
Yeah, that's right. How does anyone keep up with anything? Christina?
Instagram and TikTok.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Is our This is the question that is very much
at the center of our jobs right now. Absolutely What
has that been like to offer context, context, contacts and
George you can speak to this too, of course, in
this age of social media, what has that been like
for you?

Speaker 9 (55:09):
Interesting concerning rewarding.

Speaker 10 (55:15):
I think all of the above, right, Like I think
I see it as my job to be able to
report on things and inform people, and social media certainly
provides a platform to be able to do that if
people are open to it. Keep point being if people
are open to it, and everybody ain't open to it.

Speaker 9 (55:32):
But I also think it.

Speaker 10 (55:33):
Can be frustrating because people operate. You know, we talked
about how like the police officers operate in the silo.
People operate in silos, right, And so if you've seen
a twelve second clip on Instagram or TikTok, you probably
will argue me down that you know more about the
case than I do than at it.

Speaker 9 (55:50):
I'll probably let you because I'm not going to go back,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 10 (55:53):
And so I think it has been frustrating because you
see how easily misinformation or even if it's not a lie.

Speaker 9 (56:02):
It's not the full truth or it's not the full picture.

Speaker 10 (56:06):
You see how quickly things like that can disseminate on
social media, and for a case, I think what's particularly
interesting about this case is that it's been going on
for so long and.

Speaker 9 (56:15):
We have no end in sight.

Speaker 10 (56:17):
Okay, And so when you have a case that's this
length and you have the shortest tension spans that we
have as a society, good luck getting everyone to know
what the hell is going on at any point in time.
I've been covering, as you said, Christina rap in Atlanta,
hip hop in Atlanta for years, and I you know,

(56:41):
I had just covered when the indictment came down, had
just written that profile of Gonna for GQ. And so
I was already kind of in the YSL orbit kind
of that year.

Speaker 9 (56:50):
Little did I know.

Speaker 10 (56:52):
That it would become the only orbit that I would
be in for years to come, that would be as.

Speaker 8 (56:56):
Last of his greatest buds.

Speaker 10 (56:58):
It's sometimes I went to and I think I've described
that party to you, that I went to the Gunna
party I went. It's always to me very indicative of
how quickly things turn. I went to Gunna's album the
week that I profiled him went number one, and so
I went to the uh.

Speaker 9 (57:16):
It was like a it was like a celebration of that.

Speaker 10 (57:18):
And it was at I don't remember the name of
the steak place, the one where they cut it with
the Samurai sward. It's like gold it's like gold foil
encrusted steaks. It's very dramatic. And I went there and
they had these like big number one balloons that were
like swaying, and the glasses were like shattering off the
floor because Drake was playing so loudly at the event

(57:39):
and Gunna young Thug of course show up at the
very last minute. They don't even eat, but there are
like these like golden crusted steaks and their smoke billowing
from the cutting boards where they're cutting the stakes with Samurai.
It's so dramatic, and I'm like, this is the most
Atlanta rap event I've ever been to in my entire life.
And that was in February, I want to say, And

(58:01):
by May, right, we get this indictment, and by the
time we get to summer, I'm sitting in a courtroom
with Gunna's mom and she's crying because her son is
being denied bond right and is facing some very very
serious charge. It's it has been a wild, wild ride
because every time you think you have a grasp on
what is going on and there will be no more turns,

(58:22):
there is always a twist.

Speaker 9 (58:24):
There's always a twist.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
I mean, we talk about like how much of a
struggle it is just to be able to keep up
when like, really it's our jobs. But I'm curious you
talked about like all these small points that could stand
to get lost, Like what's an example of something that
you've seen kind of get lost in the mix or George,
you too, like if there are misconceptions that have popped

(58:47):
up about this trial because of all the intricacies that
we're trying to recap you know, a week after week.

Speaker 10 (58:54):
Yeah, I think there have been like some more lighter ones,
like everyone is convinced that the jury was jamming to
lifestyle in court, which is actually not true. They played
it to the judge to see if they should play
it in front of the jury.

Speaker 9 (59:04):
They didn't play it to the jury.

Speaker 10 (59:06):
And then also I think an example of kind of
not a lie but not the full truth is there
were so many clips of Ticks testimony that popped up
on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, right, and depending on
what clip you see, you formed the opinion of, oh,
he's singing like a canary, or look at him holding

(59:28):
it down. He ain't telling them nothing, right, wow, And
maybe your opinion would be neither, or maybe a little
more neutral, or maybe you.

Speaker 9 (59:34):
Would have the same opinion. I don't know.

Speaker 10 (59:36):
But if you see the total thing, that might change
your perception of the And mind you, he testified over days,
so the total.

Speaker 9 (59:43):
Thing was quite long.

Speaker 10 (59:44):
It was not two minutes or thirty seconds or whatever
the short TikTok version was, but that might change your
perception of his testimony, how helpful he was to either
the prosecution or the defense, and what role he played
for the larger case, and so I think those those
are like examples of something that seems small, and maybe
it is small. The case isn't over though, maybe it's big,

(01:00:06):
and maybe it's something that he says, something really small
that really sticks with the jurorsm becomes crucial in them
forming their opinion on this case. But because you only
saw that thirty second testimony where he's naming the defendants
in the courtroom, you think, look at him snicheing, or
you hear him say you know, he doesn't recall, and
you think, look at him holding it down right.

Speaker 9 (01:00:28):
It's kind of that thing that is interesting to.

Speaker 8 (01:00:31):
Me, George.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Have there been any interesting misconceptions or understanding about the
trial that you've come across.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
People are not nuanced about any of this stuff. That
has not been my experience. Most of the folks who
sort of talk to me or ask me about this stuff,
like it's immediately a discussion of lyrics and the use
of lyrics trial, Like that's that's almost always what they
lead with, like in terms of like how it's like

(01:00:59):
how it's being discussed in the public sphere in a
you know, online Like so there's this whole set of
like young thug stands, and I'm not like, I mean,
why wouldn't there be free thug, free wisel, like the

(01:01:20):
flood everything that anybody's ever like discussing about this, and
I'm trying to decide to what degree they should be
embraced or ignore.

Speaker 8 (01:01:29):
Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Even when I watch the live stream storage, I have
to shut the chat down because young Thug fans they
come out, they represent good for them. But I'm trying,
that's in my own best efforts to view everything objectively.
I'm like, Okay, am I gonna have an opinion of
this aside from what's going down in the chat, I
need to at least try.

Speaker 10 (01:01:48):
I think we've brought up a point about how the
length of this trial complicates what people are able to know.
I think about the one that I always compare is
the Tory Lanes trial, and that was about two weeks long.
A newspaper, digital publication, magazine, whatever, can spare a reporter
for two weeks to say this is your beat. You

(01:02:09):
go focus on this and you don't report on anything else.
You're reporting on this trial. No one can afford to
do that for two and a half years or however long. Right,
and so they're going to be covering other things. They're
not going to just be on the isol be there's
no one thread that you can follow that is from
start to finish YSL and every minute detail that might

(01:02:31):
end up coming back to be important later.

Speaker 9 (01:02:33):
Right.

Speaker 10 (01:02:34):
That's what makes this so complicated is how long it
is and how difficult it is to find a number
of voices that are really zoomed in on this and
giving you the play by play for this length of time.

Speaker 11 (01:02:50):
Well, on that note, I think we're basically wrapped up now.
There's a few small things we may want to just
like hitting, like kind of a lightning round, because we
did have some funny moments. So we had the case
of the stolen snacks.

Speaker 9 (01:03:02):
We're not sure who, I guess come in and clean up.

Speaker 11 (01:03:10):
So this is I know nothing this juror. You can
hear it in sort of the in between stuff on
the feed, uh she and will play it in the
show obviously. She talks about how the snacks have been
stolen from the juror room.

Speaker 12 (01:03:24):
We're not sure who clean up. I want to blame
so many people. I mean, we don't know that they
have they my saging.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
That place is locked anyways, So are you.

Speaker 11 (01:03:34):
Sure you're not eating up all the snacks?

Speaker 12 (01:03:36):
We do have a lim in them out.

Speaker 9 (01:03:38):
No, we actually perched that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
Oh okay, all right, well I will I'll launch an investigation.

Speaker 12 (01:03:47):
How about that.

Speaker 11 (01:03:48):
You know they don't get much. They don't get much,
these people, they get paid very little. Just you know,
let them have.

Speaker 8 (01:03:52):
Their snacks and they want an investigation.

Speaker 11 (01:03:55):
Yes, they want investigation. So season two we were joking things.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Line, it's gonna investigate what happened to the snacks where
the snacks go?

Speaker 11 (01:04:02):
Right?

Speaker 8 (01:04:02):
Obviously there's footage, there's got to.

Speaker 9 (01:04:04):
Be please, George, please.

Speaker 11 (01:04:09):
We also have a juror who's excused for moving, which
we didn't get to. That was something that happened sort
of in between our tapings. This was a woman who
had apparently expressed that she was going to be moving,
and they were just like, well, we're gonna take her
anyway and see how the chips fall. She showed a lease.
She has moved. I think it was the end of

(01:04:29):
As of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Now, it's officially relocated from another Cherokee county.

Speaker 11 (01:04:32):
Yeah, so so she's off the trials. So they only
have three left Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
If they lose four from this point forward, trial start over.

Speaker 11 (01:04:43):
So that's something to look at considering how long this
case could go. We'll tackle some other stuff on the
next show. There's a potential other indictment coming down the
pipes that we'll talk about maybe in a future show,
so that'll be a little tease for you. But thanks
for listening this week, and thanks to You're a wicker
for coming in and joining us. Such a lovely time
with you. Thank you for hearing your opinions and your insights.

(01:05:05):
It was great, And we'll be back next week. Nope,
we'll be back in two weeks.

Speaker 15 (01:05:11):
Like, don't make any promises we can't keep, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Airloom Media.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
It's written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee, and Tommy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Andres, mixing sound design and original music by Evan Tyre
and Taylor Chaquoyne.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
The executive producer and editor is Tommy Andres.

Speaker 8 (01:05:43):
Our theme music is by Done Deal.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.