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Rapper Yella Beezy was found guilty on Wednesday of hiring the gunman who fatally shot rapper MO3 in a brazen daylight attack on a busy Dallas interstate in 2020.
Yella Beezy, 35, whose real name is Markies Conway, was unanimously convicted of capital murder by a Dallas County jury in the death of MO3, whose real name was Melvin Noble. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In September, a jury found Kewon White guilty of capital murder for fatally shooting Noble. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors said the killing was the result of an yearslong escalating feud between Conway and Noble. Both men lived in Dallas.
“We don’t know what turned it for the jurors.… We appreciate the verdict,” lead prosecutor Tommy Adams told reporters. “We think they got it right today.
“It’s been one of the most challenging cases over the last six years,” he added.
Conway is best known for his 2017 single That’s On Me, and the 2019 song Bacc At It Again with Quavo and Gucci Mane.
Noble had more than 800,000 Instagram followers and is best known for a 2019 remix of Errybody with Baton Rouge, La., rapper Boosie Badazz.
Revenge theory floated after earlier shooting
Noble, 28, was driving on Interstate 35 in south Dallas around noon on Nov. 11, 2020, when White pulled alongside him, authorities said. White stepped out of his vehicle holding a gun.
Noble got out of his own vehicle and began running on the freeway as White shot at him, authorities said.
MO3 is shown at a BET Awards event in Los Angeles on June 23, 2018, just over two years before he was shot. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for BET)
Adams said White wore a mask and fired over 40 rounds from an AK-47-style pistol while chasing Noble.
White shot Noble and a bystander who was inside a car, police said. The bystander survived, but Noble died at a hospital.
Prosecutors said Conway paid White $40,000 US for the shooting.
During closing arguments, prosecutors showed jurors a video clip of Conway talking about revenge in an interview, saying he would “get his lick back.” Prosecutor Krystal Biggins drew a comparison between Noble’s killing and a roadway shooting that injured Conway in 2018.
In October 2018, Conway survived being shot while driving on a tollway in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville when someone pulled up next to him and opened fire, hitting him three times.
“This was for the world to see,” Biggins said. “Over a rap beef, we are here for capital murder.”
The defence argued that prosecutors did not prove their case. “This is capital murder, and the state has brought you a lot of speculation,” defence lawyer John Gussio said.
