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

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grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] Madison County 911 what's the address of
your emergency uh yes I need the and an yeah apparently a guy just shot you said the guy just shot himself
yeah and that that yeah and is that where you are yeah can you hear me yeah yeah is he
breathing at all yeah no do you think he's be Beyond any help do you want to try
CPR I somehow got in the back of my okay you're cutting out I can't even get turn
hey can you hear me see if he's than he he is breathing he he's gasing forever how old is he do you know how
old is he maybe 20 19 20 21 somewhere like that shot at in the head in the head I can't really see like there is
he alert at all is he conscious uh he don't look like it and when did this happen minutes
ago you said three minutes ago okay hard to hear again you're cutting out sir you're cutting out I can't
understand you to find the spot where I hello I can hear you now okay uh right I called
you what was your name James can you hear me [Music] Dante Martin was born in St Louis where
he 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 resid res 60 M 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 Dante 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% White
Dante'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 transferred 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 back so he could return to Central and play football and
he did Dante's cousin Isaiah Welch later told NBC 5 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 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 6' 3 in tall and 250 lb 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 duron'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 SAT scores so he took a year off after high school and worked and studied for his
entrance exams he was 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 20,000 people 13 miles Northwest of St
Louis on April 23rd 2021 Durante left the Ferguson house in 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 Dante 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 3:01 a.m. Madison County dispatch received a 911
call from a resident 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 911 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 ask 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 Dante 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 26th 2021 at the St Francis County morg in
Farmington Missouri the initial investigation was led by the Madison County Sheriff's and Madison County
coroner's office with the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol preliminary evidence revealed the male
subject died from a cell inflicted gunshot wound to the head once the final autopsy results and all witness
statements have been received the complete report will be submitted to the Madison County prosecutor's office for
further review so 4 days after the 911 call about Durante being shot the sheriff had preliminarily concluded that
this was a suicide and said 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 an 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 atct 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 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 Dante's mother and
grandmother both dispute the suicide findings they're saying look this kid was not
suicidal they say that Dante was a big happy Jolly kid and that seems to be an opinion that shared by his friends and
family as well well 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 um motivation to work at a Walmart and a restaurant so I I'd be interested to see
how many hours he was working but to me that that is evident 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 and 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 you 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 mathematics and
English and science classes in order to be able to play sports well and I don't you know the
system doesn't really apply here in my opinion this is a setup where the kids's just not going to school I mean doesn't
matter no but the reason what set up there if you don't I'm 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 and 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 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 Dante'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 underlying in and echoing this idea that it just didn't really make sense that Dante 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 NBC 5
News who interviewed Dante'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 well and and suicide is not something that's always something that's a lingering issue true
I believe there are some people that are are very capable and 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 Det Tails th 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 Tales 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 happen 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 MH what is he doing at the place where he died his family says 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 Dante 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 girls 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 Dante ended up at this party reportedly he was brought there by some friends another rumor is that Dante 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 mhm
according to One Source keep in mind Dante's situation he's working hard to and studying trying to get those SAT
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 I was super dumb you and I were leading the
pack of dumbness yeah I was I was the head of the class I'm happy knock on wood I'm happy to be alive but so we
know we we can fact 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 you know 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 Dante'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 p and for whatever reason this guy believed that
Dante 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 3 weeks before Dante's death it says an area man faces felony charges in St Francis County after allegedly
shooting another man in February Adam ruo 19 of Park Hills was charged on Wednesday with first deegree assault and
armed criminal action according to a probable cause statement from the St Francis County Sheriff's Department ruo
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 pre PR convictions of fourth degree assault
stemming from a 2019 incident and he plad 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 Rulo was involved in a skirmish right before Ron's death with a firearm exactly two he likes to shoot
people yeah so if the rumor was that he wanted to get payback against Dante 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 63 250 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 ruo was at
the party just allegations posted online by people claiming to be in 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
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[Music] that all right 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 80027 7 38255 that's the National Suicide Prevention lifeline and they will be
happy to talk with you as much as you need it now Dante'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 911 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 Dante'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 guest here is Captain she turning 18 maybe a certain percentage maybe even
a large percentage of these other party attendees might be minors 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 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 Dante 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
a I I have no idea you're 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 Griswald spent a whole afternoon in his attic one day MH 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 strong 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 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 them 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 they 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 Dante'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 to 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 mar 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 weade 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 AA 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 dur Durante knew hey this house that you 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 her this girl's dad is a known
racist MH 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 911 but there's more after Dante'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 ever that
belief is Gull 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 inand
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 we we're supposed to applaud you we're supposed to give
you praise because you called 911 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 post 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 wasn't there he was there there was a
party there wasn't a part party it's almost like she's trying to imply well he wasn't there and then so he was
trespassing well public so if you're stating that this individual is trespassing your father is now posting
uh a picture stating hey I 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 into suicide well James Wade publicly has stuck to
his story uh regardless of what his daughter is posting online piece of [ __ ] 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 uh we have Dante'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 and that's where we end up with more so they're saying we got the case fil but there of blanks 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 Dante'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 they're notal where the 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 possible and if it comes from you know [ __ ] 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 victims 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 uh if
you do a little bit of digging here's a 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 ruled this to be a suicide and here you have a recorded conversation that is taking
place after that information is released on the sheriff 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 M 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 items she has never like his clothing he was wearing his shoes his wallet have never
been returned to to her the Madison County coroner Scott fallace has told Lots uh 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 Dantes from the corner so it's uh 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 Dante'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 Dante'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 and 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 it lock your phone out but it's
not going to delete your contacts and i' 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 would be cleared yeah the service
provider would have a 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 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 mhm and that 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 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 release any of that information because they want to only release things that
fit their n narrative and I I think the other thing too is with this they didn't
even bother to collect the phone yeah the night when they retrieve the body from the
home so I and I'm I wasn't there I don't know if they were asking about the phone
and and and searching for it themselves but it seems like when you show up and somebody dies from a
gunshot suicide at a party which is very odd a suicide at a at 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 Dante'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 law 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 Fone 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
expert it's a tidbit of uh it's a little knowledge nugget but we don't have have
the whole meal there right there 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 Dante 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 they're ruling into suicide before they collect all the evidence there's two suicide at this
dirt bag at this known racist house possible underage drinking underage drug use um you also have uh I don't know was
he a convicted felin that was there that had an issue well again I I want to make
sure that we 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 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 and it's also the the conflicting stories between him and his daugh
about how many people were there when the party took place it's 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 you believe 100%
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 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 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 now it shouldn't you said 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 reelect 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 [Music] want thank you for joining us here in
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Derontae Martin /// Part 1 /// 505

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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

Dante Martin's death raises questions about suicide ruling and police investigation amid family concerns and racial tensions.

Key points

Dante's Life and Tragic End. Dante Martin, a promising young athlete, was found dead at 19. His family disputes the suicide ruling, claiming he was happy and thriving.
Dante's Death and the Rumors. Rumors swirl about a white teen's involvement in Dante's death, raising suspicions.
James Wade's Controversial Past. James Wade's racist social media posts raise questions about his character amid the investigation.
Family's Struggle for Answers. Dante's mother expresses frustration over the lack of communication from authorities.
The Missing Gun Evidence. Questions arise about the gun involved in Durante's death and its ownership.
Ongoing Investigation Confusion. Deputy Adams refuses to discuss details with the victim's mother, raising suspicions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Football definitely changed us.

Isaiah Welch reflects on how football impacted his and Dante's lives.

9:06WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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