Wrongfully Convicted: Rashawn Grant

Hey guys, welcome back to primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to jump into right now and true crime. So first thing we're going to talk about is they had been kind of back and forth on the death penalty being on the table for Chad Daybell, and there was a motion put out by Chad's team to take the death penalty off the table because Chad is just an innocent victim in all of this and he was manipulated by Lori Valo. That is what they are claiming. That is not what I believe. That is what they are claiming. And the judge has still decided that death has not been taken off the table. He denied the motion and it is still on the table. It very well could become a death penalty case, and it's going to be really interesting to see the direction that they go, because of course, his team is trying to spin that he is just an innocent victim in all of this and had nothing to do with any of it, even though the bodies the kids were on his property. He was a grave digger. He dug the graves and buried their bodies because he's a horrible human. You don't just get sucked into a conspiracy to murder children and then have their bodies buried on your property. It doesn't work like that. And I cannot wait to hear what all goes down with this, because April Fool's Day is going to be a wild one in Chad Daviel's world. In Ruby Frankie News, she had her hearing this week where she pled guilty to four counts of child abuse and all of the things. I did a brief little rundown of all of the charges and some of the details, which are pretty triggering because it's about child abuse and torture and psychological torture, and she is just not a good person. But she agreed to testify against Jody Hildebrant, so they dropped two of the charges, so instead of facing six counts, she's facing four. She pled guilty and her sentencing is going to be coming later so to be determined on that. I hope she's in prison for a very very very very very long time and all of the horrible things that she did to her kids come back as her karma. That is my hope. Last thing I'm going to talk about when I talked about last episode about the Idaho four case. The home. They were going to start demolition on December twenty eighth. The families have all spoken out against it. They put together a joint statement and released it because they are not in support of the home being torn down. And I also am not in support of the home being torn down. So this is what the statement said. Let us ask this, isn't it better to have the King Road House and not need it than need the house and not have it. That has been our question to the and the University of Idaho for the entire time. The demo of King Road has been an issue. But why is it even up for discussion. This is one of the most horrific crimes in the history of Idaho, and the University of Idaho wants to destroy one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the case. And it is also important to make note that there is now a demolition date before there is even a trial date set. That alone speaks volumes. It is obvious from the two recent visits to the house by both the prosecution and the defense that there is still evidentiary value in having the King Roade House still standing. There may be additional discovery by either party that prompts one side or the other to go back to the scene of the crime. There has always been a dialogue about the three D imaging, or that they were building a model to replicate the home, etc. First and foremost, what a waste of state money and resources? And secondly, nothing replaces the real thing. Jurors are notoriously unpredictable, and they tend to make decisions on a variety of facts and circumstances. It would be foolish of us to try and foresee what they will or won't need to make a verdict in this case. The family has stressed tirelessly to the prosecution and the University of Idaho the importance evidentiary and emotionally that the King Roade House carries, but nobody seems to care enough. It's like screaming into a void. Nobody is listening, and everyone tells you how sorry they are for the decision that the family's option opinion isn't a priority. Victims' families have a voice and should be heard and listen to. And like, absolutely, amen, I've said it from the beginning. The house needs to be left alone and stay standing until after the trial. I get that they want to tear it down. It was a horrible thing that happened in that town, and it is a college town. But tearing the house down is not going to tear down the memories and all of the horrific things that happened there that night. It's not. And there's no reason why you can't leave the house standing a few extra months to let this trial come and happen. Like they said, a trial date has not even been set yet. I am hopeful that it's gonna be at some point in twenty twenty four, but it might not be. And tearing that house down now is gonna be tearing down a hell of a lot of other things along with it. And if the families wanted to stay up, it should stay up. That is it. In my opinion, that is the answer. The families wanted up, it stays up. The families say tear it down, tear it down. If the famili's wanted up, it stays. That's my thoughts, my opinion. And it's hard enough. These families have already devastatingly lost their children, and not just in a way of like my child passed away, but brutally murdered in their own home by this deranged psychopath, allegedly Brian Coberger, and their last moments were in that house, and that house holds so much, so many secrets, so many things, so many, so much evidence. I'm sure they have a plethora of evidence against Brian. I am not saying that they don't, but I don't see what the harm in keeping the house up is. So I hope that they will maybe change their mind and keep the home up through trial. I hope we get a trial date soon. I'm hopeful for all of the things, because it's been a year. It hasn't quite been a year since they caught Coburger, coming up on a year in like the next week or so, I want to say. It was like the very like maybe the beginning of January that they caught Coburger or the very end of December. I cannot remember. But I am hopeful that they do what's right and make the right decision, because I would hate so much for this to come back and it'd be a not guilty verdict, and it was because they felt like they didn't get the full picture of what happened that night. You just never know. You cannot put your self in the minds in the jury room trying to decide someone's innocence or guilt. So fingers crossed, they do what's right and the house stays up. But I will be sure to keep you guys updated on that and all of the other true kind happenings. And we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode. All right, guys, we are doing a new episode today that is going to focus on the in my opinion, wrongful conviction of a guy named Rashaan Grant, and we're going to talk about his case, what happened, and how he ended up kind of mixed up in this horrific, horrific thing that ended up with him being charged with murder, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life without parole. Again, I will always say that there is more than one victim that we're going to be talking about. In this case. We're talking about the victim, the one who was murdered, and then we're talking about Rashon who was charged, convicted and is now serving life in prison when there's a high probability that he was not involved and he was just targeted for whatever reason. And we're going to talk about that. And I want to make sure that people realize and understand that I am not taking away from the victim of this homicide. It is important that we keep his story out there so that whoever really did do this can pay for what they did, and the people on the inside with law enforcement handling the case and handling evidence can also be held accountable for their lack of actions that led to Rashon being charged and convicted, because it is a huge disservice to the community when situations like this happen and a person is basically locked up, the key is thrown away and they're just in prison and there is a, like I said, high probability that they didn't do it, or at the very least that they didn't get a fair trial. That is really what I like to stick with, Like, it's not about innocence versus guilt, it's about fair and a lot of these cases I see where these people are tried and convicted, their trial isn't fair and that opens up grounds for an appeal, opens up grounds for a new trial, and that is hopefully what is going to be happening with Rashaan's case. But we're going to go ahead and dive in to what happened what led to him being arrested. He was arrested with another individual, and we're just going to talk about it. So the story takes place in twenty nineteen in a place called Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. The victim in this case is a young man aged twenty two named me Davis. And this happened September one of twenty nineteen. So I'm gonna kind of set the scene as to what happened that night that ended up ending in a mirror losing his life. And it is raining right now, So if you hear like background noise, it is the rain. I'm not going to stop recording just because it's raining out. Hopefully it drowns it out. So here's what went down. And we're in North Carolina. And there was a local wrapper from the North Carolina area named Sneak the Piper. So he and a group of his friends, which included Namir Davis, had been outside of this apartment complex after they had gone out for a night at a local club. Now, earlier that day, they had been at the apartment complex recording a music video for Sneak the Piper. And there was money and guns and drugs, all involved and included in the shooting of this video. So while they were at the club, there was some type of altercation between them and someone else, and they were threatened by a group of people that said that we're going to rob you. And basically they're all back at the apartment complex kind of hanging out in the parking lot, and there were several witnesses that said that several messed men began shooting at them and it was just utter chaos. There ended up being eighteen different shell casings found from multiple different shooters, and it was basically just like a crossfire type situation, a shootout situation, like people are heated, people have been up all day, probably drinking, probably partaking in some other extracurriculars. They're at at a club, there's a fight, it kind of trickles over back over to the apartment complex. It's basically a perfect storm of disaster and Nimir unfortunately was murdered in the process by this rapid gunfire. There were witnesses who gave descriptions of what the shooter looked like or what the shooters drove. Often none of that fit what Rashaan looked like or the vehicles that Rashaan had, So of course the cops come out. They're doing their investigative work. They realized that this one particular bullet came from a particular gun that is the one that killed the mirror, and if this evidence had been handled properly, there would have been a way to figure out what kind of gun that bullet came from, tracked down the person that potentially could have owned a gun like that, and also checked for DNA on the actual bullet, because you gotta load bullets, that's how guns work. I'm not a gun person, but I know that if you're going to a load of gun, there's probably going to be like some DNA evidence that's going to end up on the bullets and on the gun itself. It wasn't until years later, when Mashan was sitting in jail a waiting trial, that they decided that they were finally going to swab him for DNA, and they did so, but at that point it was already too late because he was about to be tried for murder. Murder like, this is a big deal. You're charging someone with murder and you're waiting until two months before their trial to officially even take their DNA, Like, where are you getting your evidence that you have on this person? If you have in check for DNA, that's like numero uno. And I didn't go to school for this stuff, and I know that. So in the process of the investigation, there were a lot of witnesses who came forward and other people who had come forward. There was even somebody who had come forward and gave a name of somebody who was a potential suspect. And this person was somebody who had previously been at that specific apartment complex and had shot up a specific apartment in that complex in regards to some of the people that were in the parking lot that night. So that seems like a really good lead. And this person's name was given to the detective and even had said that this person had admitted to killing Nmir, and the investigator at that point had already zeroed in on Rashan and said, that's not really important, we already have a suspect. So this lead investigator is named Joshua Tally. He was with the Rocky Mount Police Department. He has since been removed of his duties as a homicide detective and he is back on patrol. And if You're wondering how they came to find Rashon as a suspect for this case, because the eyewitnesses said the description of the people that were shooting did not look like Rashan, the car that they drove often were not the same type of cars that Rashan had. There was nothing tying Rashon to this crime other than the fact that, according to the Rocky Mount Police Department, that Rashon's younger brother had known some of the boys that had gone into a fight with the other group of boys from the apartment complex, and that there was motive for him to go there to kind of defend his brother. At least that is what they're saying. To me. It basically sounds like somebody said at some point to some of the investigators that were working this case trying to figure out some leads, well, Rashaan Grant's brother had beef with this person, end it might have been a crime of opportunity and trying to retaliate to defend his brother, and they just kind of zeroed in on Rashon and that was that. And unfortunately, that happens a lot in these cases, especially when it's a case where there is a lot of pressure on these police departments to solve it, because something like this shouldn't happen in a community. It shouldn't just be random gunfire and apartment complex at night, and people shouldn't twenty two year olds should not lose their life because of it. But they very much focused in on Rashon, and they tried to say that he was with some type of gang affiliation, and they pretty much just went after Rashon and his character and went after his family and basically turned their world upside down. And I think that is so so scary that something like that can happen to anyone at any time just because their brother at one point in time had beef with so and so who ended up getting killed. It just really boggles my mind that it is so easy for a person in this day and age to be charged and convicted of these heinous, heinous, heinous type of crimes. This one reminds me a lot of the Julius Jones case, which we know I am very very passionate about, but it really goes to show you how we're never safe from something like this. It could happen at any time to anybody, and just because you weren't involved. Doesn't mean that there's going to be a day that comes that someone isn't accusing you of it and that you're, before you know it, on trial for murder. Now, before all of this went down, Rashan was just your normal, average hardworking father, son, brother, husband. He never got in trouble. He was a law abiding citizen. He was very active and involved in his community. And he, like I said, had no prior criminal history whatsoever. And he volunteered his time at the Boys and Girls Club, He volunteered at Eastern Carolina Master's Commission, and he was an event manager of a local event center that focused on activities on sporting events for the youth. He was very much you're just normal, average guy who had a family, was hard working, worked hard to support his son and the rest of his family if they needed it. He was the kind of guy that would do anything to help those that were around him and those that he loved. So, going back to the day of the murder of Nmir, there were many people present that evening, many people that had been involved in the music video who had some criminal history. They had drugs, they had firearms, they had all been questioned. Many of them allegedly made false statements, and there was some that had even moved their cars and their contraband before police arrived in effort to obviously hide their wrongdoings, in my opinion, but none of these people ended up facing charges, and that to me just doesn't make any sense that none of these people would be brought in for like intense questioning and face any type of charges whatsoever. But yet someone like Rashan, who wasn't even there, ends up being charged with murder. But basically what happened is the detective that was in charge of this case basically brought these people in and pretty much had it in his mind that it was going to be blamed on Rashon, and Rashon was going to be the who was going to be taking the fall for this. So everybody kind of allegedly conspired together to say that Rashon was the one involved in this, and that is how easy it is to be charged with murder. So Rashon went to trial, and as we heard earlier when I talked about the DNA evidence not being tested until two months before he was set to go on trial for murder, that whole thing happened. He was not provided his constitutional right to an impartial jury, and the State of North Carolina's key witness admitted to being drunk while on the stand, yet they continue to let him testify, and this person's testimony was one of the main things that helped convict Rashan. So one of the things about the shooting is it was, like I said, the perfect storm of craziness all going down. It wasn't just one person with a gun randomly shooting at people. It was multiple different people with multiple different weapons. There were witnesses who saw four to five mass gunmen hop out of a vehicle and start shooting. And in multiple witness interviews, everyone said, we don't think that it was Rashan that was the shooter. He did not fit the description of the shooter. Obviously, the cops are zeroing in on Rashon, so they're going to be asking these witnesses was this the man that you saw? And they all said no. Now, there were two victims that were shot at the same time with two different weapons, and initially the state wanted to charge Sean with both because they were going to try and basically pin this crime on him at all costs. Well, you cannot shoot two different people with two different weapons at the same time, So this was not obviously a targeted attack in my opinion against Nimir. Namir was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, hanging out with probably not the best people in the world. But there were other people who were injured that day and who were shot, and like I said, it's entirely possible that this fight just occurred at this club and everyone had been up and drinking and probably doing some drugs and god knows what else, and the two worlds just collided and it ended up with Nimir losing his life and other people getting injured, and Rashan being blamed for something he didn't do. The State of North Carolina never has been able to provide the weapon that was used in this homicide. They have never found the weapon, They have never been able to connect it to Rashan. It basically was just kind of like a crapshoot that we think that Rashaan did this because his brother, once upon a time had beef with so that was there that day. Rashaan's trial only ended up being three days long. There really wasn't much evidence in regards to Rashawn's guilt, but unfortunately it was painted that he was the guilty party. He was the only one that potentially could have done this, and he ended up being found guilty. So around the time of the trial, Hurricane Ian had caused the court to be canceled on Friday, with jury deliberations starting Thursday afternoon, So the court basically coursed the jury by reading the Alan charge after only four hours of deliberation. The jurors made no indication to the trial judge that they were struggling to reach a verdict. They were basically rushed because everyone wanted to go home due to the inclement weather because of Hurricane Ian, and only thirty minutes after the Allen charge was read, the jury renly reached a unanimous verdict, which that let me read to you what the Allen charge is, because I feel like that's important in this. So the Allen charge is when jurors cannot agree on a verdict and report this to the judge, the judge may issue further instruction to them to encourage those in the minority to reconsider their position. These instructions are known as an Allen charge, or more casually as a dynamite charge. Some states have banned Allen charges to the jury because it is kind of a little bit of controversial and it can kind of be a little forceful, intimidating, or basically like you're strongly implying that a juror must or should change their verdict. So they never the jury never went and said we're having trouble reaching a verdict, but they did put out this Allen charge, which really doesn't make any sense to me in the court proceedings why this would happen. And they ultimately did come back very quickly and say that Rashan was guilty. So the family is in the mist right now of doing an appeal, and of course that is very expensive. And even though it seems pretty cut and dry, like, oh yeah, he should totally get an appeal, it's a little bit more complex and there's a lot more to it than that. So I just feel like, as a legal system, we have to do better than this. There is absolutely no evidence in this case that links any part of this crime to Rashan. It just does not make any sense to me. His name has been ruined, his reputation has been ruined. He has been charged with murder. He sits in jail, he's been sentenced to life in prison, and there's literally nothing that is tying him to it, no more than it's tying anyone else to it. It's just a random name that was thrown out there by somebody along the way, and bam, he's in prison for life now because of it. So Rashwan's family is very active in helping clear his name. They have a petition on change dot org. I will post it in the show notes. I encourage you guys to please go on and sign this petition. As of right now when I'm recording it, they are at twenty three hundred and thirty seven signatures. Their goal as of right now is twenty five hundred, and this petition will go to the Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and it's just to help raise awareness of Rashawn's case. I think I first came across Rashawn's case on Instagram. I do a lot of following of wrongful conviction pages and there are way, way, way too many people who are wrongfully convicted that pop up that I just want to add to my list of people to cover because it's something that I feel like is so important. I feel like, and I've said this previously, if I don't use my platform to kind of try to rectify what our justice system has done and bring awareness to these people who are, in my opinion, wrongfully convicted. I know everyone that is in jail says that they don't deserve to be in jail, but there are a insane amount of people who truly are innocent who are in jail. There are a lot who have been freed, There are a lot on death row. And if that doesn't bother you, then that's not okay. There are so many. There are bad people in jail, but there's also people that did nothing wrong in jail, or there's people that might have made a bad choice but they're not a killer, who are in jail being put in there and charge with murder on death row. It is sad and it's unfortunate, but it does happen. And if you don't think it does, then you need to look into the Innocence Project and so so many others that are out there. There is so much and it's alarming, and it's scary because it can happen to any single one of us at any moment. So I'm going to post the petition and then I'm going to also be sharing Rashaan Grant's Instagram that his family has started to help raise awareness. There are so so many of these cases. Rashawn is just one of many, and I'm hoping that since it is a pretty new conviction, even though I know he's been in jail for way, way, way too long, because one day wrongfully convicted is one day too many, I'm hoping that there will be some positive news regarding Rashaan's case and we can start hopefully moving towards him getting his freedom back and being able to get back to his life. So please check out the petition. Please sign it, it would mean so much to me. And do your own research. I never come across a case where it says this person is innocent without doing my own research and looking into it, because there are cases I've been sent out there where I look at it and I'm like, eh, I really don't feel like this person. It's not that I don't feel like they're innocent. I just don't feel like there's enough backing up their innocence. And there's so many of these cases where there is so much that backs up their innocence, and I feel like over time, if you are truly innocent, it's going to come to light. Because you don't change your story, things stay consistent, nothing changes, and in cases where you do have something to do with it, things are going to be changed NonStop. And it's pretty apparent in my opinion, when someone is innocent or someone is guilty. So thank you guys for listening to this episode. These episodes are really important to me because I feel like I'm doing my little piece to try to help our very frail justice system that does have its flaws. It has its good parts, but it also has its flaws. So I thank you for taking the time to listen to Rashan's story and share this episode. Spread the word, Let's get the word out, and let's help get Rashon a hopefully new trial and evidence can be brought as it is and everyone can see that Rashon literally has no ties to this case whatsoever, and so we can get justice for Na Mirror because the person that did this, the people that did this are still out there. And that's the thing that is really disheartening about all of it is you have an innocent man behind bars and the people that really did the bad thing are still out there, probably continuing to do bad things because they've gotten away with it for so long. So sharing this episode is one way that you can help tell the story, get the word out, and hopefully somebody eventually remember something, says something, and confesses and Rashaan can get back to his life. So I thank you, guys. I appreciate you all so much for listening and supporting the pod, and I will see you guys on Friday for a new episode. Bye.