PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Court also heard from one of Asfaha’s sisters, Sara, who is a few years younger than the 41-year old Awet. She recalls that Awet was teased as a boy, called “A Wet towel” by others and mocked for being overweight. As he got older, she became concerned. “He’s hanging around with the wrong people,” Sara, now a teacher, said she had observed shortly before his arrest for murder. From his conviction until 2017, he kept saying he was innocent. Then he called her one day.“I just wanted to tell you I did it,” Sara said Awet told her, confessing to killing Golaub. Asked in court for her reaction, Sara said she was relieved.“Because it wasn’t a wrongful conviction. He is where he needs to be,” Sara said, referring to prison. She now supports his release. Crown attorney Katherine Rogozinski, in her cross-examination, asked Sara if she was “concerned there is some darkness in your brother you don’t understand.”Sara replied: “Currently, no. At the time that he took accountability by telling us in 2017, absolutely.”
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STORY: "He killed this Toronto stranger in cold blood. Is Bishen Golaub’s murderer now ‘driven to be a better person?’" by Toronto Star Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, published on June 11, 2026. (Kevin Donovan is the Toronto Star’s Chief Investigative Reporter. His focus is on journalism that exposes wrongdoing and effects change. Over more than three decades he has reported on the activities of charities, government, police, business among other institutions. Donovan also reported from the battlefields in the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan following 9/11. He has won three National Newspaper Awards, two Governor General’s Michener Awards, the Canadian Journalism Foundation award and three Canadian Association of Journalists Awards. As the Star’s editor of investigations for many years, Donovan led many award-winning projects for the paper. He is the author of several books, including “Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation” and the “Dead Times” (a fiction novel).
SUB-HEADING: "Awet Asfaha is trying to convince a Toronto jury he deserves a chance at early parole over the 2009 murder of Bishen Golaub."
SUB-HEADING: "Two men were convicted of first-degree murder in the 2009 shooting of Bishen Golaub, 34. One of them, Awet Asfaha, is arguing for early parole at a “faint hope” hearing. The other, Christopher Sheriffe, says his conviction was a miscarriage of justice."
GIST: "One year into his life sentence for murder, Awet Asfaha was attacked by another inmate in the prison gymnasium, his face sliced from neck to jaw with a homemade weapon, Asfaha’s “faint hope” hearing for early parole has been told.
“I have never seen so much blood,” veteran corrections officer Michael Loepp testified, recalling that frantic day in 2013. Loepp gave Asfaha emergency first aid, and he was airlifted to the hospital. Both Asfaha and the other inmate had homemade knives. What the dispute was about, the court was not told.
“It’s an incident I have never forgotten. It was quite violent, quite scary,” Loepp told the jury hearing Asfaha’s attempt to be released from prison.
“He’s very driven to be a better person,” Loepp told court. Coincidentally, Loepp is now posted to the minimum-security William Head Institution, where Asfaha was transferred last year. It’s a cottage-style prison housing 100 offenders in 20 houses with seven private beaches on a Vancouver Island peninsula. Court heard it is located on 87 acres, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Inmates live in two-storey cottages, take part in dramatic performances, have access to a life coach and work with counsellors to set them up for success for the day they are released.
“He’s really been focusing on choosing the right path rather than choosing the easy path,” Loepp testified.
The long scar is still visible on the right side of Asfaha’s face as he sits quietly in the Toronto courtroom. He will testify over two days, later in the hearing. The crown attorney will also read victim impact statements from the late Golaub’s family, including those from his widow, four children and one stepchild.
Asfaha and co-accused Christopher Sheriffe were convicted in 2012 in the shooting death three years before of the 34-year-old furniture maker who was at a neighbourhood barbecue on Mount Olive Drive in Etobicoke. This week, Asfaha, who had maintained his innocence for 17 years, admitted through his lawyer that he was the shooter, pumping three bullets into Golaub, a man with no gang ties.
Sheriffe, convicted as the getaway driver, is in prison near Kingston. A former soccer star who was about to begin work as a carpenter, he maintains that after a night out partying, he had simply been asked by Asfaha to drop him off on the street.
Sheriffe is applying for a review of his conviction with the federal government. His lawyers allege there has been a "miscarriage of justice." Awet Asfaha’s faint hope hearing
Superior Court Justice Breese Davies will next week ask the jury to determine if Asfaha’s parole eligibility, now set at 25 years, should be reduced. If it is, he will still have to convince the Parole Board of Canada that he is deserving of a second chance.
Loepp, the latest in a series of corrections officials who have backed Asfaha’s bid for early parole, said it was not an easy thing for him to do. Loepp said in his many years working in different prisons, this is the first time he has spoken up for an offender. Loepp said he and his wife, also posted to William Head Institution, are seen as “mom and dad” by Asfaha and other inmates. Court has heard that Asfaha had a difficult family life, and his father was abusive to him.
“This is a big step for me to feel comfortable in supporting an offender with something like this,” Loepp said. “He’s shown me that offenders can focus on what they need to do and can move forward in their life.”
Court also heard from one of Asfaha’s sisters, Sara, who is a few years younger than the 41-year old Awet. She recalls that Awet was teased as a boy, called “A Wet towel” by others and mocked for being overweight. As he got older, she became concerned. “He’s hanging around with the wrong people,” Sara, now a teacher, said she had observed shortly before his arrest for murder. From his conviction until 2017, he kept saying he was innocent. Then he called her one day.
“I just wanted to tell you I did it,” Sara said Awet told her, confessing to killing Golaub. Asked in court for her reaction, Sara said she was relieved.
“Because it wasn’t a wrongful conviction. He is where he needs to be,” Sara said, referring to prison. She now supports his release.
Crown attorney Katherine Rogozinski, in her cross-examination, asked Sara if she was “concerned there is some darkness in your brother you don’t understand.”
Sara replied: “Currently, no. At the time that he took accountability by telling us in 2017, absolutely.”
The case was the focus of a Toronto Star series and podcast.""
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
BACKGROUND: From a previous post of this Blog: (June 5, sos6): "Chris Sheriffe: Ontario: Major (most unusual) Development; (Murder On Mount Olive hearing): As my former Toronto Star colleague Toronto Star Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan reports, "One of two men convicted of first-degree murder in the death of a Toronto furniture maker 16 years ago has changed his story in a reversal that could have significant consequences for Christopher Sheriffe — the co-accused man who continues to argue his conviction was a “miscarriage of justice," noting that: "Awet Asfaha had long maintained his innocence in the shooting of Bishen Golaub outside a neighbourhood barbecue on Mount Olive Drive in Etobicoke on a sweltering afternoon in August 2009. In a profanity-laced police interview and at trial, he claimed he knew nothing about the murder, and a mysterious man on the street was the real shooter. On Thursday, court heard he has now confessed to the shooting, and both earlier stories were “a lie.”"
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: ""Awet Asfaha is trying to convince a jury he deserves a chance at early parole. Earlier this week, he finally admitted to killing Bishen Golaub, 34, outside a garden barbecue in Etobicoke in 2009."
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STORY: "Convicted Toronto killer has ‘one of the biggest hearts I have ever seen,’ life coach tells faint-hope hearing," by Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, published on June 10, 2026. (Kevin Donovan is the Toronto Star’s Chief Investigative Reporter. His focus is on journalism that exposes wrongdoing and effects change. Over more than three decades he has reported on the activities of charities, government, police, business among other institutions. Donovan also reported from the battlefields in the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan following 9/11. He has won three National Newspaper Awards, two Governor General’s Michener Awards, the Canadian Journalism Foundation award and three Canadian Association of Journalists Awards. As the Star’s editor of investigations for many years, Donovan led many award-winning projects for the paper. He is the author of several books, including “Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation” and the “Dead Times” (a fiction novel).)
SUB-HEADING: "Awet Asfaha is trying to convince a jury he deserves a chance at early parole. Earlier this week, he finally admitted to killing Bishen Golaub, 34, outside a garden barbecue in Etobicoke in 2009."
GIST: "He’s a killer with a high-energy life coach who helped him find the “elixir” to turn his life around. And he has backers among prison staff who support his bid for early parole to a Vancouver-area community.
“If Mr. Asfaha was living on my block, I would … wish him well,” said corrections official Kim Boutilier, one of a series of witnesses testifying about how convicted killer Awet Asfaha has changed his ways and should be a candidate for early parole.
“I think he’s earned it.”
At group sessions in the ocean-side prison on Vancouver Island, life coach Cameron MacDougall found Asfaha dedicated to turning his life around. “Awet has one of the biggest hearts I have ever seen,” MacDougall testified, revealing that he has his own violent criminal past but now, as a “high performance coach,” he helps people reach their true potential.
Asfaha is one of two men convicted of first-degree murder in the 2009 shooting death of Bishen Golaub, a 34-year-old furniture maker with no gang ties. In a stunning admission this week, Asfaha admitted through his lawyer to having pumped three bullets into Golaub outside a garden barbecue in Etobicoke. That revelation brought tears from Golaub’s widow, who left the courtroom on the first day of the hearing and is now only watching via Zoom.
Both Asfaha and co-accused Christopher Sheriffe were said at their 2012 trial to have affiliations with the Jamestown Crips and were sentenced to life in prison with no chance to apply for parole for 25 years.
Sheriffe, a one-time soccer star, who is in a medium-security prison near Kingston, maintains his innocence and is applying for a review by the federal justice department. Sheriffe was found to have been the getaway driver — he testified all he did was drop off and pick up Asfaha at his request that day.
Asfaha will testify later this week. The now-41-year-old’s hopes for freedom are pinned on a 12-person jury that will be asked by Superior Court Justice Breese Davies to determine if he should be allowed to apply for early parole. He has been in jail or prison since his 2009 arrest — almost 17 years. If the jury rules against him, he will not be able to apply to the National Parole Board until 2034.
Making the case for her client, defence lawyer Breana Vandebeek has brought to court a parade of witnesses, including members of Asfaha’s family, corrections staff from British Columbia, a psychologist, a prison counsellor and a stage director. The story of Awet Asfaha’s time in prison
Over his time in three BC prisons, court heard Asfaha progressed from maximum to medium security, and is now in the minimum security William Head Institution on Vancouver Island, where inmates are encouraged to do morning cold plunges in the Pacific Ocean, write letters to people in their lives and burn them or scatter them in the ocean, all part of a healing process. Recently, Asfaha wrote and performed in a “sold out” play at William Head that was open to the Vancouver Island community, focusing on his life experiences.
“Awet was a big hit. So dynamic, there is a deep warmth to him,” director Deb Williams testified this week.
Life coach Cameron MacDougall testified at the Awet Asfaha faint-hope hearing.
At William Head, where he has been incarcerated since early 2025, he met MacDougall, the life coach. MacDougall told court he had convictions in his past for armed robbery and assault. Today, he runs Inbodied, a one-person company where he works with “executives, leaders and entrepreneurs to find true balance and fulfilment,” according to an online profile. He told court that as a volunteer, he started “Break the Cycle,” a prison program that encourages inmates on Vancouver Island to find an “elixir” that will “change the world.”
He said Asfaha’s elixir is cooking — “he wanted to bring forth food trucks” and “give youth an opportunity to come and learn how to cook.”
Crown attorney Katherine Rogozinski has cross-examined all of the witnesses, pressing them on whether they had specific details on why Asfaha was in prison, and whether they were aware of his previous cocaine trafficking and possession convictions, along with convictions for failing to show up for court. Most, including Asfaha’s family, said they were unaware of the details.
One sister, Semret, testified she was very close to Awet, yet only learned last month that he was, after 17 years, admitting to being the shooter in the Golaub case. Semret testified that she did know that Awet was in a fight in prison, but had been assured by him that the other person started it. Crown Rogozinski asked if she knew, as the court has heard this week, that Awet “threw the first punch.” Semret said that was not the story she was told by her brother. Another sister, Salina, testified that she and her brother speak frequently on the phone, and he often speaks about the importance of a “healthy diet.” She said he has been working on reducing his body fat index and frequently encourages her to do so as well.
“I thought, this guy is changing,” she said, describing how open her brother is about his accomplishments while behind bars. What the jury must decide at Asfaha’s faint-hope hearing
At issue in this hearing is whether Asfaha is a changed man and whether the community at large would be at risk if he were paroled. Crown Rogozinski has repeatedly pointed out in her questions that Asfaha lied at his trial, saying a mysterious third man killed Golaub. It is only now, court has heard, that he has changed his story — in these rare “faint hope” hearings, taking accountability for a crime is key.
Before he was on Vancouver Island, Asfaha was an inmate at Mountain Head Institution in the upper Fraser Valley near Agassiz, BC. While there, he became a trusted inmate and had jobs in the prison warehouse. He was also allowed to keep a cat, Peanut. When Peanut was attacked by a raccoon, Asfaha asked his family for money to pay the $1,000 veterinary bill for surgery to fix the cat’s leg. When they could not help him, he paid the bill himself, court heard.
Boutilier, the prison staffer who said he would be fine if Asfaha lived on his own street one day, said he got to know Asfaha very well. “I’ve found him very respectful. I found him to be reliable, functional,” and a “good employee.” Through the five years Boutilier knew Asfaha, he saw him move away from associating with inmates who could be a bad influence on him.
A forensic psychologist who assessed Asfaha in 2024 rated him as a “moderate risk range for general and violent reoffending.” This was following a fight with another inmate over a Super Bowl bet. Not long after that, Asfaha was transferred from the medium-security Mountain Head Institution to the minimum-security institution on Vancouver Island. He has not been assessed since then.
The forensic psychologist, Dr. Carmen Neufeld, testified about how important it is to “set (inmates) up for success” before their release on parole. “These fellows need to have a support system in place.”
Court has heard that Asfaha, should he be released, would like to stay in BC. His family lives in Ontario, and has only rarely visited, court heard.
The hearing continues for the rest of the week. Evidence is expected to be completed by Friday with the projected end of Asfaha’s testimony. The jury has been told they will likely begin deliberations on Wednesday, following submissions from the Crown and defence and the judge’s charge to the jury.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "How Danelle Young died that night is a question that courts have wrestled with since 2015, when a judge sentenced Shelton, a mother of four with no previous criminal record, to life in prison for murder. That answer holds the key to her freedom."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Jurors convicted Tameshia Shelton of murder without seeing the victim’s apparent suicide note. If freed, her case would mark a state record: seven exonerations in the same judicial district."
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Tameshia Shelton remains in prison for life for murder — a conviction contradicted by much of the evidence, including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury, a four-year investigation by Mississippi Today has found. Mississippi Today retraced Shelton’s path through the criminal justice system from the beginning, attending multiple court hearings, examining hundreds of pages of transcripts, exhibits and other court records, and conducting dozens of interviews. The reporting revealed law enforcement concluded 21-year-old Danelle Young’s death was a homicide even though much of the evidence pointed to suicide, creating a cloud of suspicion that landed Shelton behind bars.
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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY:
This narrative went unchallenged through Mississippi’s justice system until it hardened into a murder conviction through discrepancies in officers’ testimony, a since recanted deputy state medical examiner’s homicide ruling (deputy chief medical examiner for Mississippi at the time, Dr. Lisa Funte, who now goes by “Liam,”) a defense attorney so ineffective that an appeals court later ruled he violated Shelton’s constitutional rights. Not long after arriving at Young’s fatal shooting on Oct. 16, 2009, Clay County sheriff’s deputies concluded his death was a homicide. Shelton, who has maintained her innocence, became the prime suspect because she was the last known person to see Young alive.
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STORY: "One Night in Mhoon Valley," by Jerry Mitchell, Madeline Nguyen and Ilyssa Daly, published by Mississippi, on June 1, 2026; (Madeline Nguyen is a Roy Howard Fellow at Mississippi Today. Ilyssa Daly is an investigative reporter who previously worked with Mississippi Today to help investigate this case. This story was published with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.)
SUB-HEADING: "Jurors convicted Tameshia Shelton of murder without seeing the victim’s apparent suicide note. If freed, her case would mark a state record: seven exonerations in the same judicial district."
PREFACE: "Two weeks before Halloween in 2009, Tameshia Shelton dialed 911 and stepped into the darkness outside her trailer in rural Clay County. Under a towering oak, her sister’s 21-year-old boyfriend lay face down, a gunshot wound through his chest. How Danelle Young died that night is a question that courts have wrestled with since 2015, when a judge sentenced Shelton, a mother of four with no previous criminal record, to life in prison for murder. That answer holds the key to her freedom."
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[00:00:00] 911 dispatch:[Call dialing sounds] Hey, 911, where’s your emergency?
[00:00:03] Shelton: There’s an accidental shooting. Could you please hurry up?
[00:00:06] 911 dispatch: Hold on, ma’am. Hold on.
[00:00:08] Shelton: Oh my God! Danelle!
[00:00:10] 911 dispatch: What’s going on?
[00:00:10] Shelton: OK, he’s still breathing. I haven’t rolled him over. I’m too scared.
[00:00:15] Shelton: He saw a raccoon, and he was fixing to shoot it.
[00:00:18] Shelton: I don’t know if he tripped when he got ready to shoot it.
[00:00:20] Shelton: I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know where the gun is. I just heard a shot.
[00:00:24] Shelton: I came outside, and he was down on the ground under the tree.
[00:00:31] 911 dispatch: He is still breathing though.
[00:00:33] 911 dispatch: How can that happen?
[00:00:34] Shelton: Danelle.
[00:00:36] 911 dispatch: She’s not real sure.
[00:00:36] Shelton: Danelle. He’s not breathing.
[00:00:38] 911 dispatch: He’s not breathing?
[00:00:40] Shelton: Hold on, slowly, Danelle. OK, Danelle.
[00:00:44] Shelton: Could y’all please hurry up? I got my daughter.
[00:00:49] Shelton: She’s only 5 months. She’s out here in the cold.
[00:00:53] Shelton: Come. Please hurry up.
[00:00:54] 911 dispatch: It was not assault. He tripped on the gun. He needs to see you ASAP. He has slow breathing.[00:01:00]
[00:01:01] Shelton: Come on before this boy die! Lord, have mercy!"
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GIST: Tameshia Shelton remains in prison for life for murder — a conviction contradicted by much of the evidence, including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury, a four-year investigation by Mississippi Today has found.
Mississippi Today retraced Shelton’s path through the criminal justice system from the beginning, attending multiple court hearings, examining hundreds of pages of transcripts, exhibits and other court records, and conducting dozens of interviews.
The reporting revealed law enforcement concluded 21-year-old Danelle Young’s death was a homicide even though much of the evidence pointed to suicide, creating a cloud of suspicion that landed Shelton behind bars.
This narrative went unchallenged through Mississippi’s justice system until it hardened into a murder conviction through discrepancies in officers’ testimony, a since recanted deputy state medical examiner’s homicide ruling and a defense attorney so ineffective that an appeals court later ruled he violated Shelton’s constitutional rights.
Not long after arriving at Young’s fatal shooting on Oct. 16, 2009, Clay County sheriff’s deputies concluded his death was a homicide. Shelton, who has maintained her innocence, became the prime suspect because she was the last known person to see Young alive.
Current Sheriff Eddie Scott, then the chief deputy, told a local reporter he’d ruled out the possibility that Young died from suicide or an accident because the 21-year-old had been shot in the chest from 30 feet away.
Only the gun was actually fired from less than an inch away. That’s what a State Crime Lab expert concluded after finding gunfire burns in Young’s jacket.
Studies show this finding is far more consistent with suicide.
The deputy state medical examiner officially ruled Young’s death a homicide — a determination the pathologist has since called an “error.”
A grand jury indicted Shelton for murder, and a jury convicted her in 2015.
After five years behind bars, Shelton was granted an opportunity that could lead to freedom: The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered Clay County to hold a hearing to determine if she deserved a new trial. But after hearing new testimony, the trial judge denied her request in 2024.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals recently ruled in her favor, but it will be up to the Mississippi Supreme Court to decide by July if she gets a new trial.
“I’m trying to fight for my innocence,” Shelton said in a phone interview from prison. “I’m trying to fight for my life. I’m trying to fight for my freedom.”
Regardless of the outcome, her case illustrates how each step of Mississippi’s criminal justice system failed her. “It was easy for them to sit there and just throw me up behind the system,” she said of Clay County authorities. “Now it’s hard for me to get out from under the system.”
‘Y’all took too long! He’s dead!’
Shelton’s journey through Mississippi’s justice system begins with the night of Young’s death: Oct. 16, 2009.
Tameshia Shelton told the 911 dispatcher there had been an accidental shooting and shrieked, “Oh, my God! Danelle!”
“What’s going on?” the dispatcher asked.
Shelton paused before replying, “OK, he’s still breathing.”
The dispatcher told an ambulance and deputies to head to Mhoon Valley, a Clay County community that arose on the fertile soil of the Black Belt. The land grew gobs of cotton and became even busier when the Georgia Pacific Railroad set up a station in the late 19th century, but the place had long since fallen on hard times.
For Shelton and her family, the anchor became the Mhoon Valley Missionary Baptist Church, where they spent much of their time. Shelton sang in the choir and taught the girls in the congregation to mime dance.
After graduating from the nearby Mary Holmes College with an associate degree in cosmetology, she cut hair and did other work until the 2000s, when she began to suffer health issues, including seizures, that prevented her from working. But she continued to cook, making the family’s meals.
Shelton breathed hard and told the dispatcher, “Could you please hurry up?”
She shared that Young told her he saw a raccoon in a nearby oak — the same one her late grandfather loved to sit beneath and regale her and other children with stories.
Young asked for a gun to shoot the raccoon, and she handed him her grandfather’s .22-caliber pistol, she said. “I was in the house. Next thing I know, I heard a shot. I came outside. He’s down on the ground on the tree.”
Shelton, barefoot and in pajamas, walked to the middle of the street so the first responders could see her. The chilly wind gusted as she clutched her 5-month-old daughter, Treasure, in a baby blanket.
“She’s out here in the cold,” Shelton told the dispatcher. “Please hurry up.”
Her youngest sister, Ketina Tutton, arrived and saw her boyfriend on the ground. She began to scream, pull her hair and stomp the ground.
When the first sheriff’s deputies — Sgt. Cassandra Smith and an auxiliary officer — arrived at the scene 17 minutes after Shelton called 911, she later testified that Shelton screamed, “Y’all took too long! He’s dead!”
Neither of the deputies were investigators. But testimony shows that Smith, a patrol officer, told her partner to let the chief investigator know she thought this was no accident — this was murder.
Qualifications: The state of Mississippi doesn’t require any homicide training for homicide investigators. Coroners aren’t required to have any medical experience. They simply must be 21 and have a high school diploma or its equivalent, but they must take a 40-hour course in death investigations and receive 24 hours of continuing education each year.
Under Mississippi law, sheriffs aren’t required to have law enforcement experience. The only requirement?
They can’t be atheists.
Young’s last week alive
Four days before his death, Young surprised Tutton by showing up at her home for her 22nd birthday and flashing his “Kool-Aid smile,” as his family called it.
The two had met in 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee, where Young was studying to become an auto mechanic while Tutton attended art school for graphic design.
After Young graduated in 2008, they began living together. When Tutton’s classes ended in April 2009, they moved to Mhoon Valley. A month later, they went together to the hospital to welcome Shelton’s new baby.
But the couple’s romance grew rocky. Family members recalled Tutton throwing Young’s clothes onto the lawn when the couple broke up that May.
Before Young left for his family’s home in Forest, Shelton’s middle sister, Shenikia, recalled him saying, “I’m tired of her leaving me, but she’ll see. Just wait. Just wait.”
In the months that followed in 2009, the couple began a long-distance relationship and eventually agreed to reunite. Starting in January, they planned to live together in Meridian, more than an hour and a half from Mhoon Valley.
Young dreamed about their future together, including marriage. The week he died, he gave Tutton a necklace and a birthday card addressed to “My Wife Mrs. Katina Young,” complete with a doodle of the couple holding hands.
He signed the card as “Yo Man, Yo Husband, Yo Hero, Yo Soulmate.”
“I’m giving You my life, You T, because I wanna spend mine with u,” he wrote Tutton, whom he called “T.” “I hate being away from u. It’s not fair 2 me & especially you.”
The couple spent the night together at Shelton’s trailer. But Tutton didn’t want to get married. She had gotten a full-time job nearby and no longer wanted to move away and live with Young.
Shenikia spent much of Young’s last week with him. “He was like my baby brother,” she told Mississippi Today. “My kids called him uncle.”
She said he talked about a change in plans, saying Tutton didn’t want to live together anymore.
On the morning of the day he died, Young babysat Shenikia’s son. Later that day, Young worked on Shelton’s car, and she cooked supper for him and the rest of the family.
That evening, Shenikia went to her mother’s red Ford Expedition to find her work schedule. She noticed Tutton and Young inside.
They didn’t look happy, she said. The couple sat apart — Tutton remained in the middle of the back seat while Young rested on the floor with his legs hanging out the SUV’s open door.
Shenikia grabbed her schedule, went inside and returned later, asking the couple to go to Walmart to buy her some baby wipes.
By the time the couple returned at about 8 p.m., dreams of a new life together had deteriorated into a verbal spat that lasted 15 to 20 minutes. “I had just told him that we were not – that I was not going to move in January like we had planned,” Tutton later told deputies. “This was something we had planned … until I got the job.”
The argument ended with the couple parting ways. She said she walked inside her mother’s house, and Young headed to Shelton’s trailer.
It was dark when Shelton said Young knocked on the bedroom window of her trailer. She was already in bed with her two daughters.
There was no way to open the window, which had an air-conditioner, so she headed for the front door. When she opened it, she said Young told her there was a raccoon in the tree and that he needed Shelton’s revolver and only one bullet to kill it.
She said she replied that he might need more than one bullet, so she loaded the .22 pistol and handed it to Young.
She heard a shot, and when Young didn’t return, she said she went outside to check on him, only to find him face down beneath the towering oak her grandfather loved.
Drawing Conclusions: Renowned criminologist and former detective Kim Rossmo said the biggest problem with law enforcement making a conclusion before the majority of the evidence is collected is, “It’s hard to walk back that decision, even if you later realize it’s the wrong decision.”
A 1999 National Institute of Justice study compared DNA of suspects in more than 21,000 cases with DNA from the crime scene. DNA tests exonerated the prime suspect in 23% of the cases.
“If DNA excluded the prime suspect 23% of the time, that means authorities were looking at the wrong person in almost 1 out of every 4 cases,” said Lucian Dervan, law professor and director of Criminal Justice Studies at Belmont University College of Law. “One has to wonder what these results mean for the vast majority of cases where there is no DNA evidence to test.”
In 2014, Rossmo and a fellow professor at Texas State University examined 43 wrongful convictions. They found that a rush to judgment was a significant factor.
“Wrongful convictions are a form of criminal investigative failure,” Rossmo said. Such failures harm society, cause people to lose faith in the criminal justice system and signal structural weakness in that system, he said.
The investigator never considered suicide
Clay County sheriff’s deputies discovered the .22 pistol in the grass near Young’s feet. It became one of the most important pieces of evidence in their death investigation.
They sent it to the State Crime Lab but didn’t ask for the pistol to be tested for fingerprints. If Young’s fingerprints had been present, that would have cast doubt that Shelton shot him.
Neither Sheriff Scott nor the Clay County Sheriff’s Department responded to repeated requests for an interview with Mississippi Today.
Chief Investigator Ramirez Williams rejected Shelton’s explanation of the moments leading up to Young’s shooting. The chief investigator testified he believed that because Young was wearing camouflage, the victim knew how to hunt. If Young truly had to shoot a raccoon, Williams reasoned, he would have asked for Shelton’s shotgun, not a pistol.
Shelton’s current lawyers, Sandra Levick and Tucker Carrington of the Mississippi Innocence Project, pointed out on appeal that “the reasonable inference is that Mr. Young asked for one bullet in the handgun rather than for the shotgun because he intended to turn the gun on himself. He used the ruse that there was a raccoon in the tree as a reason to ask for the gun.”
Deputies discovered a banana hair clip, a rubber band with hair in it and “badly disturbed” gravel at the scene. After learning Young and Tutton had argued that night, officers concluded a physical altercation had taken place in Shelton’s driveway. That speculation led them to conclude without any additional proof that Shelton had killed Young to protect her sister.
Officers from the Clay County Sheriff’s Department testified at Shelton’s 2015 murder trial that they found three pieces of evidence near Danelle Young’s body that made them conclude an “altercation” occurred before he died: “badly disturbed” gravel, a hair clip and a rubber band containing hair, as pictured in crime scene photographs from October 2009. Credit: Mississippi Supreme Court records
By his own admission, Williams never considered suicide as a possibility — even after deputies obtained a surveillance video that contradicted elements of the officers’ theory of an altercation. Tutton didn’t have a hair clip or rubber band in her hair when she and Young bought baby wipes earlier that night at Walmart.
Deputies shared their findings with the coroner, who wrote that “statements given to investigators at the scene indicate that there might have been some type of altercation or argument between Mr. Young and his girlfriend prior to the incident.”
Tunnel Vision and Confirmation Bias: Tunnel vision is the tendency for actors in the legal system to lock in on a crime and a suspect and build their investigation and prosecution around finding evidence to prove guilt, said Keith Findley, who co-founded the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences. “Confirmation bias is one of the psychological processes that can drive tunnel vision.”
He said confirmation bias takes place when anything that backs the conclusion is considered relevant and important while any contrary information is considered irrelevant or unreliable.
For instance, if there is a mistaken eyewitness identification, officers may continue to “build a case” against that suspect, he said. Or if police interpret a piece of evidence as proof of a crime, they continue to believe a crime took place even when other information contradicts it, he said.
In 2000, then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan put a moratorium on executions, and his Commission on Capital Punishment concludedthat tunnel vision played a significant role in most cases that wrongly sent 13 innocent people to death row.
The 2014 Texas State University study that examined 43 wrongful convictions found that confirmation bias played a role in four out of five cases where innocent people were sent to prison.
‘Gunshot wounds in the heart are frequent suicidal injuries’
A gun fired from less than an inch away, as in Young’s case, nearly always points to suicide. A study of 1,450 handgun deaths found that 96% of close-contact wounds were suicides and 3% were homicides.
But that’s not what the deputy chief medical examiner for Mississippi at the time, Dr. Lisa Funte, who now goes by “Liam,” determined. Instead, the pathologist ruled it a homicide.
Funte did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.
The autopsy report made no reference to an argument — only an altercation, which police typically use to refer to a physical fight.: “This individual was reportedly shot following an altercation with his girlfriend.”
Funte based that determination on the bullet’s pathway. The bullet, fired through the left center of Young’s chest, had no significant deviation to the left or right, the pathologist said. “It was pretty much straight back and down.”
Funte, who had three years’ experience as a pathologist at the time of the death, testified later that he had never seen a suicide case where a bullet took this pathway. Over a decade later, he told a court that as he has gained more experience, he has since encountered such suicide cases. In 2018, Funte began serving as the deputy chief medical examiner for Maine.
While more suicides involve firing at the temple (36%), the left chest is a common location (15%), according to a 2002 study of 624 gunshot autopsies. “Gunshot wounds in the heart are frequent suicidal injuries, especially in men,” a 2005 study said.
Funte had told jurors the death was a homicide because, if Young was going to shoot himself in the chest, it would be difficult to turn his hand completely around. That would cause the bullet to deviate to the left or right.
But the pathologist’s conclusion seemed to ignore that you don’t have to turn your hand around; you just have to turn the gun around and pull the trigger with your thumbs.
Funte failed to take into account other factors, including the rise in suicides among young Black men. In 2009, the suicide rate for Black men between 15 and 24 was 9.78 per 100,000 people — more than twice as high as it was in 1960. That trend has continued, prompting a 2019 report, “Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America.”
At trial, the pathologist testified there was a lack of mental illness. But a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 54% of those who die by suicide suffer no such illness.
The pathologist also mentioned the lack of previous suicide attempts. One study concluded that nearly two-thirds of men who commit suicide die on their first try.
At the time, Funte was unware of the upsetting argument Young had with his girlfriend or the apparent suicide note he wrote.
A study by the CDC with the University of Georgia found that 1 in 5 suicides is linked to intimate partner problems. For young adults, breakups are especially traumatic, resulting in a 25% increase in suicidal thoughts, according to another study.
In a 2022 hearing seeking a new trial for Shelton, Dr. Randall Frost, the medical examiner for Bexar County, Texas, testified he saw no evidence that would make him conclude Young’s death was a homicide. “It’s completely consistent with a self-inflicted wound,” he said.
Pathologists: Medical examiners must operate independently, “without any undue influence” from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors under National Association of Medical Examiners’ standards. Despite that, 70% of their members reported pressure to influence their findings.
A 2025 editorial in “Forensic Science International” declared that forensic labs under law enforcement control “face pressure to support prosecution.” Independence is essential, but scientists who challenge “official narratives often experience professional retaliation,” the editorial says.
“When a medical examiner feels he or she is part of the prosecution team, that gives rise to a lot of wrong diagnoses,” said renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, one of the founding members.
“Forensic pathologists have to just say what the facts are and not be concerned if anyone is found guilty or innocent,” he said. “If they feel they work for police or their job depends on cooperating with police, then their opinions can be easily swayed.”
Shelton rejects plea bargain: ‘I’m not going to lie and go to hell’
After a grand jury indicted Shelton in 2011, she looked to hire a lawyer. Fearful a public defender might not represent her well, she visited former prosecutor Rod Ray, who agreed to take the case.
His fee was $50,000. According to a sworn statement from her family, they and their church managed to scrape together $43,000 to pay him.
After hearing her story and talking to authorities, Ray believed Shelton was innocent.
“Why would somebody call 911 and stay on the phone for, I think it was 17 minutes, begging people to come to the scene to talk to the one person in the world who could say who did or who did not do it?” he testified in the 2022 hearing.
In 2014, Shelton took a voice-stress test, which deputies turned into a two-hour questioning session on crime – all without her lawyer’s presence.
Her attorney told her that authorities had offered a plea bargain for manslaughter. She refused. Her position remained the same as when investigators first questioned her.
“I’ll tell the truth and go to jail,” Shelton recalled telling them. “But I’m not going to lie and go to hell.”
Prosecutors relied on erroneous testimony
Six years passed before prosecutors put Shelton on trial in 2015. When they finally did, they told the jury they didn’t have a motive for why she did it, and they didn’t need to provide one.
Instead, prosecutors hammered home that Young’s death was a homicide and used gunshot residue tests to support their case that Shelton shot him.
Gunshot residue tests were designed to determine if someone has fired a gun, handled a gun or been close to a weapon when it was fired, but experts say the tests can’t prove anything beyond that.
Prosecutors told jurors that gunpowder residue had been found on Shelton. One microscopic particle of residue was on the back of her hands and four particles were on her palms – a location that a defense expert said would match someone who handled a recently fired gun.
Shelton told deputies she had fired the gun earlier in the week to scare a bulldog chasing her nephew, but prosecutors said Shelton was just trying to cover up her crime.
Some deputies testified that from their recollection, Shelton repeatedly wiped her hands before they tested her hours later for gunshot residue at the station – a timeframe later proven wrong.
“She had hours, four hours to get rid of the evidence,” Assistant District Attorney Mark Jackson told the jury in 2015. “And man did she have the motive. She knows she shot him in cold blood. She has to get rid of whatever it is that Ramirez Williams is going to be looking for to pin this crime on her.”
Gunshot residue was also found on the back of Young’s hands. “Gunshot residue particles are typically found on the backs of the hands of the person who fired the weapon,” Bexar County forensic scientist Crystina Vachon testified in the 2022 hearing.
Prosecutors argued that because only five particles were found on Young, he didn’t fire the gun – a conclusion that defense experts questioned.
“You cannot make any determination about a shooter or a bystander or someone who just handled a weapon based on the number of particles,” Vachon said.
Gunshot residue tests: Experts say the public sometimes has a “CSI” view of gunshot residue — a test that definitively identifies the shooter or exonerates the innocent. But the truth is these tests fall short of such conclusions.
Residue generally reflects whether someone fired a gun, handled a gun or was close when a weapon was fired, but experts say problems exist with these tests. They can result in false positives because of contamination by officers or labs.
In many cases, tests fail to find residue even after someone fired a weapon. A study of 116 suicides determined that in half of these cases, no residue was found.
The FBI Lab stopped conducting these tests in 2006.
“Gunshot residue is notoriously unreliable,” said Chris Fabricant, author of “Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System.” “It’s hardly conclusive.”
Authorities ‘were grasping at straws’
After prosecutors in their opening statement accused Shelton of gunning down Young, defense lawyer Rod Ray delayed his opening statement until the defense presented its case.
When he later delivered his statement to jurors, he spoke fewer than 100 words, promising jurors they would “hear from the people that were in Mhoon Valley.”
The only witness they heard from was Tutton, who confirmed what she had told deputies.
Ray did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Mississippi Today.
The prosecution gave jurors no motive for why Shelton would have wanted to kill Young, but Ray helped them out by getting the chief investigator to share his theories on her motives.
Ray didn’t consult with or call experts on the manner of death or gunshot residue. He later testified in the 2022 hearing that his strategy was to focus on Shelton in the 911 call, when she hysterically pleaded for the ambulance to hurry.
“I knew from talking to the people involved that they (authorities) were grasping at straws. They didn’t know what had happened. They didn’t have a motive. She’d never been in trouble,” he testified. “It didn’t add up.”
Ray didn’t interview any experts or witnesses before the trial started, according to court records.
But he later testified that he worked hard for his client. “I fought my guts out to win.”
A month or so after Young’s death, Shelton found a note he wrote her, stuck inside her baby book. The note began, “Thank you for accepting me 4 who I was.”
Not “who I am.” Who I was.
Shelton kept reading. Young thanked her for giving him advice and a place to lay his head. He asked her to keep watch over her baby sister.
“I love her 2 death. She’s my heart. I planned my life with her around her. I never planned 4 just me,” he wrote. “I have no life without her. These are my last words.”
He mentioned Shelton’s 5-month-old daughter, Treasure, and told Shelton to tell her oldest daughter, Trinity, “I said bye & be a good girl ok Tell Treasure about me one day. Bye Bye.”
Shelton shared the note with her family. They agreed it was a suicide note and sealed it in a plastic bag. When Shelton met with Ray, she shared the note, and he made a copy.
On the second day of the trial, Ray sent Shelton home to get the note. Nothing in the trial transcript indicates he ever tried to introduce it as evidence.
Lawyers who later represented Shelton on her post-conviction appeal accused Ray of a “complete lack of preparation. He had not prepared any witness who was familiar with Mr. Young’s handwriting to authenticate the note. … Mr. Ray had not retained a handwriting expert. He had not prepared Ms. Shelton to testify. He had not shared the note with counsel for the State in advance of the trial.”
Failure to share evidence prior to trial typically results in that evidence being excluded, legal experts say.
Ray later testified that he needed a witness to introduce the letter and that Shelton “chose not to testify.”
During the murder trial, Judge James T. Kitchens Jr. of Caledonia told Shelton it was her right as to whether she testified, but he urged her to “listen to what your attorney suggests.”
Shelton told Mississippi Today that Ray told her not to testify. She said she would have gladly testified if it meant the jury could read the note.
As a result, jurors never knew about Young’s note to Shelton.
“I have no life without her. These are my last words,” Young wrote. “Bye, bye.”
Mississippi Today shared the note with five jurors in Shelton’s murder trial. One of them, Robin Daniels, said that note would have absolutely made a difference in the deliberations.
A second juror, Patricia Glasson, said she believes the note creates reasonable doubt about Shelton’s guilt. A third juror, Chris Glover, said Shelton deserves a new trial. “And I would be willing to serve on the jury.”
Inadequate Legal Defense: Many defense lawyers represent their clients well, but some fall short. They may neglect to fully investigate a case. They may not challenge questionable evidence. Or worse, they may fail to call possible witnesses or introduce evidence that would help clear their clients.
In some cases, these lawyers are overworked, burned out or lack the funding or resources that district attorneys have. In still others, these lawyers may fail to do their jobs.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals concluded that Shelton’s defense lawyer committed errors so grievous it deprived her of a fair trial.
Despite their doubts, jurors vote to convict
Jurors struggled to reach a unanimous decision, at one point asking the judge in a note, “Is accidental shooting ruled out already? Could this be considered?”
Judges aren’t permitted to give new instructions, so Kitchens pointed them back to the instructions he had already given.
Some time after his response, the jury returned a “guilty” verdict.
When the circuit clerk polled the jurors, one juror gave no response, according to the court transcript. She later said in a sworn statement that she wasn’t convinced Shelton was guilty. The juror has since died.
Young’s twin sister, Dominique, told the judge, “I know nothing will bring him back, but this woman needs to feel our pain. I feel that she should get life in prison or the electric chair. She took an innocent man’s life so her life should be taken away.”
Young’s mother, Edith, said to Kitchens, “I’m thinking of him every day, crying, not able to control it. I’m a mother who lost a part of me, my child. He didn’t deserve to be killed like a dog shot down in cold blood.”
Young’s family did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.
The judge sentenced Shelton to life in prison. When she turns 65 in 2043, she can petition the sentencing court for conditional release. It’s a request that lawyers say is rarely granted.
To the new DA, ‘The evidence sounded thin’
In the years following Shelton’s conviction, her family reached out to everyone they could, including to District Attorney Scott Colom in 2018. They told Colom that Young’s death was a suicide, not a homicide.
The wall of Colom’s office has a reminder to him about not rushing to judgment: a photo of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two exonerated men who together spent a total of 30 years behind bars, including time on death row, for a murder they didn’t commit.
Their prosecutor was Colom’s predecessor, Forrest Allgood, whose office saw six convicted people later have their convictions thrown out — the record for any district attorney in the state, according to a Mississippi Today analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations.
Allgood said he did not recall the Shelton case, which other prosecutors tried. He said he and his staff never tried anyone they thought was innocent.
He defended Shelton’s defense lawyer, Ray, who previously worked for Allgood as a prosecutor. “He’s probably the premier defense lawyer in the district,” the former district attorney said. “There’s probably a very good reason he didn’t introduce the [apparent suicide] letter.”
Just because an appeals court dismisses a case doesn’t mean it’s right, he said. “Appeals courts are made up of fallible human beings.”
He said he disagreed with the term exoneration when a case is reversed because “there’s a bias toward the accused being innocent, even after a jury says otherwise.”
Colom said Brooks supported his campaign for district attorney and made him promise that if he ever had a case with questions about someone’s guilt, he would have people look into it.
After reading the 2017 Mississippi Supreme Court opinion upholding Shelton’s conviction, Colom began to have questions. “The evidence sounded thin,” he said. “There was not much motive.”
On top of that, he said, if Shelton were truly guilty of murder, “Why would she call 911?”
He reached out to the Mississippi Innocence Project to look into the case. And he later wrote a sworn statement in support of a hearing to determine if Shelton deserved a new trial.
In 2020, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously ordered such a hearing. The trial judge removed Colom from the case because of the statement he signed and had the attorney general’s office replace him.
Defense attorneys point to ‘false and misleading testimony from prosecution witnesses’
In 2021 and 2022, Judge Kitchens held three days of hearings.
At Shelton’s original trial, deputies testified that from their recollection, Shelton was wiping her hands to try and remove gunshot residue before they tested her at the station at about 1 a.m.
Her defense team, now including Jake Howard of the MacArthur Justice Center, slammed that testimony as false. A form from that night signed by chief investigator Ramirez Williams showed he had tested Shelton for gunshot residue at 9:51 p.m. — less than 30 minutes after Young was pronounced dead outside her trailer, and hours before she made it to the station.
But the jury never saw the form documenting the actual time.
This evidence “completely undermined the State’s theory that she had tried to rub away the evidence that she had fired the gun,” her new lawyers wrote. “The State secured its conviction against Tameshia Shelton by presenting, and failing to correct, false and misleading testimony from prosecution witnesses.”
After seeing additional materials regarding Young’s death during the hearings, Dr. Funte admitted in a sworn statement that his ruling that Young’s death was a homicide was an “error.” During a new hearing, Funte told the court that he lacked knowledge of any data or scientific studies that supported his original conclusion for Young’s manner of death — in fact, they contradicted it.
If Funte had the chance to rule again, the pathologist wrote to the court that he would deem the death undetermined but leaning toward suicide.
“Any bullet trajectory can occur in both homicides and suicides. I see no evidence at this point to support homicide,” Funte testified.
The judge told lawyers that cause of death in cases — gunshot, poisoning or otherwise — are more of an issue than manner of death, whether it be homicide, suicide or otherwise.
Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., who was acquitted of bribery and tax evasion charges, said the cause of death in this case may be a gunshot wound, but the manner of death makes all the difference.
If the pathologist had ruled the manner of death a suicide or an accident, he asked, what proof would there be that a homicide took place?
“If the manner of death didn’t matter,” Diaz said, “Tameshia Shelton wouldn’t be in prison.”
Phantom crimes: Nearly three-fourths of exonerated women were convicted of “phantom crimes” — crimes that never took place, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations.
Through reviews or court appeals, authorities determined that what they first thought were crimes were really accidents, suicides or other acts misinterpreted as wrongdoing.
Nationwide, more than 300 women have had their convictions overturned over the past three decades. Although the reasons vary, many of these cases involve faulty forensic methods and conclusions.
Shelton lost because of the evidence, state maintains
Judge Kitchens took so long to rule on Shelton’s case that the Mississippi Supreme Court scolded him.
Nearly two years after the hearings, the judge finally ruled. He denied Shelton a new trial in a 15-page order.
After her lawyers appealed to the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Special Assistant Attorney General Barbara Byrd wrote to the court that Shelton had failed to show why she should be granted a new trial. Byrd stated that the defense “failed to show that the State’s witnesses testified falsely or that the prosecution knowingly elicited false testimony or that the jury relied on the allegedly-false testimony in rendering its verdict.”
Shelton lost because of the evidence, not her defense lawyer’s performance, Byrd wrote. “Trial counsel challenged the State’s evidence at all stages of this case by filing and arguing pre-trial motions, making strategic objections at trial, by thoroughly examining witnesses, and by making a persuasive (though unsuccessful) closing argument.”
She called the apparent suicide note irrelevant as evidence.
Left: Sisters Tameshia, left, and Shenikia Shelton smile for a last photo together in 2015 before Tameshia was imprisoned after a Clay County jury convicted her of murder in the 2009 death of their youngest sister’s boyfriend, Danelle Young. Right: Shenikia Shelton, bottom, visits Tameshia Shelton in prison. Tameshia Shelton is serving a life sentence in the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. Credit: Courtesy of Shenikia Shelton
But the appeals court disagreed. The judges ruled 7-3 in favor of a new trial for Shelton, citing Dr. Funte’s reversal on manner of death and the defense lawyer’s failure to introduce an apparent suicide note as evidence. “We find it difficult to conclude that its absence did not prejudice Shelton’s defense,” the appeals judges wrote.
The appeals court did acknowledge discrepancies in the officers’ testimony. But it rejected the defense’s argument that the testimony was false, ruling that the defense failed to show the officers intentionally lied.
In appealing the decision to the Mississippi Supreme Court, Byrd said the same studies that supposedly support the deputy medical examiner’s reversal “quantitatively showed that Dr. Funte’s original opinion was still the most probable manner of death.”
She cited one study that said only 36.4% of suicidal gunshot wounds were to the left chest, “meaning 63.6% did not.” And a later study showed that less than 15% of suicides involve chest wounds.
Byrd declared the defense’s failure to admit the apparent suicide note into evidence “does not establish prejudice. At most, it shows a possibility — not the reasonable probability — of a different result. That is insufficient.” (The attorney general’s office declined to comment further on the case.)
Shelton’s lawyers responded that “no competent medical examiner would rely on statistical probabilities to determine, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the manner of death” since “‘any bullet trajectory can occur in both homicides and suicides.’”
They wrote that “Young’s ‘These are my last words’ note … was relevant to Young’s state of mind where the asserted defense was suicide, as the Court of Appeals correctly holds.”
Mississippi Supreme Court justices have until July to decide if they will consider the case. If they don’t, the case would return to Colom’s office.
“It’s my job,” Colom told Mississippi Today, “to look at what the facts show and do justice.”
Undoing Wrongful Convictions:Overturning a wrongful conviction in a murder case borders on impossible in Mississippi.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld convictions in more than 86% of appeals decided on merits over the past decade. Getting a circuit court judge to order a new trial in a murder case is even more difficult.
Since 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered 38 circuit court judges to review murder or capital murder cases to determine if new trials are warranted, according to a Westlaw search. Not a single one of those judges ordered a new trial.
Jackson lawyer Graham Carner has been fighting for a new trial for his client, Jeffrey Havard, since 2008. His case involves allegations of sexual assault, which even the state’s experts agree never happened, and a “shaken baby” syndrome that scientists have disproven.
“The system values finality more than reaching the right result,” he said. “Once there is a conviction, the system wants to just move along. And it’s almost impossible for the innocent to get justice. We need to do better.”
‘We didn’t get to grieve Danelle. We loved him.’
In the 11 years since Tameshia Shelton went to prison, weeds and trees have overtaken her trailer. Her prized black Mustang sits nearby with the vanity tag, “Truely” – shorthand for her phrase, “I’m truly a walking miracle.”
Her sister, Shenikia, said the pain runs deep, not just for the loss of her sister, but for the loss of the young man her children called “uncle.” She said the lead investigator advised them against attending Young’s funeral or reaching out to his family.
Because deputies believed Shelton had killed Young, “we didn’t get to grieve Danelle,” she said. “We loved him. He was family.”
From prison, Shelton told Mississippi Today that despite being behind bars, she maintains “an optimistic outlook and a positive mindset. My trust and my faith is in God.”
Putting innocent people behind bars does more than hurt a single individual, she said. “My family is hurting, the community is hurting, my kids are hurting. It’s like a domino effect.”
Her children have grown up without her. Her now-17-year-old daughter, Treasure, has battled depression and suicidal thoughts in the past, Shelton said. “If I was there, my kids wouldn’t be going through counseling. If I was there, my sister wouldn’t have to sit there and play the mom role.”
If she is freed, she plans to spend the rest of her life helping those in similar circumstances, she said. “I don’t want this to happen to other people.”
Shelton said she would like for Young’s family to know that “we weren’t the ones that pulled the trigger. We did not do any harm to him. We never did anything to him besides treat him like family.”
She expressed sympathy to his family for their loss. “I know how his family feels because my daughter tried to kill herself,” she said. “I am truly sorry that they suffered that loss. Being in here, I feel the pain. I honestly feel the pain.""
Jerry Mitchell: Senior Investigative Reporter at Mississippi Today: The stories of investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell have helped put four Klansmen and a serial killer behind bars. His stories have also helped free two people from death row, exposed injustices and corruption, prompting investigations and reforms as well as the firings of boards and officials. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a longtime member of Investigative Reporters & Editors, and a winner of more than 30 other national awards, including a $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grant. After working for three decades for the statewide Clarion-Ledger, Mitchell left in 2019 and founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting."
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Madeline Nguyen: Roy W. Howard Investigative Reporting Fellow at Mississippi Today: She covers stories that expose wrongdoing, hold powerful institutions accountable and illuminate disparities affecting everyday Mississippians. While her investigations span a range of topics, they are united by a common focus: justice. Through HER work, She has seen how investigative reporting can drive real change and make the community we live in a better place.
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Ilyssa Daly: Ilyssa Daly is an investigative reporter. A recent Pulitzer and Goldsmith finalist, she is a former local investigations fellow for The New York Times, where she led a series that dug into the unchecked power of sheriffs with Mississippi Today. She received her master̢۪s degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she received honors from the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and won the Fred M. Hechinger Journalism Education Award."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
Two Blogs Now: The Charles Smith Blog; The Selfless Warriors Blog: I created the Charles Smith Blog in 2007 after I retired from The Toronto Star to permit me to keep digging into the story of the flawed pathologist and the harm he had done to so many innocent parents and caregivers, and to Ontario’s criminal justice system. Since then it has taken new directions, including examinations of other flawed pathologists, flawed pathology, and flawed science and technology which has marred the quality of justice in courtrooms around the world. On International Wrongful Conviction Day in 2024, I was thrilled to have the Blog recognized by Innocence Canada, when I was presented with the, "Rubin Hurricane Carter Champion of Justice Award." The heart of the Blog is my approach to following cases which raise issues in all of these areas - especially those involving the death penalty. I have dedicated 'The Selfless Warrior Blog’ (soon to appear) to those exceptional individuals who have been ripped out of their ordinary lives by their inability to stand by in the face of a glaring miscarriage of justice. They are my ’Selfless Warriors.’ Enjoy!
