Derontae Martin /// Part 1 /// 505 | Forensic Files

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[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] County 9-1-1 what's the address of your
emergency uh yes I need the cops yeah apparently I got your shot you should a guy just shot himself
yeah and that's it yeah and is that where you are yeah can you hear me yeah yeah is he
breathing at all yeah do you think he's been out Beyond any help do you want to try CPR
uh somehow got in the back of my uh okay okay you're cutting out uh all right I can't even get cancer here please hey
can you hear me thank you he is breathing how old is he do you know how old is he that
may be 20. 1920 21 somewhere like that in my head and the heads are you thank you
can't really change but they're is he alert it all is he conscious he don't look like it
when did this happen um about a few minutes ago three minutes ago okay you're hard to hear again
you're cutting out sir you're cutting out I can't understand you trying to find this
yeah hello I can hear you now oh yeah uh right now I called you what was your name
uh James can you hear me [Music] Durante Martin was born in St Louis where he'd lived until he was about 10
years old then he his mom her name is Erica Lotz and his six siblings moved to Park Hills a town of about 8 500
residents 60 miles Southwest of St Louis Park Hills was a very different type of
environment than the urban one in St Louis first of all of course it was a much smaller community in a town this
size most people know each other it was a much less racially diverse Community Durante and his family were very much in
the minority one article we found describes the old lead belt region of Missouri where Park Hills is located as
95 percent white durante's family is black in the spring of this year 2021 Durante was 19 years old and he had
graduated the year before from Central High School Durante started out at Central but then transfer to an
alternate School due to his less than Stellar attendance record while he was at this other school an assistant
football coach from Central took note of him partially because of his impressive
size and encouraged him to get his attendance on track so he could return to Central and play football and he did
durante's cousin Isaiah Welch later told nbc5 news that the two played on the team together and being football players
changed their lives for the better he said quote when we were kids we used to live in the same trailer park together
he lived right in front of me so our windows were facing each other and when our parents fell asleep we'd go to the
windows and open up the curtains and look at each other and sneak out of the house and do whatever we wanted to do
because we were bad kids football definitely changed us the coaches and stuff like that just helping us through
this life because we didn't have it easy growing up Durante was six foot three inches tall and 250 pounds and was very
athletic his cousin Isaiah said he could do a lot of things big boys like him couldn't really do he was fast and he
could catch the ball real good there are quite a few stories in the local papers throughout durante's High
School football career in which his prowess on the field is reported he was a star defensive tackle on Central's
Rebels football team and earned himself a scholarship to a small College in another state
but the school was requiring that Durante bring up his s.a.t scores so he took a year off after high school and
worked and studied for his entrance exams he was preparing to go to summer football camp and he held down two jobs
one at Walmart and one at a local restaurant until he was laid off during the pandemic then his mom bought a house
in Ferguson a suburb of St Louis and the family relocated again to the town of about twenty thousand people 13 miles
Northwest of St Louis on April 23 2021 Durante left the Ferguson house and the company of some
friends from his Alternative High School in Park Hills so he left the house that
night with people that his mother didn't know that well he told his mom that one of them would
drop him off at his grandmother's house this is Kimberly Robinson she still lived in Park Hills but Durante never
showed up this next bit of information is all from a statement released by Madison County
Sheriff Katie McCutchen on April 29th on the Sheriff's Department's Facebook page this is what
they put on there captain on Sunday April 25th at approximately 301 am Madison County dispatch received a 9-1-1
call from a residence located at 1773 Highway Z in Fredericktown in reference to a 21 year old male shot
in the head and was not conscious in the 9-1-1 call a man who identifies himself
as James Wade says he needs cops in an ambulance apparently a guy just shot himself he
says to the dispatcher he confirms the highway z address a girl in the background can be heard crying and
yelling something like I hate this he confirms that the victim is not breathing and then tells someone in the
background to check and see if he's breathing he is gasping for air it sounds like he
says when asked the victim's age the caller says he's 19 20 21 something like that
where was he shot the dispatcher asked in the head the caller says no he was not alert or conscious the sheriff's
statement continued Madison County Sheriff's Office Madison County EMS and Cherokee pass fire department was
dispatched to this location upon arrival to the scene the male subject was located in the Attic area of the
residence and was found to be deceased the statement said the dead man was identified as Durante Martin age 19.
Sheriff McCutchen's Facebook statement went on to address the autopsy of the deceased saying an autopsy was performed
on the deceased on Monday April 26 2021 at the Saint Francis County morgue in Farmington Missouri the initial
investigation was led by the Madison County Sheriffs and Madison County coroner's office with the assistance of
the Missouri State Highway Patrol preliminary evidence revealed the male subject died from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound to the head once the final autopsy results in all witness statements have been received the
complete report will be submitted to the Madison County prosecutor's office for further review so four days after the
9-1-1 call about Durante being shot the sheriff had preliminarily concluded that
this was a suicide and said so so publicly well we all know my feelings about them making statements too early
take your time say you're doing an investigation let the evidence lead you to your final
findings you're exactly right Captain because they are saying in their own statement this is not the final autopsy
uh it is an autopsy that we performed and this is what we found preliminary evidence is showing us that this was a
self-inflicted gunshot wound my guess is that preliminary evidence that they're talking about is less scientific and
more witness statements right and so you're right if this is not the final autopsy then why release anything
at all because you've not finished your job you've not completed the work and the other thing too if you're going to
make such a statement that could be found to be controversial which ends up being just that maybe release a more
detailed statement back it up with facts and actual evidence it's a very brief statement that says hey we reviewed it
this is what happened but they don't really tell you how they got to that conclusion makes you
question why a 19 year old is in a house that we he obviously doesn't know the house that well but why is he in the
Attic by himself and where did he get this firearm again that goes back to their statement we don't have much
information we don't know what those witness statements would be so it's hard to even say that he was in that space in
that Attic by himself right it gets really wishy-washy here on this whole thing and
that's what we're going to tear through right now because immediately durante's mother and grandmother both dispute the
suicide findings they're saying look this kid was not suicidal they say that Durante was a big
happy Jolly kid and that seems to be an opinion that's shared by his friends and
family as well no but we all know depression is a [ __ ] right and not always does somebody show signs of
depression to others you're exactly right and that's such a such a sad thing and
you can understand maybe Mom and Grandma have it wrong maybe that he was holding
on to some kind of dark secret or maybe this was something he was able to keep away from his family and of course
unfortunately we've all seen cases where the family is the last to know that their loved one is in fact suicidal but
we also have some evidence of his mindset I mean he is working two jobs that takes a lot of energy
motivation to work at a Walmart and a restaurant so I'd be interested to see how many
hours he was working but to me that that is evidence of somebody that's more motivated trying to do something with
their lives yeah and keep in mind this is going to be going on after everything got shut down and so he did lose one of
those jobs because of the shutdown I this is one thing that's going to perplex me for the rest of my days
Captain I don't understand why the mom and pop small stores and restaurants got closed during the pandemic but the
Giants that don't need any money like Walmart and Target were allowed to stay open and Shuffle in as many people as
they could but what I see here and this is one of these stories that look I don't love the overall story of this
case I love the beginning of the story because what do we see here we see a young man a teenage a teenager who is
not necessarily doing the right things right he's skipping out of school maybe kind of half-assing it along the way
yeah but the system is not set up the school system is not set up for most kids but what I love about the story I
think where you're going is somebody says okay well you might not like this system and this system might not favor
you but do you like sports do you is there some interest that I could get you involved in I mean I hated
school awful student but because I enjoyed the music programs that that was the gateway to try to be a good student
you didn't want to miss class because you're going to miss jazz band or you're going to miss Orchestra class or so you
went to school because those classes kept kept you coming back and so same here oh I want to play sports well I
have to go to school I have to do the mathematics and English and science classes in order to be able to play
sports well and I don't you know the system it doesn't really apply here in my opinion this is a setup where the kid's
just not going to school I mean it doesn't matter about the reason set up there if you don't what I'm trying to
attend what I'm saying is he might have gave up on school because it just wasn't
working for him what I love is exactly what you said you see a kid that that is presented an
opportunity where in kudos to this coach who went out of the his way or her way to say hey
look there's some here's something for you a little light at the end of the tunnel if you will if you can get your
attendance up and actually participate in class and attend the classes there might be a spot for you on this football
team and so what we're seeing here to me is a kid that can find motivation or be
presented with motivation right and then work toward earning a goal an achievement and he did that so much so
that it translated into a scholarship offer for him and now he's kind of back at that
step again where hey I'm out of school for a year but I'm working toward getting those SAT scores up because my
scholarship is still waiting for me so of course we have his family that are saying they're going to present the
ideas that hey there's good things going on in this kid's life that are I mean everything's moving in the right
direction for Durante at this time and that's why they point out that hey if he were suicidal this point in his life
doesn't make any sense that he would be suicidal at this point in his life because things were bad before they're
not so bad now and they're moving in the right direction like we so we know that
his mother Erica recently purchased a home in Ferguson for herself and her kids this is the first time in durante's
life that he has his own bedroom rather than sharing one with some of his siblings
and then we have video footage that shows that he was still in the process of settling into his new house and his
new bedroom Erica his mom bought Durante new sneakers new clothes and a flat screen TV for his room so according to
the family Durante was very happy Erica told the TV news reporter that Durante was so excited about their new living
situation that he was showing off his new room to friends on video calls even though there wasn't even Furniture in
his room yet right and so again they're just kind of underlining and echoing this idea that it just didn't really
make sense that Durante who had challenges in the past would select this time in his life when things were
looking up to take his own life and they'd have more evidence than anybody else in the world you know his mother
and grandmother yes and we have nbc5 news who interviewed durante's former High School football coach who had
visited with Durante just a month before his death this is Corey schweiss who said he was happy big smile on his face
I asked him how everything was going and he said great and he was having a good time
and again we also Circle back to the idea that we don't always know everything that's
going on with an individual if they don't choose to share once and suicide is not something that's always something
that's a lingering issue true I believe there's some people that are very capable on having their life go in
the right direction and sometimes just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and that day they make a decision that's a
fatal one like everything else it can be impulsive at times now there are many things that we simply do not know in
this case and we're not going to sit here in the garage and try to pretend otherwise
and what we do know in this case only raises more questions for example there are no details that
this is this is the [ __ ] sorry this case gets me a little worked up this is the
stuff that that we really really need to be told so we can make heads or tails of what the hell happened
here because you have a very suspicious looking situation on the surface underneath the surface
however you want to shake it out until we know what the heck happened so what we do know only raises more questions
for example there are no details about where the gun came from whether the gun was collected at the scene
or even what type of gun it was and Sheriff Katie McCutchen isn't talking they're not filling in any of those
blanks for us well that's [ __ ] another thing we do not know is what exactly Durante was doing at this house
in the first place what is he doing at the place where he died his family says that they have no idea how he ended up
where he did I have a couple of thoughts but we don't have anything that's concrete to tell us why he would be at
this house and there's reasons to point out and suggest that maybe this might not be the most inviting or welcoming
home for Durante to be hanging out at the house where Durante was shot was the location for a party of kids from a
different High School not Central so him being 19 years old makes some sense he ends up at a party amongst his peers it
was a girl's 18th birthday party at a home in Fredericktown this is a Tiny Town of about 4 000 about 27 miles south
of Park Hills there are conflicting accounts of how Durante ended up at this party reportedly he was brought there by
some friends another rumor is that Durante did not want to go to this party because he knew that there would be some
guys or a guy that he had a beef with according to One Source keep in mind durante's situation he's working hard to
and studying trying to get those s.a.t scores up because he wants to take advantage of the opportunity of that
scholarship this does not strike me and again 19 we're all a little dumb in different ways I certainly was super
dumb you and I were leading the pack of dumbness I was I was the head of the class I'm happy to knock on wood I'm
happy to be alive but so we know we we can factor in 19 year old male dumbness but what I see here is
a guy that's not going to screw up this opportunity that's being handed to him and so showing up at a place where you
know something might go down or police get called yeah isn't going to help you on your way to that scholarship well
also maybe you just don't want to fight somebody true no hey it's Friday night you're
working your butt off the last thing you want to do on your free time is then have a fight you know
you just want to hang out with people have a good night according to One Source and please take this with a shot of
whiskey and grain of salt as it has not been confirmed by any of the authorities again they're not really
saying anything but this piece of information hasn't even been confirmed by durante's family but what
the rumor is is that there was a white teen at this party who had been arrested for first degree assault in the past and
for whatever reason this guy believed that Durante had ratted him out to the cops
and the rumor that was going around is this dude wanted payback and he was preparing to get it aided by you know a
group of his friends now we were able to verify that this guy named online as Adam Rulo was indeed arrested for
serious assault on another guy and it involved a shooting we found this article in the Park Hills Missouri Daily
Journal dated April 15 2021 just three weeks before durante's death that says an area man faces felony charges in
Saint Francis County after allegedly shooting another man in February Adam rule 19 of Park Hills was charged on
Wednesday with first degree assault and armed criminal action according to a probable cause statement from the Saint
Francis County Sheriff's Department rullo reportedly shot a man on February 17th at a location on Route DD south of
Farmington the bullet reportedly hit the alleged victim in his stomach area and lodged near the man's spine the report
states that doctors are unable to remove the bullet from the man's body due to its location the lodge projectile now
reportedly prevents the man from engaging in any sporting activities court records show Rulo has previous
convictions of fourth degree assault stemming from a 2019 incident and he pled guilty to the charge and was given
a suspended sentence of two years of unsupervised probation yeah so we have this guy that this teenager that wants
to be a gangster and then we have this other teenager that not only is he trying to get his life together his
mother is a shining example of progression through life and and winning at the game of life through
hard work and you know this thing we review this situation from the newspaper article here and we understand it's a
totally unrelated incident but it does show that one this Adam Rollo was involved in a skirmish right before
bronte's death with a firearm exactly two he likes to shoot people no so if the rumor was that he wanted to
get payback against Durante this statement could hold some weight this rumor could hold some weight because
there is this information backing some of that thought up right and no matter if you're 6'3 250
you're not going to go in uh to a gunfight with fisticuffs so that might be another reason why he didn't want to
go to a party where this individual might be at because he knows this individual whether it's he has extra
friends but he knows this individual is probably carrying a gun and probably going around
telling everybody that he's carrying around guns again this could mean absolutely zero
right but what it does is it starts to piece together that we have this guy that we know to be involved in gun
violence that may or may not have been at this party we don't have confirmation that Adam rule was at the party just
allegations posted online by people claiming to be in the know saying that he was in fact there so we have if they
are right and he was there then we have a situation where we have a guy that we know to be involved in gun violence is
at the same place at the same time as someone who ends up being killed by way of gun well this along with the evidence
and thought process of his mother and his grandmother these are reasons that you don't come out and give
findings of suicide until you're absolutely 100 sure thank you foreign [Music] [Music]
foreign we're back cheers to the people this nasty people in the front and uh cheers to you Colonel but also look
we're not experts we're not Health mental health experts so anything that we're saying
um know that we take suicide very serious and if you are struggling with anything a number that you can call is
1-800-273-8255 that's the National Suicide Prevention lifeline and they will be happy to talk with you as much
as you need it now durante's shooting Captain took place at a home owned by a man named James Wade reportedly that
night was his daughter's 18th birthday party in an interview with Katie SK St Louis
Wade said that he got home from fishing about 30 minutes before he heard the shot he said he was downstairs and he
heard the gunshot from upstairs he called 9-1-1 to try to help he said it needs to be said that this guy Wade has
never been named by police in this case in fact some mainstream media Outlets won't even publish his name but he has a
public Facebook page and has posted openly about this case and acknowledged the shooting at his home in social media
and in interviews so we consider his name fair game durante's mother Erica Lotz says that her son had zero
connections to this Wade guy according to NBC 5 News Wade said that his daughter didn't know Durante well but he
showed up at their house with some other friends who the other party attendees were has never been released to the
public my guess here is Captain she's turning 18. maybe a certain percentage maybe even a
large percentage of these other party attendees might be Miners and that might be the thought for not releasing the
names and we know how high school parties go we don't know if this was supposed to be
this huge Birthday Bash or if it was hey we're having 15 20 people over and then
that turns into everybody and their brother showing up I want to throw something out here too because I think
this is lost in the mix here because there's a lot to get heated about in this case a lot to get worked up on and
sometimes we can Overlook or underthink some of the information that's provided to us
and you're not going to hear me come to the defense of this James Wade very often heck this might be the only time
in this episode that I do so but because we don't have Clarity or an understanding of like you said Captain
the the parameters of this party we also need to keep in mind there's a chance there's a chance that James Wade
may not have known this party was going to be happening in his house right high school kids I don't know if this is a
news flash for anybody out there if it is um you you late to the party yourself but uh news flash sometimes high school
kids have parties at their parents homes and the parents don't know about it and maybe they thought maybe his
daughter thought dad's going to be gone the whole night fishing and came home and found oh there's a party in my house
and for all we know he was tipped off by somebody hey do you know there's all these people at your house
and then we go back to something else that we again it's a lot of we do not know
um we don't know what Durante was doing in the Attic of this house or if anybody
else was with him at the time that this gun goes off well it's also not clear because
an addict here to me you'd have to get up into somebody's crawl space and so you'd be going
through a little Rinky Dink ladder through a little hole or was there addict something where it
was like a a third level that they just used as storage or something yeah I'm guessing this must be uh I I
have no idea you're right some of them are quite small and tight spaces there's other ones that uh people turn into
rooms right in their home heck Clark Griswold spent a whole afternoon in his attic one day so yeah we don't know what
he was doing up in this space of the house and if there was anyone with him at the time when this gun went off if
you could prove that there wasn't anybody with him then we'd have a pretty open and shut case right again
they've they being the sheriff's department have come to a conclusion but they're not telling us how they arrived
at that conclusion now on the flip side of what I said about James Wade not knowing about this party that there's a
small chance that that happened rumors are that James Wade was known to host these types of parties where there is
underage drinking going on so a responsible parent right there's also a rumor and if Mr
Wade wants to come out at me for some of these rumors uh this is all stuff that can be found
online uh this is not stuff that I'm just creating and making up so there you need to come out a lot of
people but there's a straw I would say there's a good rumor going around that he might be involved in some drug
dealing or low-level drug dealing and maybe these parties if in fact he is hosting or allowing these parties to go
down at his home right that maybe some of the party attendees are his customers if you want to call him that again we
can't verify any of this these are all rumors and accusations posted by other people on the Madison County Sheriff's
Facebook page and Wade's own page and there might not be customers but he might view this as a
business opportunity now this next bit contains information that we cannot back up we cannot find any articles reporting
it but many people in the area have pointed out in the wake of durante's death that there was a previous suicide of a
young man on James Wade's property now again we cannot verify this but in a way James Wade himself did so someone
screen grabbed a text response he sent to their phone we don't know what it was in response to but here's what Wade's
response said hey stupid ass it's only two suicides that have happened and I wasn't here for either of them you blank
[ __ ] it goes on but it's just more derogatory and insulting language so we'll leave it
out oh come on read it well the interesting thing here Captain is I don't think it's very hard for people
to believe that a suicide went down at someone's house now if you told me that two of them went
down at someone's house something's wrong right don't you start the question everything at that point you go okay we
need to review both of these situations in detail and really get to the bottom of what's going on because it doesn't
make no sense no now what makes James Wade extremely suspicious in the eyes of the Martin family and the activist
Community is that he is a racist and white supremacist his Facebook profile picture is not a photo of himself but
rather a cartoon drawing of a middle finger imposed against an American flag background with the caption
here's my apology for being white according to NBC 5 News in 2017 and 2018 Wade posted pictures on his Facebook
page including one of a black man with a chain around his neck and the words my great great great grandfather's tractor
oh so this guy Wade is a giant piece of [ __ ] yes yes he is you can smell the racism well and that's what we're we're
pointing out here is that even if Let's Pretend everything went down just as as we're told that it did right this guy
is not a good guy and horrible guy and even just this happening one suicide on his property of a black young male
should be looked at under the lens of Suspicion yes I mean look we talked about Ayla
Reynolds case and one thing that was local rumor that we didn't report on in that case
because we had a lot of facts in that case but one rumor that I believe to have been true is that when the police
showed up to the call of this missing little kid there's beer bottles and beer cans and
paraphernalia all over the house paraphernalia don't you go into that situation saying there's a missing
toddler and this is what I'm seeing is going on in the house when all these kids are here and you look at that under
a lens of Suspicion you show up to a racist home where a person of a different ethnicity
dies on his property you're looking at this with a suspicion with some suspicion
yeah because your job is to Serve and Protect every citizen no matter what race they are but on top of that you owe
it to this family you owe it to the community to say this Wade guy is suspicious because of his ignorant
um thoughts on the world and of other people and so we have to do we need to double down on our due
diligence and make sure that we are as transparent as possible not only with the family but
the community well murder and violence involves a certain level of anger and Hate
and you can obviously see that this man has some hate in him yes he has a motive the other thing that
points to him being a racist is and this again is from his Social Media stuff was
another picture this is of a black dog and the words I had a black dog once I named him food stamps
yeah so these all appear to be memes constructed by other people and and maybe Wade reposted these but it's clear
that he endorses the racist sentiments that they express and we don't know if Durante
knew hey this house that we're going to this party not only is there a guy that might
show up that I don't want anything to do with but hurt this girl's dad is a known racist
and maybe that would be another reason you wouldn't want to go to this party as for who killed Durante
James Wade said in one of several interviews I know that I didn't do it and I tried to help him but
nobody's talking about that so I guess he's looking for praise for calling 9-1-1 but there's more after
durante's death Wade posted the following image on his Facebook page a photo of a white man
a middle-class dad looking type of dude with a large handgun pointing at something off camera he's standing in a
home shielding a wife and baby behind him the caption says don't get it twisted I believe all lives matter
regardless of color however that belief is null and voided if you invade my home
and endanger my family I don't know exactly what message he's trying to put out with that but at the
very least when you're being talked about and you have someone who dies from a gun related incident inside your home
not only are you racist and I I know that this these words go hand in hand and are often in the same sentence so
I'm no genius here but not only do you come off as racist you come off very incredibly ignorant at the same time
no and the thing too is that we we're supposed to applaud you we're supposed to give you praise
because you called 9-1-1 like go [ __ ] yourself now many people online saw this statement
as some type of confession particularly because his daughter Carrie posted that there wasn't a party and
Durante was not supposed to be there her posts are clearly trying to divert blame
from her family here's one of the posts on Facebook quote there was no alcohol there wasn't even a party my sister's
celebration was over before midnight he wasn't even there or invited to our family [ __ ]
he was there with his friend Zach so so that's where you I sit there and go well which is it you know he's there he
wasn't there he was there there was a party there wasn't a party party it's almost like she's trying to imply well
he wasn't there and then so he was trespassing well publicly if you're stating that
this individual is trespassing your father is now posting uh a picture stating hey I'll shoot anybody that's
threatening my family or trespassing on my property so are you saying that you killed this guy and now you're you're
stating it's a suicide well James Wade publicly has stuck to his story uh regardless of what his
daughters he said that he was downstairs and Durante suddenly shot himself upstairs
he has not tried to portray Durante as an intruder at any time or cite the stand your ground
defense instead he's saying that Durante did this to himself let's get into some
more of the family's questions that they have in in Greater detail here we have durante's Mom Erica who has not been
happy with the information or lack thereof that the family has been getting or not getting from the Madison County
Sheriff's Office but here's my question if they ruled it a suicide then the case is closed and they would
have every opportunity to receive the whole case File have they been able to do this yet yes
they have and that's where we end up with more so they're saying we got the case
no they don't have the case File they don't have the case File but they we have some more information that is
coming from his family rather than the Sheriff's Office and she is saying that his mother has
said publicly that she never spoke with anyone from the sheriff's department until a month after her son died and she
told a reporter that she never received official word of durante's death she heard about it from someone else you
know they didn't show up with officers on her doorstep to inform her what happened
further she was never given any details or explanations of the circumstances from the sheriff's department Erica
recorded a conversation she had with Sheriff Katie McCutchen when she finally got her on the phone this was in May of
2021 the sheriff would not discuss things like the caliber of the gun that killed Durante or where the gun came
from which that's a big deal because there's nobody saying that it was durante's gun that he showed up at
the scene with a gun that he had a gun that he owned a gun yeah where that gun came from
they're not even telling you that they have evidence that he shot a gun and then on so then on top of that you
have this racist known at least low level drug dealer that might have weapons in the house
and if it comes from you know [ __ ] bag Wade if it's his gun well there there's more questions well
in the recording it can be heard that um Sheriff Katie McCutchen says that she could not discuss the ongoing
investigation with the the victim's mother she put Erica in touch with the Madison County Sheriff's a Sheriff
Deputy named Nick Adams who also gave her virtually no information and refused to discuss the gun part of the case NBC
5 News got a hold of that recorded conversation so you can find that if you do a little bit of digging here's a
piece from it that I found interesting we have Erica the mother saying do you have anybody a suspect are you going to
arrest anybody and the Deputy Adams replying I can't really discuss any of that but I can tell you I've talked to
everyone that was there that night I've taken statements from everybody and the investigation is ongoing Erica can you
tell me where the gun came from Adams responds I cannot ma'am here's the other difficult thing here we have within a
few days of them saying publicly on their Facebook page we've done a partial autopsy it's not finalized yet we have
some preliminary evidence they don't say what that is exactly but we've rolled this to be a suicide and
here you have a recorded conversation that is taking place after that information is released on the sheriff's
department on their Facebook page to where the deputy is clearly telling the victim's mother
we cannot discuss an open investigation that's them confirming it's an open investigation and if it's not then don't
use those words and and that is that's always the wall that some of these officers stand behind
when they don't want to be it's not just about being forthcoming it's they are aware they're being looked at under a
lens of Suspicion and so their best answer is no answer at all and another odd and concerning twist
Erica says she never recovered durante's personal item she has never like his clothing he was wearing his shoes his
wallet have never been returned to her the Madison County coroner Scott fawless has told Lots his mother all of her
son's belongings went with him to the mortuary which handled the funeral and the representatives from the
mortuary said that they never received the any personal belongings of durantes from the coroner so it's a one person
pointing the finger at another and then there's a finger pointing right back at them
now this is odd we have a situation where she does end up receiving maybe something that could provide
some evidence in this case and that is durante's phone and this is a few days after his death
one of the teens who picked up Durante from Erica's house came over to her home a few days after the death and brought
durante's cell phone to Erica and Erica told NBC News through tears all of his contacts were gone his text messages
were gone yeah that's shady I would like to know more about this phone and this is where look
durante's mother and grandmother and family are doing everything that they should be doing in my opinion in this
case they're getting answers that don't make sense that don't add up that they don't like
so they are going to the public and saying look there's a problem here we don't know or understand exactly what
the problem is but there's a problem so I applaud them for that and I want to push a little further
can we learn some more information about this phone about durante's phone could it be as simple as someone was trying to
access the phone in it and it cleared itself off you know after too many tries of the
wrong password or that's not what would happen you know lock your phone out but it's not going to delete your contacts
and I'd I'd also want to know what what was the call history do we have do we have call history do we have text
message history if all that stuff is cleared you have a very suspicious item well I
would believe that you could obtain some of that information from the service provider yeah possibly or if it was
backed up in some way but again we don't know the make and the model of the phone
but still that's very suspicious that all the contacts and everything but they cleared yeah the service provider would
have a call log of incoming and outcoming calls and probably incoming and outgoing text not the actual
messages themselves but who the numbers were going to right and so that's what I'm saying I I would like if if his
family is looking for a public outcry then I urge them to do what the sheriff's department is not willing to
do for them put out some more information let's let's really try to stir the pot
with some some more information because is this there are phones that are are easily wiped clean
more than others and it can be done unintentionally is this something that someone actually
had to physically go through and and clear everything out I would like a little more information on that I would
also especially if if Mom or the next of kin could contact the service provider and
try to get some information from them and I encourage them to do that because you know who's not doing it is the
Sheriff's Department well they're probably doing it they're just not releasing any of that
information because they want to only release things that fit their narrative and I I think
the other thing too is with this they don't even bother to collect the phone yeah the night when they retrieved the
body from the home so I I wasn't there I don't know if they were asking about the phone and and
searching for it themselves but it seems like when you show up and somebody dies
from a gunshot this suicide at a party which is very odd a suicide and a party at a house that there has already been
another suicide well and the thing here too is I wrote down you know some questions I had about
the case and and the the night the the scene um and some of the the things that could
result in evidence and one of the questions I wrote down here is now that durante's family has the phone in their
possession uh we know that they received it a few days after after he passed away
but did they at any time attempt to give it to the authorities to turn it over to
law enforcement and yeah but why would you turn over anything to the exactly enforcement that's not if they haven't
already don't do that because again it doesn't seem that the sheriff's department is overly concerned with
anything other than what they have already found or concluded and again I don't know much about this phone I don't
I don't know the bank and model but if it has a SIM card or something like that you could
you know all you'd have to do is get that SIM card out and then there'd be no information on the phone well and you
could hire a forensic technician someone that that's that has expertise in this area and they can go through but I think
if that SIM card's gone that there might not be a way to retrieve any of that information but again it's a t expert
it's a tidbit of uh it's a little knowledge nugget but we don't have the whole meal there right there's we don't
know if we don't know why it doesn't have any information on it is it as simple as you said that somebody removed
the SIM card again if durante's and this is me pleading with them if you are looking
for a public outcry to get the answers that you deserve us as the public we need some more
information tell us everything about that phone well the sad thing is there already should be
outcry I mean the fact that their ruling is a suicide before they collect all the
evidence there's two suicide at this Dirtbag at this known racist house possible underage drinking underage drug
use um you also have uh I don't know was he a convicted felon that was there that
had an issue well again I want to make sure that we're discussing a lot of rumors here in the garage today and I'm
separating a couple of those rumors out from the others because we don't have anything to back it up so the things
that we need to be very clear on is one we don't know if James Wade deals any types of any kind of drugs or
illegal substances at all we do we do not know that we don't have anything that that
really strongly points to that other than there's local rumor that that's going on
we also don't have other than people saying that this this uh felon was there that night we
don't have anything other than that where in some cases we have like James Wade himself saying there was only two
suicides here so that rumor seems to have some truth or at least enough that James Wade is defending himself
on that level uh so well and it's also the the conflicting stories between him and his
daughter about how many people were there when the party took place you know it's very suspicious now you
get his phone back and there's no information on the phone even more suspicious the fact that cops
are not even it's almost like we're not contacting you I mean you're again you're supposed to Serve
and Protect you're not serving this family even if if you believe a hundred percent
that it was and the evidence shows that it's a suicide sit down with the family explain it to them take the time
that's your job Serve and Protect doesn't matter what color the victim is well that might be the case captain
it either they're not they're not sharing this information or doing their due diligence because of the color of
the victim's family or maybe they just don't do it at all maybe they're just shitty at their jobs
maybe they don't do it regardless of the color of anybody that they're just bad at what they do and guess what bad
sheriffs don't get reelected you have you have a community that's primarily white and that Community needs
to stand up for all their citizens and say this this isn't right and they need to start thinking what if this was my
son what if this was my daughter would I want answers yes you would and you need to stand up
and when it's time to uh re-elect any of these Knuckleheads you say we ain't doing it
because they they play privilege and and and use a piece of [ __ ] if you stand by and let this
stuff happen this is not right what's happening to this family and again all they want is answers all they
want is some cooperation that's all they want [Music] thank you for joining us here in the
garage for everything true crime check us out at truecrime garage.com make sure you sign up on our mailing list and
until tomorrow so much more case to get to be good be kind and don't win foreign
[Music]

Derontae Martin /// Part 1 /// 505

Part 1 of 2 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

19 year old Derontae Martin was found dead from a gunshot in the attic of another families home in the early hours of April 25. Derontae’s family wants answers and so do we. Join us in the Garage for a couple of cold ones and some of the cold hard facts of this very tragic case.

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Brief Summary

Durante Martin's death raises questions of suicide versus foul play amid a flawed investigation and family concerns.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Hosts introduce the show and thank listeners for tuning in.
Tragic 9-1-1 Call. A call reveals a young man shot in the head, raising urgent questions.
Durante's Life and Background. Exploring Durante's upbringing and challenges, highlighting his potential and struggles.
Conflicting Accounts of the Night. Conflicting stories emerge about how Durante ended up at the party where he died.
Rumors of Violence. A teenager believed Durante ratted him out, leading to potential payback.
James Wade's Suspicious History. Wade's property has a history of suicides, raising questions about Durante's death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to see you, thanks for listening!

Host greeting the audience

0:42WatchNov 6, 2022

Tension

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