She helped convict 5 teens in NBA star’s grandfather’s death. Was testimony coerced?

A key witness who helped send five teenagers to prison for murder 18 years ago recanted her testimony in a recording played for the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission on Monday.

In 2002, Nathaniel Jones was beaten and pushed to the ground, his hands taped together and mouth taped shut. His assailants took his wallet and left him bound on the ground, where he died of a heart attack.

Jones, 61, was a churchgoing gas station owner, and the grandfather of NBA star Chris Paul, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Nathaniel Arnold Cauthen, 15, and his 14-year-old brother, Rayshawn Denard Banner, were convicted of first-degree murder.

Dorrell Brayboy, Christopher Levon Bryant and Jermal Tolliver — all 15 years old — were convicted of second-degree murder.

Brayboy, Bryant and Tolliver were released after serving time in prison.

Brayboy was fatally stabbed in front of a Food Lion supermarket in 2019, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.

But four of the five men, now in their 30s, filed claims of innocence with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, which began a hearing in the case Monday in Wake County.

The commission was the first of its kind in the nation, created in 2006 to seek the truth when there are credible claims of innocence in North Carolina, according to its website. It has received more than 2,700 claims and has conducted 15 hearings, 12 of which have led to exoneration.

Coerced confessions?

Four days after the incident, the boys confessed to killing Jones, the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Beirnie Harding said during the trial of Cauthen and Banner.

But defense attorney Teresa Hier stressed the confession came after the teens had spent five hours at the police station and police had interrogated them until they confessed, The Winston-Salem Journal reported.

A 16-year-old girl whom Winston-Salem police believe was driving the suspects around the night of the crime testified against them.

On the first day of the hearing, Innocence Commission members heard the now adult Jessicah Black recant the testimony that had implicated the teenage boys.

According to court documents, Black testified in 2002 that the boys had talked about robbing someone and that she drove them to a park near Jones’ home where they waited for him to come home. She said the boys picked up sticks and she heard them beat Jones.

But in a nearly hour-long taped deposition shown to the commission, Black sits at a table, crumpled tissue and a glass of water next to her. She said police had coerced her into implicating the boys in 2002, saying skin DNA was found in her car and there was surveillance footage. But after material from her car was sent to the crime lab, there was no DNA match found.

Black said there were 11 or 12 officers involved in the interrogation and that they kept her there for eight or nine hours. Julia Bridenstine, the commission’s staff attorney and evidence custodian, told the commissioners that Black was questioned for more than three hours.

“I can tell you, and anybody that it wasn’t true. I was so scared of going to jail,” Black said in the taped testimony. “They weren’t satisfied until I gave them the answer they wanted.”

She also stressed she, and all of the accused men were very young at the time.

“We were potheads man,” she said. “I was 16, hanging out, having a good time”

After a lunch break, the commission listened to a subpoenaed phone recording of Houston Chronicle reporter Hunter Atkins speaking to Black, attempting to find out what actually happened the night Jones died. In the barely audible audio of the call made available to reporters covering the hearing, Black recanted her statement saying she does not know what happened the night Jones was killed.

Her voice quivered as she recounted her fear talking to the police then and the guilt she had about testifying against the other teens.

“I didn’t find out they were 14 until the (expletive) trial,” Black told Atkins. She thought they were her age or older, because that is what they told her, she said.

At least five of the eight commissioners must find evidence of innocence to send the case to a panel of three superior court judges. That panel would then decide whether to exonerate any of the defendants.

This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 7:35 PM with the headline "She helped convict 5 teens in NBA star’s grandfather’s death. Was testimony coerced?."