- 2 days ago
In Fayetteville, Arkansas, 47-year-old Mario Miller turns up shot dead in a stranger’s driveway. As detectives trace his last hours, a missing Dodge Challenger, a pawned pistol, and damning text messages reveal a chilling murder conspiracy.
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00:00Last night we were having dinner and we heard a car in our driveway running.
00:27Last night?
00:28Yes.
00:29Last night?
00:30Oh, it was about 8.30 or 9.00.
00:31Did you look out and see the car?
00:33Yeah.
00:34What color was the car?
00:35It was dark.
00:36A lady was driving, but I think there was a man with her.
00:40There was a man lying on the ground, face up.
00:45He was alive.
00:47And she said, he's okay, we're gonna get him back in the car.
00:50And so I felt like, who is this?
00:52What's he doing on the ground?
00:54On the morning of August 12, 2020, we received a 911 call about a motionless black male laying
01:14near a private driveway by the woods.
01:17When we arrived on the scene, the first thing we do is activate all our body cameras and
01:21begin to survey the scene.
01:23we're going to go to C. Charles.
01:24C. Charles.
01:25Preserve evidence by having EMS come in there with just one officer and then a lead detective
01:38will come in and then take over the investigation.
01:40Blood on the concrete, tire marks.
01:45Doesn't look like he's got any kind of IV on him, but he's got some distinct tats.
01:50Any time we get dispatched to a scene like this, we don't know who the individual is,
01:54what occurred during it, and everything that led to that moment is a mystery.
01:59It's got blood on his face.
02:03It was pretty unsettling to not know exactly who this was at that moment in time, a true
02:09John Doe.
02:10What's it look like?
02:11There's facial trauma.
02:12I don't know.
02:13That's it?
02:14Yeah.
02:15I was wondering how he had ended up in the middle of the woods in this particular neighborhood.
02:22There was no car there.
02:24The body had been discarded in the woods.
02:26The obvious signs of the trauma was a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
02:30He believed it was a much smaller caliber, possibly a .22.
02:34He had been murdered, dumped, and then the vehicle that he had arrived in left.
02:39Hey, let's avoid this area right here where impressions can be made.
02:45It's tough seeing a murder victim because it's someone's life that was taken.
02:49This person probably has a family, and nobody asks to be murdered.
02:54Whenever something like that happens, you kind of have to focus on the task at hand
02:59and kind of bury those emotions down.
03:01That way you can focus and get justice for this individual's family.
03:05Because it's like a puzzle.
03:07Shooting is way off the road.
03:09I know, but...
03:10No shoes?
03:11He's got major trauma to the left side of his face.
03:12No shoes?
03:13No.
03:14So the one bizarre thing about it was that this gentleman looked like he had gone to the gym,
03:19or was going to the gym, just had forgotten to wear his shoes.
03:22He was wearing a light gray tank top and some athletic shorts,
03:27and the athletic socks that he had were kind of partially pulled off of his feet.
03:32No shoes.
03:33That's weird.
03:34Yeah.
03:35When someone is missing shoes, that tells me that either they just left without shoes on,
03:42or someone has taken their shoes to cover up evidence.
03:47So I would put that in the very suspicious category.
03:50That's not normal.
03:51Going uphill, or do you think he's coming down a roll, landed like that?
03:56Uh, he looks like he was dumped.
04:00My initial assessment was that he had been dumped there.
04:03It did not appear that he would have walked there without shoes,
04:07and just randomly died in the woods.
04:09So I still haven't ID'd him.
04:12So in the very beginning, the biggest mystery was to try and determine who this gentleman was,
04:18to identify him, and then to find out who would have wanted to have murdered him.
04:23I called the investigator with the state police and requested he bring a mobile APHIS machine.
04:29Essentially what a mobile APHIS machine is, is you can take the fingerprint of anybody,
04:34deceased or living, and if they have any sort of criminal history,
04:38it will bring up their criminal history based on their fingerprints.
04:41You guys know what's on the corner?
04:43Yes.
04:44Okay.
04:45After the mobile APHIS unit was used on the deceased, it came back to a black male by the name of Mario Miller.
04:52Not only was he a man of integrity, but he was a great father.
05:03I was most definitely a daddy's girl.
05:06Um, pretty much stuck to him.
05:08I never got in trouble.
05:10I was a good noodle, a good student.
05:14Because I didn't want to have conversations with him where he had to use that more firm tone in his voice.
05:22So schooling was very important to him.
05:25It was in the middle of the day.
05:28Um, I got a phone call from my dad's girlfriend and she was crying, crying, crying, crying, crying,
05:35and trying to like talk, talk, talk, but she couldn't really get her words out.
05:38So, and then she kind of says like, the detective is going to call you.
05:42The detective called and he just was like, we found your dad deceased.
05:47It was a brain fog because of the how and the who and not knowing who and it just being this like mysterious homicide.
06:01So I'm not sure if the tire tracks are important right now.
06:04I would think they would be.
06:05There's some blood on the edge of the driveway.
06:08The victim was laying in the woods.
06:11So the, that whole area of the woods around where he was laying had to be combed for evidence.
06:22The driveway itself, there was a specific set of tire tracks that led up and ended about where the body was laying.
06:31And specifically, there was also two tire spin marks in the middle of the driveway as well.
06:38There's some pretty distinct trademarks that are different.
06:43Like these don't look the same as those.
06:47These were oversized tires, look like performance tires.
06:51See like these two look different than these two.
06:55Looks like a Subaru Outback.
06:59Yeah, this is a, this is where, this is where, this is where, and then blood.
07:06We looked at the residents' vehicles to see what type of tires they had on their vehicles to see if it matched the tire wear impressions that we were noticing.
07:16They did not match any of the vehicles that the residents had there.
07:20So not any normal traffic that would be coming and going from that driveway.
07:24Hello.
07:25While the crime scene was being processed, detectives began to speak to the residents to see if they had seen anything suspicious.
07:32I came out because I like to pick up any little sticks and I'm a...
07:39Just something to do, get out?
07:40Well, I just, yeah, light.
07:42Did you look out and see the car?
07:44Yeah.
07:45A lady was driving.
07:48The door was open.
07:50There was a man lying on the ground, face up.
07:55He was alive.
07:58And she said, oh, well, he's okay, we're gonna get him back in the car.
08:03In the meantime, Bob and I were having dinner and he didn't like for me to leave, remember dinner.
08:09So he came out and he said, get back in here, we're having dinner.
08:12And so I just left.
08:14So when I speak to a 911 caller, and this one in particular, I know that she's an older lady.
08:19So I work with what she said.
08:21It's her truth.
08:22I have to, I have to listen to it.
08:24There's a white man lying on the ground.
08:26How far did you walk down there?
08:27Not very.
08:28See that sort of big tree there?
08:30Yeah.
08:31That, that's not where that body was, that man was.
08:34He was alive.
08:35I can clearly see he was a male though.
08:37Yeah, yes.
08:38And he was alive.
08:39He seemed okay.
08:41Her statement about the night before further corroborated what we were seeing on in front of us was that something had happened in the driveway and that it was presumed that he had been rolled into the woods or shoved or drug into the woods from the driveway.
09:00Patrol officers began going house to house to house in order to try and get as much information as possible.
09:11So that's kind of my job is to canvas the neighborhoods.
09:14You don't happen to have any cameras or anything at face towards the roadway.
09:17I do not.
09:19I heard that there was the body found right over there.
09:22Yeah.
09:23So we're trying to see if any, if any cameras heard like a gunshot of any kind or something.
09:28So after gathering those statements, we began to canvas the area for cameras, ring doorbell cameras, anything that can lead to maybe recording of what happened.
09:40But unfortunately they don't, they don't capture what happened.
09:42And a lot of them, they don't pay their subscription for it to hold onto the data or the video recording of the incident.
09:49And that is exactly what happened during this case.
09:51None of the cameras captured anything.
09:53At that point in time, we had very limited information.
09:58We had the victim identified as Mario Miller.
10:01We did not know how he had gotten there, what vehicle he arrived in, who else might have been with him.
10:07And so at that point in time, we had nothing, essentially.
10:12It's pretty frustrating to not know anything.
10:15We only had the identification of the victim, Mario Miller,
10:19and a general timeframe for my witness.
10:23And other than that, there was no other information of why or how this had actually occurred.
10:30It was quite the whodunit at that point.
10:33After we had the victim identified as Mario Miller, we had his home address identified.
10:47Detectives began going to that residence to see if we could make contact with anyone that was there.
10:53At that time, we did not know exactly where the crime had even been committed.
10:58As far as we knew, it could have been committed at the house,
11:01and then Mr. Miller was later transported and dumped to where we had found him.
11:06When we arrived at the house, there was no one there.
11:09The front door was unlocked.
11:11There was a work van parked in front of the residence.
11:15And then a car pulled into the driveway, and a woman got out,
11:18and she was very upset that officers were inside of her residence.
11:22She identified herself as Savannah and further explained that she was Mario's girlfriend.
11:29She was caught off guard that we had been inside of her residence.
11:32However, she was a little bit more understanding once the circumstances were explained to her.
11:38Initially, when we made contact with her, we did explain to her that Mario was deceased,
11:49that we were treating it as a homicide investigation.
11:53However, we were very specific about what information we gave, because at that point in time, anybody is a suspect.
12:14So, is it a car accident, foul play? What are y'all trying to say?
12:21Right now, I can't go into too much detail because it is an open investigation, but it is being investigated as foul play.
12:28We did ask about the van that was parked out front.
12:31She explained that that was for Ace Glass, where Mario was employed.
12:35But she said that his everyday drive vehicle was a black Dodge Challenger.
12:41She said it was his prized possession.
12:44And so, after Savannah had described Mario's vehicle to us, it did make a little bit more sense, the tire tracks that we had seen in the driveway.
12:55At that point in time, we had his vehicle description, and we knew that it was missing.
13:01A bolo was issued for that make, model, as well as the license plate, so that if it was run anywhere in the country, it would show as a stolen vehicle.
13:11As an investigator, if I hear that the decedent's prized possession is missing, that immediately is a red flag to me.
13:19If their pattern of life is different than normal, that's a clue to something is wrong.
13:26At that point in time, again, without knowing the motive for the killing, finding his vehicle could lead us back to who was responsible for his death.
13:39His vehicle missing, the timeline is also very important to me.
13:43I need to know when the decedent was seen alive last.
13:47Asking Savannah exactly when the last time she had seen him was important, because at that point in time, we knew that he had been murdered the night before in an approximate time span.
14:02And we had to fill in the time gaps of exactly where he was in between when Savannah last saw him and when he was found deceased.
14:10He wakes up earlier before I do, so he's usually going to work at the gym about 5.30.
14:19When you go to the gym, what's his usual attire for the gym?
14:22It's usually a Muslim shirt, a white Muslim shirt, and some shorts, Nikes.
14:29White flag.
14:31Different color.
14:32We did find it very odd that she said that he wore a very specific shoe every day to the gym and that we did not locate any of those shoes with him at the scene.
14:44At that point in time, anything would have been an option to exactly why he wasn't wearing shoes.
14:50I usually wake up about 6.04. I go to work.
14:54What time did you get back home?
14:56It was about 6-something, and he still wasn't here.
15:00So with him not being there, that wasn't super out of order because he might have been at the gym.
15:04I go to bed early, about 8.30, 9, in bed, sleep, wake up, notice he's still not there.
15:12So I call him like, you know, nobody answers.
15:15So I'm like, at this point, I'm pissed.
15:19Savannah did tell investigators that she was frustrated that she had not been able to speak to him that night.
15:26But I think the biggest key information that Savannah did give us was that she told us that before the homicide,
15:32she had overheard Mario with whom she believed was a female and that maybe that they were intoxicated,
15:37but she did not know who he was speaking to or what the conversation was about.
15:43Like a day or two ago, he was on the phone late at night with a female when he claimed that his sister was at a party.
15:51If Mario was having an affair with another woman, it could have been jealousy,
15:56and it would have been one of those motives that we would have looked a little bit harder at Savannah with.
16:02However, the fact that she was also telling us that he was very private and secretive with his phone,
16:08that he had a conversation and she didn't know who he had been speaking to earlier,
16:13just made me want to get his phone records more than anything at that point in time.
16:18So when we started questioning Savannah about any of Mario's friends or associates,
16:23she said that she didn't know any of his friends.
16:26But she did mention one man whom she only knew as Duke.
16:31I don't know too much about him.
16:34Is that his real name or nickname?
16:36I think it's the nickname.
16:38Is he white male, black male?
16:39Slash.
16:40It is pretty frustrating when all you have is just a nickname,
16:43but a nickname is still better than nothing,
16:46and what we had at that point in time was not very many known associates or friends,
16:51so having the name of Duke was at least something to work on.
16:55Detectives spoke to all of Mario's coworkers on the phone,
16:59and one of the supervisors was able to identify Duke as Marcello.
17:05So it's important at that point in time to speak to any of Mario's friends.
17:11We needed to speak to his friend Marcello,
17:14and hopefully he would give us more information of exactly why and who had killed Mario Miller.
17:20We had identified Mario's close associate as Marcello.
17:32We were able to locate him and convince him to come to the police department to speak to me.
17:37Just go ahead and have a seat there and I'll let you check on that left.
17:40I'll be right back with you this second.
17:43My approach with Marcello was to treat him as an excellent witness.
17:50I still believe that he was involved in Mario's murder in one way, shape, or form.
17:58However, I had no evidence to prove that.
18:00Can you give me some history between the two of you? Like, how did y'all meet?
18:04I was homeless.
18:05Okay.
18:06I was homeless. I started working for 8th class.
18:08Mario was working at the company.
18:11Me and Mario came really, really tight when he convinced me and helped me.
18:16When he was describing his relationship with Mario,
18:20he made it sound like Mario had taken him from being in a very bad spot
18:25and given him a career, a job, income, and actually really helped him out like a true friend.
18:32You said he's your boy. You said y'all were tight.
18:35Mario has done more for me than I've done for him.
18:40You know what I mean? Mario helped a lot of people, man.
18:43It was very strange that Marcello would refer to himself as being extremely close friends with Mario,
18:51but Savannah have very little knowledge of exactly who he is or what their relationship was.
18:57While speaking to Marcello and I could tell that he was lying to me,
19:01I finally just asked him point blank, what do you think happened to him?
19:05Who do you think would have done this to your friend?
19:08And if you know who it is, you should tell me.
19:11What do you think happened to Mario?
19:14I don't know, man. First I thought it was carjacking.
19:17Do you think somebody would want to jack him for that car?
19:19Yeah.
19:20The only motive that he could give me that he could think of was that it was a carjacking.
19:25And that was the only motive that he would give me.
19:27So I did find it very strange that he went immediately to that as his response,
19:32instead of thinking, well, you know, he's been in an argument with so-and-so,
19:37or it could have been this person.
19:39However, he went immediately to, it could have been a carjacking.
19:43I was hesitant to let him go.
19:45However, given that I didn't believe he was being 100% truthful with me,
19:50I knew where he was and I knew I could come back to him at a later time.
19:55Then several days later, Savannah had called the police department
19:59to say that Marcello had gone over to Savannah's house to talk to her,
20:04to try and figure out what had happened to Mario, and was looking for things.
20:08She said that he began searching in the bedroom as well as searching in the garage.
20:13So she became very suspicious that Marcello had information
20:17or knew a lot more than what he was telling detectives.
20:21When I hear information like this, I start to think,
20:24how is this relevant to someone getting murdered?
20:28It's definitely suspicious.
20:31We went back to Savannah's house.
20:34When we searched the house, we located a cell phone in the sofa.
20:39Savannah said,
20:40Marcello was sitting there, and that phone there between the seat cushions
20:44is not my cell phone.
20:46So at that point in time, I thought that that was Marcello's phone.
20:50I wrote a search warrant for it.
20:52And I was able to determine that that was Marcello's cell phone.
20:56We knew that we needed to speak to Marcello again.
20:59My dad showing me love and affection was more so showing up on birthdays.
21:12Showing up for Christmas.
21:14Just showing up.
21:16Him physically being there was enough for me.
21:20Because I got to see siblings who didn't have a dad.
21:24And he would be that dad for them.
21:26So I have a lot of siblings of siblings who might consider him a dad,
21:32because he just showed up for all of us.
21:35From the moment I found out about my daddy, about who could have done this,
21:40I mean, my mind spiraled, right?
21:42Because it was so random.
21:45And I was questioning everybody, even family, because I didn't know.
21:51We didn't know.
21:52Nobody knew.
21:58So about a week later, myself and another detective went over to Marcello's house.
22:04And he very cordially invited us in.
22:07When he sat down on the sofa, I could see the butt of the pistol sticking out from between the seat cushions.
22:13I believe that this pistol may potentially be the murder weapon.
22:18And so I asked Marcello to come back to the police station for another consensual interview with me.
22:24During my second interview with Marcello, he said that he didn't kill Mario.
22:30So I changed my line of questioning to find out more information about Mario's life.
22:36Marcello did indicate to me that one of Mario's weaknesses was women.
22:41Mario had multiple children.
22:44I believe it was seven children.
22:47That he was taking care of all of his kids.
22:49So he had to work particularly hard.
22:52He got a lot of baby maras.
22:54I know.
22:55I know.
22:56I know.
22:57Before his injury.
22:58Even working as much as he did.
23:00You still got a lot of mouse to feed him.
23:02I do.
23:03I do.
23:04I do what?
23:05They put him in the game.
23:07Mario was a couple.
23:10He loved that.
23:11When Marcello mentioned to me that one of Mario's weaknesses was women,
23:15it also reiterated what Savannah had said to me, that he was very private on the phone.
23:21She was not allowed to ask where he was going or to see his cell phone or to know about his social media.
23:27So I had asked him specifically if there was a woman in particular that he knew about that he was hanging out with, had been dating on the side, if maybe he was having an affair with another woman or anything like that that would have given motive to his murder.
23:44He did not know.
23:46At that time, I didn't believe he was being truthful with me because he was in possession of a gun.
23:51But we did get the results back from Marcello's pistol.
23:55It was not the firearm that had killed Mario.
23:58Now that I have questioned Marcello extensively, I was almost back to square one of if Marcello didn't kill Mario, then who did?
24:07I did not have any evidence to prove Marcello was directly involved with the murder.
24:25So we were writing search warrants on Mario's and Savannah's social media accounts.
24:32We also requested a geofence warrant from Google.
24:39A geofence is essentially you give a latitude and longitude of multiple different points around the area where the crime had occurred.
24:52Approximately four months into the investigation, we got back the results of the geofence warrant.
24:59The results showed that on August the 11th, the day of the murder, at about 7 o'clock p.m., there was one device present at the crime scene that was not supposed to be there.
25:12And it wasn't Marcello's.
25:14So this one device came back to a man named Stephen Rice.
25:20We needed to know who is Stephen Rice and why was he at the crime scene.
25:30Once we had Stephen Rice identified, warrants were written for his social media accounts.
25:37Then we were able to identify two other associates of Stephen Rice, Kai Shayla Hill and Devontae Herod.
25:49We were able to get enough probable cause to write search warrants on both Kai Shayla Hill and Devontae Herod's social media and phone numbers.
25:58We needed to know their personal connection to Mario.
26:05After reading the messages between Kai Shayla and Mario, I know that Kai Shayla and Mario had agreed to meet on multiple different occasions for sex.
26:20That gave me thought that maybe this sexual involvement could be a motive for why Mario had been killed.
26:30Then during the search of Kai Shayla Hill's Facebook account, I was able to see her conversations between she and Stephen Rice, between she and Devontae Herod.
26:43The picture that actually stood out to me the most was one that was dated three days prior to the murder of Kai Shayla holding a .22 Walther pistol.
26:56We knew that Mario was killed by a .22 caliber.
27:01And this picture put Kai Shayla Hill in possession of a .22 several days before the homicide.
27:08I also got Snapchat accounts for Kai Shayla and getting there was one message between Kai Shayla Hill and Stephen Rice on the night of August the 11th saying,
27:23Are you scared?
27:25And approximately one minute later, the response from Stephen was, I'm not scared.
27:31I'm just nervous.
27:33Approximately one more minute goes by and Kai Shayla's response to Stephen was, when we turn on this street, pop him.
27:44When I read that, my thoughts were Kai Shayla is telling Stephen to kill Mario Miller.
27:50We immediately searched pawn records.
27:55And we did find that Miss Hill had pawned the gun down in South Arkansas.
28:00So Detective Anderson and I went down and found the person that bought the gun.
28:05After retrieving the firearm, the pistol was inspected and different swabs were taken for potential DNA evidence.
28:15These samples were sent to the crime lab.
28:18The results back from those swabs showed that the blood evidence on that pistol did belong to Mario Miller.
28:29That was a needle in a needle sack.
28:33And it was solidifying the case that Kai Shayla Hill, Stephen Rice, and Devontae Herod were all involved in Mario Miller's murder.
28:44But what was the motive for the killing?
28:55At this point in the investigation, we are very excited.
28:58So that's when we reach out to our partners at the U.S. Marshals to actually locate them.
29:05Using social media and cell phone tracking, we found Mr. Rice and Miss Hill in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
29:13And Devontae Herod was found in Memphis, Tennessee.
29:17We traveled to Pine Bluff to interview Stephen and Kai Shayla.
29:25And the first person I interviewed was Kai Shayla.
29:28Hey, I'm Detective Anderson.
29:30I work for the Fayetteville Police Department up in Fayetteville.
29:35But, before I ask you any questions or anything like that, if you are under arrest, I need to make sure that you understand what your rights are.
29:43Okay?
29:44Are you alright?
29:46I'm just praying and just, I'm just confused.
29:50Well, no, I mean, this is scary, and I don't.
29:53And I'll do the studies, and hopefully I don't have to stay here.
29:56I understand.
29:57I spoke to her at length just to get a feel of how truthful she was going to be with me.
30:05Well, I'm really sorry to hear about that.
30:08I hope everything turns out a little bit.
30:10Yes, don't forget it.
30:12So, the, the murder that I'm working is with a guy named Mario Miller.
30:18Do you know anybody about that name?
30:21Have you ever heard that name?
30:23Not Mario Miller.
30:26I don't know.
30:27I don't know.
30:28But I think I kind of want to be talking about.
30:33Cashela, she was, uh, very good at acting.
30:37She would play off very much that she didn't know what I was talking about.
30:42Can you describe him?
30:43So, maybe we're talking about the same person?
30:45I think he's black.
30:47Mm-hmm.
30:48I think I was moving about him, um, on the little website that's outside.
30:53Mm-hmm.
30:54And after a while of her lying to me, I finally made the statement to her,
30:59I know that you know Mario.
31:00I know that you've had a relationship with Mario.
31:04Why won't you tell me exactly what your relationship was with him?
31:08Okay.
31:09So, when was the last time you talked to Mario?
31:12The last time I talked to him was...
31:15I can't give him the exact date.
31:17Okay.
31:18And you said that y'all hooked up?
31:20Yes.
31:21You didn't have sex with him, or you did?
31:26You know what I'm saying?
31:27We did have sex with him, but I'm saying, though, the last time I talked to him,
31:30a couple of times after, he kind of got mad.
31:33He's like, oh, what's wrong?
31:34Whether he got a boyfriend or not, he's supposed to be doing it anyway.
31:38Right.
31:39Yeah.
31:40I was just like, no.
31:41I was just like, no, I can't do it.
31:43Were you in love with him?
31:46Yeah.
31:47Were you in love with him?
31:48Yeah.
31:49Were you in love with him?
31:50Yeah.
31:51Well, I was doing enough to cry, and he died.
31:55Her response to me went from, I don't know a Mario Miller, to, yes, I know Mario, and I'm
32:01very upset that he's dead.
32:02I was in love with him, and I'm crying about this.
32:07But Kaishela told me, at that time, she was with Devante Herod, that she was his girlfriend.
32:16At that time, I was believing that maybe Kaishela had told Devante about Mario, and that Mario
32:24may have been killed because of it.
32:27And so?
32:28So you told Devante about that?
32:30Yeah.
32:31Okay.
32:32I didn't just tell him that he tried to break me, and I didn't say he tried to force
32:40himself on me, but it was just like more like aggressive, aggressive, like aggressive touch
32:45or aggressive.
32:46And he was like, he was like, so basically what you're telling me?
32:51They didn't quit.
32:53They didn't even put his hands on me.
32:56He was like, no.
32:58He was like, don't worry about it.
33:00Don't worry about it.
33:01I'm him.
33:02He was like, you shouldn't have a piece of shit.
33:05You shouldn't have a in my ass anyway.
33:08After speaking to Kaishela for an extended amount of time, we knew that Devante was involved
33:14in the murder.
33:15We just didn't know the extent of his involvement in the murder.
33:20Or how Steven Rice was involved.
33:24But I knew Kaishela was a linchpin to all of this.
33:29So after speaking to Kaishela for three or four hours, I knew that she was starting to give
33:44me some more information.
33:46I felt like if we continued to speak to her and continued to press her, she would eventually
33:52tell us most of the truth about what had happened.
33:57We presented Kaishela with the Snapchat messages to Steven Rice.
34:04Her explanation for them was that she and Steven were talking about a video game that they'd
34:10like to play.
34:12The hard thing for Kaishela to be able to get over evidentiary-wise was that we also had
34:26the geo-locations of where they were specifically at the crime scene and when those messages were sent.
34:35So when you're driving around with Steven, sending him Snapchat messages,
34:41so why don't you send a message to Steve saying, when we turn down this road, pop his ass?
34:47When Kaishela realized that we had this evidence, she tried to throw the blame that Steven had just murdered him.
35:00And after Steve shot him, what happened?
35:02And after Steve shot him, what happened?
35:03And after Steve shot him, what happened?
35:07I was just kind of like, oh my God, oh my God.
35:14At this point, she's realizing that she is going to prison for a long time.
35:19We have her.
35:20She's done.
35:21I don't believe the crying was because she loved Mario.
35:27I believe it's because she knows her life's over.
35:31All of the evidence led to her being the mastermind for the entire thing.
35:36We knew that we needed to speak to Steven Rice to get the full story.
35:44In any interview, my main goal is I want to build rapport with anybody I'm interviewing.
35:52With Steven Rice specifically, we are from two different worlds.
35:56When I got in the interview room with Mr. Rice, he absolutely shocked me because I only asked a few questions and then he just started talking about the murder.
36:21To be honest, I wasn't prepared for that.
36:24I was prepared for a long interview.
36:27And then when someone just tells you the truth, it really throws you off.
36:31And you have to adapt to that.
36:33I shot you.
36:34So what you did shoot him, where, what happened?
36:39You did like, you know, you shoot somebody who went out there at 50 miles an hour.
36:42That's not going to be good.
36:43So tell me how that happened.
36:44That's what I'm saying.
36:45It was really shocking to the white, where you've been waiting and driving.
36:47Okay.
36:48For the time.
36:49Because like I said, I had just been kind of bonded.
36:52Then he told us that Cashela had devised a plan that she was going to contact Mario.
37:01Have Mario come over to Devante's house under the guise of picking her up.
37:07And that Steven would be given a ride by Mario.
37:12And during that ride of giving Steven a ride to his house, Steven would murder Mario.
37:20When Mr. Rice admitted to pulling the trigger, it made me feel odd.
37:25Because I'm looking at a person and I'm thinking, he doesn't think much about just killing a guy.
37:32For someone else, for some dumb reason.
37:35So I'm literally thinking, okay, this person is a psychopath.
37:39Our other suspect, Devante Herod, never confessed to actually being a part of the murder.
37:52Though I did not have any evidence to prove that he was directly involved with the murder,
37:59I was able to locate footage with Steven and Devante in Mario's vehicle months after the murder.
38:07And then for a year after the murder, we got a notification from the Dallas Police Department
38:13that they had located Mario Miller's car abandoned in their city.
38:23I believe that on August 11th, 2020, Cashela Hill had used Steven Rice and Devante Herod to her advantage
38:32to murder Mario Miller, to both get some sort of retribution against Mario,
38:40maybe for his treatment of her, also of an easy score of a vehicle, potential money, and a way out of town.
38:48Later I did find out that Marcelo had stolen a large amount of methamphetamine and had been arrested.
38:55But after going through all of the physical evidence, as well as all the data that we had,
39:02we were able to confirm that Marcelo had no involvement in Mario Miller's homicide.
39:08Mario helped a lot of people.
39:11On February 29th, 2024, Steven Rice was sentenced to 36 years in prison for murder and tampering with evidence.
39:24Cashela Hill turned state's evidence and testified against Steven Rice in the matter.
39:30She was sentenced to 40 years for accomplice to murder.
39:38Devante Herod was sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping cover up the murder.
39:46The essential mystery at the beginning of this was not even knowing who our victim was.
39:53Not having any identification on him or any family to notify or any friends to talk to.
40:02And so starting from there to figure out who he was, how his life was, to ultimately who murdered him,
40:10I believe was quite an accomplishment for this department.
40:16I do think about the pain that families go through.
40:18When you work an investigation like this, you get close with the family.
40:25At the end of the day, they're missing a loved one.
40:29So it hurts my heart that this happens.
40:32But it also gives me great pride to help give the family some closure.
40:40I miss my dad.
40:44He was so funny.
40:45I just missed that laugh.
40:48The type of person he was, regardless of what was going on around him,
40:59he really didn't let his trials or his tribulations change who he was personally.
41:05As a human being, just as a person.
41:09So maybe he did find that joy.
41:15Maybe he did learn to be happy regardless of his circumstances.
41:26I'm sure he did.
41:27Definitely.
41:28I'm sure he did feel good.
41:31Yeah.
41:32My dad has no idea of finding and bullying.
41:33I'm sure it's a boy.
41:34You're not even the either.
41:35But...
41:36That's not the way I was myself.
41:37I'm too tired.
41:38I'm sorry.
41:39That's not the way.
41:40I'm sure.
41:41But I wanted you to explain.
41:42There are a few people there.
41:44You know.
41:45And I got it.
41:46I got it, so...
41:47That's not the way.
41:48I got it.
41:49But like, the thing, I got it.
41:50Because it's the thing, I have.
41:52You know, like, I got it.
41:53You know, hi.
41:54Yes, I did.
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