Prosecutors in Dallas County told jurors Friday that backyard cameras on Ramona Avenue captured Kewon Dontrell White carrying a rifle that matches the one used in the 2020 highway killing of rapper Melvin Noble Jr., known as Mo3, then burning clothes in the yard after the shooting.
The clips played on the third day of White’s capital murder trial. FBI digital forensic examiner Scott Morris walked the panel through video and stills pulled from phones and cameras tied to the house. Prosecutors say one set of images shows a man from behind in low-slung pants and a backpack. Another, shot at night, shows a figure standing near an open fire in the yard.
Lawyers fought over how far Morris could go in describing the object in the man’s hands. The state wanted the jury to hear that the rifle in the Ramona footage is the same high-capacity weapon seen in the chase on Interstate 35E. The defense said the examiner extracted files and could not testify as a firearms expert about what the videos prove.
White, now 27, has pleaded not guilty. He is the first of four defendants to face a jury in the alleged plot. Assistant District Attorney Tommy Adams told the panel in opening statements that White was “a hitman on the highway” at noon on Nov. 11, 2020, with cars packed around him in broad daylight. Defense attorney Myra McIntosh said the state is asking jurors to close holes in the proof instead of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Noble, 28, was driving a gold sedan north on I-35E near the Dallas Zoo and the Beckley-Zang area when a dark car boxed him in. Dash video from a nearby Kroger delivery truck, played Wednesday, shows Noble stop in the lanes, climb out the driver’s door, reach into the passenger side, then run. A masked gunman with a rifle gives chase. The shots land off camera. Noble was hit 13 times, retired Dallas County medical examiner Jeffrey Barnard told the jury. Dallas Fire-Rescue officer Ricardo Gallardo said Noble never showed signs of life on the way to the hospital.
Witness Kristina Hopkins testified that the gunman pointed the rifle at her and pulled a ski mask over his face. She said she never saw enough of his face to identify him in court. Investigators released stills of the chase within days. White, then 21, was arrested weeks later.
The Ramona Avenue video is the state’s attempt to put White in the same clothes and with the same gun before and after the shooting. Courtroom observers and local reporters said jurors saw a comparison of the I-35 gunman and a man on the house cameras wearing matching clothing, including blue underwear visible at the waist. Separate clips, with timestamps that Morris said ran about an hour behind real time, show a fire in the backyard a little more than an hour after the highway shooting. Prosecutors allege White burned the clothes he wore during the chase.
White’s lawyers have argued that some of the video does not show him at all. They asked Judge Chika Anyiam for a mistrial Friday. She denied it. Testimony is set to resume Monday at the Frank Crowley Courts Building.
Prosecutors say White was hired by Dallas rapper Markies Conway, known as Yella Beezy, after a years-long public feud that also pulled in TrapBoy Freddy. Conway has pleaded not guilty to capital murder and denies any role. A third defendant, Devin Brown, is charged with helping set up the shooting. Prosecutors say Brown was in the car with White and appears on video walking toward Noble in a ski mask. Jerry Johnson is also charged. Conway’s trial has not been set. White appeared on stage with Conway shortly before Noble was killed, according to pretrial filings.
Jocylynn Jackson, who dated Noble and shares children with Brown, testified that Noble left her place shortly before he was shot and that the timing felt wrong to her. Noble’s mother, Nichole Noble, told the jury family called him Bubba. “He was a family man,” she said. “When he was with us he wasn’t MO3 the rapper.”
White is already serving 105 months in federal prison. In November 2022, U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer sentenced him after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Agents found a 9mm pistol in his pocket after an Aug. 16, 2020, dirt-bike chase in Lancaster, months before the I-35 shooting. On Nov. 23, 2020, after his arrest in the murder case, Mount Pleasant officers documented $9,670 in cash taken from him during a traffic stop, along with drugs, packaging, and guns. He spent Nov. 23 and 24 in the Titus County Jail. Jurors on Friday heard how those jail calls were logged on the Securus system.
Anyiam earlier ruled that only a handful of rap tracks can come in as evidence, including Mo3’s “2 Nineteen.” Most of Conway’s catalog stayed out. The judge also kept prior shootings the state wanted to link to the feud away from this jury.
The trial is expected to run about two weeks. White has sat through the footage with a calm face, turning to supporters in the gallery during breaks, according to people in the courtroom. The state still has to convince 12 jurors that the man on the Ramona cameras, the man on the highway, and the man at the defense table are the same person.
