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Homicide Squad: New Orleans - Season 1 - Episode 03: Mardi Gras Murder
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00:10The French Quarter is almost its own city within the city.
00:13It's got this beautiful architecture, ghost lore and voodoo and everything.
00:20Some of the happiest revelry around in the country.
00:23But New Orleans really is a land of extremes.
00:30And you've got to be ready.
01:04Hey, hey, hey, where did the vehicle flee to?
01:07Straight ahead, straight ahead.
01:09A great challenge.
01:10A great challenge.
01:11A great challenge.
01:14Oh my God.
01:17Breathe, brother, please.
01:18Breathe.
01:19Brother, please.
01:24I did the best I could, sir.
01:28EMS is en route.
01:40All we know, or I know right now, is that we have an unidentified male down.
01:46I think I heard a couple casings on the scene.
01:50The whole French Quarter is blocked off right now for everything Mardi Gras related.
01:55So, yeah, obviously chaotic area.
01:57Really bizarre when you have the party buses and everybody out here drinking and just, you
02:03can see these roadblocks here.
02:05They got everything closed down.
02:07We got a couple blocks to walk.
02:15As I'm heading to the scene, I'm thinking there's the decedent's body that needs to be processed.
02:20There's the evidence surrounding it.
02:21There's witnesses to talk to.
02:23There's cameras to look for.
02:25All right, right over here.
02:27And then you need to sort of try and create a base narrative from what you have that night
02:32and do it all more or less at the same time.
02:35It's just a drive-by or somebody?
02:37No, they're standing there talking to them.
02:38The victim and his relatives are standing there talking to them.
02:42Both humans.
02:42And the relative walks off.
02:46The victim steps back off the curb, back into the street, and the shooting happens.
02:50And the challenger drives off.
02:52So they're hanging out, like, normally with this challenger for a while?
02:56Probably not.
02:57Okay.
02:57Blackmail shot at the location.
03:00And we just have a few casings, is that right?
03:03Four casings.
03:04Okay.
03:04Rifle casings.
03:05Rifle casings, all right.
03:07We find four shell casings in the general area of the victim, which is noteworthy because
03:12if there is a car involved, those casings had to eject from the window.
03:16The victim was, you know, within a foot or two of the window when it happened.
03:21And what's going on with the dude behind me?
03:23He was doing chest compressions on your victim.
03:26We just need his info, right?
03:27And then a statement from him.
03:29We need to talk to anybody who might be a witness.
03:31Because you never know who might have seen something.
03:33Hey, sir.
03:34I'm Detective Fyfe.
03:35Did you see what happened?
03:36There's a car.
03:38All's on.
03:41Pop, pop, pop.
03:43He's hit.
03:45I'm sorry that you had to see that.
03:46This is me just in case you think there's anything I need to know down the road, okay?
03:50I'm sorry.
03:51Thanks for trying to help, all right?
03:52First witness, his involvement is just limited to CPR.
03:56I love that he tried to do something.
03:58You sometimes see people really doing heroic stuff and trying to help when there's nothing
04:03in it for them.
04:08Do we have an ID?
04:10I heard that family is around, right?
04:12Yeah, we have an ID.
04:13Okay.
04:13Cool.
04:14Mervyn McGee, hopefully 25.
04:19I'm just so struck by how young Mervyn was.
04:23And he's lying in the block.
04:24We've cleared that block.
04:26But just outside of the crime scene tape, you still have people going to bars and laughing.
04:31But it almost feels like, can we get a moment of silence for this guy who was having a good
04:38time just like you an hour ago, you know?
04:46The second witness turns out to be related to the decedent.
04:50He's clearly distraught.
04:52Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt, man.
04:54My name's Detective Fife, so I'm going to be in charge of this whole thing.
04:57I mean, I'm sorry if it's redundant, but do you mind telling me one more time what happened
05:01out here?
05:01We walked in one of my friend's steps, called him and his cousin, a girlfriend.
05:05Next thing you know, all out here was gunshots.
05:06When I was running back towards him, I said, great challenge to speed away.
05:11And I know they had United to the side because it was parked farther down before and we walked
05:15past it.
05:16You ever seen that car before?
05:18No, sir.
05:19Never.
05:19My first time seen it.
05:21Okay.
05:21Gotcha.
05:22So who else was out here?
05:25My friend is, they...
05:26I don't know his last name.
05:28Gotcha.
05:29What's a good phone number for?
05:30Um, I don't know his number or anything.
05:33Um, do you know if he has any beef or anybody who's ever tried to hurt him or anything recently?
05:38I don't know anything about that.
05:39All I do is go to work and go home, so I don't know anything about that.
05:43When you have something you remember or something you want to tell me, my door is always open,
05:47okay?
05:47I do everything I can to help this situation, everything I can.
05:51Is his mom coming out, I think I heard?
05:53Yeah, she on her way.
05:54Gotcha.
05:55Here you go, man.
05:56Just hang tight for one sec, okay?
05:57That's me, all right?
05:58Faith?
06:08Cheers.
06:12Oh, my God.
06:14I'm sorry.
06:16I'm sorry.
06:17I'm sorry.
06:18I'm sorry.
06:18I'm sorry.
06:19I can't do it.
06:21I can't do it.
06:23Oh, my God.
06:25I can't do it too.
06:26it was a level of anguish that is about as broken up as i've seen anybody at a crime scene
06:34i have to approach the mother and navigate her emotion as delicately as possible
06:40yeah and you know this stuff is is all time sensitive unfortunately i know you're feeling
06:45it and you want to grieve but if there is anything you know
06:55you guys are from the west bank i got you um just i know i know you're feeling it but
07:02just as an
07:03update tonight i'm going to work this okay and i'm going to be in touch with you every step of
07:06the
07:06way okay and again i'm just so sorry guys i wish there was something else i could i could tell
07:11you
07:11all right now sorry you know where um donnie's at i heard he has video so he has video from
07:27a house
07:27uh we just pulled video from that in car camera uh the in car camera you can hear everything so
07:33it's
07:33nice automatic
07:37otherwise you can see taillights that's it uh the other one you can see what kind of
07:41car it is so we got a car some kind of plate what's up donnie i got this on my
07:46usb i uh just
07:48sent you some dash camera footage of it also okay the video footage actually showed the homicide
07:56which is hugely helpful oh you can like almost get a plate looks like there's a plate well we got
08:00the lpr readers at every point so we'll get it that's our vehicle that's my victim in the black shirt
08:09there's somebody standing next to mervyn who we've come to identify as that could be the only
08:16person who heard this conversation between mervyn and the suspect and who saw the suspect's face
08:22that you know has lived to tell the tale um now the guy who left i told him to keep
08:29them both here
08:30guy walked off anybody i got good images of him on my body camera he's in like white person
08:36the light color oh yeah man appreciate it i'm assuming there's probably gonna be more
08:40cameras you can grab
08:43the french quarter as a whole and my block in particular dense with cameras and that's private
08:50cameras um businesses and then actually city operated cameras and i believe that there is clear footage
08:57of my perpetrator somewhere out there but i don't know where and i don't know how long it's saved
09:03for you can see what kind of car it is it was a light gray challenger and it had the
09:08number three
09:08nine two on the side but that video shows okay him next to that yeah yeah the first and immediate
09:15key
09:15is that distinct vehicle that's gonna be i think how we solve this there can't be too many like cars
09:21of
09:21that stripes pancha i really want to see where this car came from and where it ends up going
09:26my first concern is that you did this murder in a super distinct car that car is going to be
09:32in
09:32the river or burned up somewhere if we don't find it soon
09:49it's mardi gras season for about two weeks all available police are directed to the parades
10:03more than half of us go out to the parade routes homicide maintains just a skeleton crew
10:09this year i've stayed in the homicide unit it's just me and a handful of others responsible for
10:15all the homicides the unclassified deaths and the suicides that take place during that two-week period
10:26you had a whole bunch of mardi gras people who saw this and just sort of made a beeline the
10:31opposite
10:32direction
10:41i have footage of mervyn wearing the black shirt walking down the block talking with friends
10:51i'm not great at asking for help i have a tendency to sort of lone ranger it a bit it's
10:57a bigger ask
10:57than you might think to have somebody devote half a day to you to help you look for camera footage
11:01but you have to you cannot do all this by yourself you need it you need anything i have needs
11:08let me
11:09stop what i'm doing right now james oh you call me in here what the hell man all right and
11:15i gotta
11:16canvas later if you feel like it's all good going to the french quarter in the middle of parade stuff
11:20a little bit later maybe better because endemian will be in full force it might pull some of the
11:23crowds to mid-city and all that yeah i think that was going to be what i try and do
11:27there's like a
11:28block in question that the car's lurking at for like hours and i gotta try and get a tie
11:33yeah let me know we'll go take a ride or whatever go figure it out throw my uniform if you
11:36feel like
11:36it yeah don't let me no no no for you anything
11:46oh i thought you were doing something cool i thought there was like an intense moment no i
11:50it's like watching our blazing internet buffer videos it's a nail biter um yeah there's like
11:57yeah no i get it the basic rundown on this so we look at like time periods and stuff like
12:03i read
12:03the morph but like about 145 okay give or take this is the car on rtcc i have better video
12:11but
12:11it's you know it's a white car with a stripe uh it's like gray with um see that racing stripe
12:16pattern gotcha you still need to confirm if that's actually one of the same like 90 that looks like
12:21the same car that's super distinct but um there is if you guys want to if you'll indulge me i'll
12:26pull up
12:26a map here show you what i'm talking about let me take you on a journey to the french quarter
12:31here
12:31i can't get the french nuances french quarter so it happens here right in this block oh on charters
12:37yeah what an indicator we have the vehicle leaving the challenger flies up charter street we have it
12:44making a couple turns and it passes a license plate reader but does not register on that license plate
12:51reader that confirms that it didn't have a plate we couldn't really see because it's flying through the
12:55corridor at a high rate of speed and looks like they hit the highway afterwards all cameras on
13:03charters are down that night rtcc yeah there's like eight of them that's your computer and my computer
13:07is broken so it happens here right okay these are walking paths right right so the only way that the
13:13car gets there is from here there is a camera here that we were looking at we played it like
13:18from the
13:18time of the murder in reverse and we got to like seven hours beforehand and we still haven't seen it
13:23pull in so our best guess is that the car came here and it's parked somewhere here for like the
13:28whole day doing maybe like parades and stuff we don't know this block or this block will presumably
13:35have the car parked somewhere we can get a time frame and then like backtrack it better often what's
13:41more important than where the suspect goes is where they came from although it's a ton of legwork
13:48i think that we'll be able to backtrack via cameras the movement of all the involved parties
13:54the cathedral doesn't have anything the cathedral will yeah but like i haven't done any canvassing
13:59yet we just hit rtcc for like hours last night i mean i'm hoping we get somebody going into that
14:04car
14:05and their face is going to be on camera somewhere that would be the slam dunk
14:11hey man believe what believe he's trying so ted lasso i can't like my brain can't keep up
14:20hey man i'm here for you make it make it make sense because i know how it is to have
14:25the fog
14:28i'm just so glad to not be on the parade route me too man i've done 17 years straight on
14:33the parade
14:33route so i'm done man
14:40you know we're going right yeah yeah i'm just trying to figure out so we have
14:44parade route going on up here let's see it's not good enough to be a homicide detective and
14:48navigate a murder investigation you must navigate parade traffic put your phone away we got this this
14:53is just my own edification i went presumed to direct you but i moved here i didn't know where
14:58anything was i was like tethered to my phone and then we're not normal we're not like really a grid
15:04this is a little more gritty than i'm used to like boston it's like ancient roads yeah crisscrossed
15:09all over the place yeah i was in massachusetts i moved here and got hired pretty quickly by the
15:16department it's a big change i'm still learning the culture and the people here i'm very much still
15:23an outsider this is the turn yeah so this is the block i want this is what you need i
15:27think they
15:28were sitting right here say less my man okay got you play boy okay i was born and raised in
15:34new
15:34orleans we really are a unique bunch of people down here who celebrate anything and everything
15:40just give us a reason but the rest of the world doesn't see the the grimy part of it
15:48okay you see anything that's what i'm looking for we need cameras on this block though and i'm not
15:54seeing i'm not seeing any dude let's make sure there's nothing tucked under overhang over here
16:00i mean you're in a french quarter everybody's got a camera maybe an intentionally chosen block huh
16:05that is the most time-consuming thing we do in an investigation is just grinding door to door
16:12on the street trying to get video that might be my best bet the church we'll see hey how are
16:20you
16:21detective fight with nopd there was a shooting last night like just behind the church we were just
16:26walking back there and we saw cameras on the corner of the building we're wondering if we could
16:29take a look okay this will be perfect for us i think this is exactly what we're looking for
16:38oh i wonder if that's it there's some brake lights yeah that's probably it right there so i'm pretty
16:44sure that's our car and now it's found this parking space i see two people leave the challenge
16:49how do i know which one is the shooter in my head somebody sitting in the driver's seat is the
16:55shooter for somebody to reach over the driver and shoot would be pretty bizarre we have this footage
17:02of our presumed shooter the driver of the challenger getting out he's tall he's lanky but i need and i
17:10want more all right let's go hit that next block straight hi james fife nice to meet you yeah detective
17:18darling so obviously interested in the camera so i knew you'd want him and i put together an email
17:22for you this morning oh that's awesome it's got three videos from each camera the person who shot
17:27them is the person in the silver car you're right video yeah and that's parked right there for like
17:33almost an hour and i don't know if we get them coming out of the car walking around so in
17:37the first
17:38video that 1 41 a.m across the windows 1 42 a.m victims and then here comes the car
17:46watch it
17:50yep see the lights and then he creeps up yeah open the door
17:57what i was hoping is to get the occupant i don't think you're gonna get that my man
18:04do we have any reason to believe victim anybody's on foot right here our victims on foot i think come
18:10this way but we have that is there anything relevant right now that you think with this
18:15so i don't i don't think there's going to be anything on madison right so as far as we know
18:19dude backs up from there so we got both sides of this block where it happens we got this nothing
18:25there and then the so really it's this blind spot that sucks i really needed a camera like in this
18:31block
18:31well you're not going to get one so if you don't get footage within three or four days then those
18:37dvr
18:38systems on private cameras will go away i don't want to miss footage that would be key to this
18:43investigation i'm stressing out because the clock is ticking
19:14donnie williard is the eighth district detective that
19:17has the footage of this witness's face this guy is standing at the car in the hat and the beard
19:26and definitely got a full view of the the shooter and takes off before any of the investigators get
19:31there state police they think this is the witness we gotta just give him a call and see i don't
19:37have
19:37super high hopes about the outcome of this call here we go
19:49this is detective james fife with nopd i was trying to get a hold of
19:52a i'm sorry to call you out of the blue um but i was wondering if if i could talk
19:57to you a little
19:58bit about the other night with mervin i'm uh doing that that homicide investigation let's do that that's
20:04fine yeah i'm flexible so can you just walk me through like what you saw and what you heard as
20:08best you can remember all i remember a car pulled up and we heard gunshots and that was it we're
20:16pulling
20:16like video of it and everything and trying to piece it all together or whatever um did you hear what
20:21what um dude was saying to the uh the guy in the car it looks like you were standing right
20:25there
20:25it's the driver talking right yeah the driver was talking to him okay so he's got the window down
20:31yes maybe this is a reach but do you remember what uh what dude is wearing or could you describe
20:36him at
20:36all no all i all i know is a redo with dress that's all i know like if you heard
20:43the name or if you saw
20:44the dude again do you think you'd recognize it we just came from the club man i don't know yeah
20:50but but
20:51maybe huh oh yeah man if only it was that easy trust me that'd be great right right right and
21:04um
21:05i'll hit you up if there's something i forgot to ask all right man all right thanks have a good
21:09one
21:13all right back to it all right this is miss mcgee contact
21:23hello yeah how you doing today ma'am i'm not gonna be doing good until y'all tell me something
21:27good what's going on i want to sit down and talk to you about everything let you know where we're
21:32at
21:32can we meet in person to to sort of go through all this when you want me um how about
21:37tonight what's
21:38your what are you up to right now great okay i'll head that way in a little bit okay okay
21:43all right
21:44thanks it is hard to get families to really trust you
21:52and to have done that is almost as good as solving a murder
22:10yeah great traffic for sure we're on day 11 of 12 i think of mardi gras it's 12 hour shifts
22:18no days off
22:22i'm such a like mellow person generally that like i can't
22:26can't relate to the extremes of the new orleanian like they live bigger than i do you know
22:38i'm always coming at these as as an outsider
22:42you need to approach with a degree of humility and self-awareness
22:47you're a diplomat basically i'm here on behalf of a police department that you may or may not like
22:52but let me show you that i care and that i'm competent
23:01hello hey i'm detective fife how's it going i was looking for miss mcgee
23:05come on in at some point during shooting investigations over the last year or so
23:10mervyn's name had come up as a possible suspect there was nothing ever officially linking him to
23:17anything but his name was sort of thrown out there as somebody involved and maybe what could be like a
23:22marrero based feud even though it wasn't proven maybe that's the motive for this and that this whole
23:30thing was retaliation over mervyn's perceived involvement we got a good start it's not done
23:36but we're in a good direction it's hard to like stop a murder before it happens you know
23:43like that's what that's what they're trying to do and that's why you got police on every block or
23:46whatever but it's like more often than not we end up coming on the back end and figuring out after
23:51the fact and i get being shaken up after something like that happens you know i'm sorry
23:58the family they acknowledged you know he was no angel but there did seem to be like a shift
24:03towards turning his life around it seemed like they had real hope for for where he was going and then
24:23boom hey jack what's up hey car i think it's from west bank you know it's crazy the victim's mother
24:32said that i'm positive this is somebody from the west bank um but like couldn't elaborate she's like
24:38that's just where we're from so i'm sure it was somebody from there you all know if it's a white
24:41male black male did you shoot him nope oh idea all right thanks dude be in touch jack yule with
24:49the
24:50state police he's this really smart investigator that's been working assigned to new orleans for a
24:55while now he has access to a lot of stuff we don't in terms of cars and plate readers and
24:59uh he's also just smart dude and very tenacious new records found just try a hey jack
25:17what you got what's up all right i got your address so that calendar previously had a switch plate on
25:27it
25:28i ran that plate comes back to a melvin millinder that drive melvin millinder i think this is going
25:39to need to do so at this point we have melvin and mervyn both 25-ish year olds from marrero
25:47crossing
25:47paths in the french quarter and it results in a homicide seems like it can't have been coincidence
25:53i still have to go canvas because that you know there is the off chance somebody else was driving
25:57this car but um that's pretty gold right there
26:16the pacing on this case is bizarre it's like so much information suddenly and now it's like i'm grinding
26:21for just that last 10 percent of evidence to try and put us over the edge i want to have
26:27good news
26:27for the family asap
26:41melvin millinder is somebody that we're eyeing for in this shooting it's much easier to work a case when
26:47you have a person of interest or a suspect than it is to just sort of investigate generally and
26:52we have pretty distant grainy video footage of the occupants of the challenger
26:57i mean it's wired
27:03i don't think that's fake no that's not i mean it's wired if it was fake it would just be
27:06stuck on
27:08shockingly all these cameras are out it's ridiculous crazy and there's one at every
27:13intersection it would have been perfect it's the only plus size of catching one here in a quarter
27:17video everywhere divide and conquer yeah joe for the first few days of this was still on
27:22mardi gras parade coverage and when he came back immediately jumped in to the whole canvassing thing
27:30hey how's it going sir nice to meet you sector fife nice to meet you i'm looking into a homicide
27:34that happened last week but i think our subjects walk by the charter street side
27:38i don't know if we're able to look at that you have a time frame i do a pretty tight
27:42time frame
27:42yeah within like a five minute period let's go on down there sure and we'll we'll let you fish sounds
27:48good thanks i just need a clear face shot you know if we find something search one time yeah yeah
27:54just
27:54i mean we'll save it yeah i just need to know if i'm going in the right direction yeah yeah
27:59detective hermwood norles police department homicide how are you how you doing today yeah so i've been
28:04running it all since seven o'clock this morning right um the homicide from charters the other night
28:09on february 10th so we're trying to find footage we know which way they walk come in here today
28:18that's really good so i'm a happy guy i don't have the footage in hand yet but we got screenshots
28:27of
28:28what they have i'm coming back with a warrant to actually get a downloaded copy of it but i'm 90
28:32sure
28:33that's the same guy so right where you're standing it is yeah the guard gate camera those two looking
28:41this way and then there's one from like the back corner or somewhere over there that sees them
28:45walking down can i show you what i got it's a picture of this yeah so super blued out like
28:51even
28:53even clearer yeah then the clothes too like you're gonna be able to find the shoes the belt the shirt
28:57maybe so they bang out his house immediately and then we have phone records that will come assuming
29:04we got the right phone and you think the guy you have is your shooter yeah
29:10millinder is very calm and relaxed it makes you wonder what is just below the surface of people
29:16they just suddenly pull out a rifle and shoot somebody
29:37that's his car dude isn't that the car i heard it didn't have a plate i mean
29:42it got the louvre's on it right yeah it's got the the lineage you can see a part of the
29:48lineage it's
29:48yellow but that's got to be the son of a bitch dude you could be across the city in a
29:59whole other
29:59neighborhood in the lower ninth ward and have the perp vehicle of a french quarter murder come right
30:04past you that's how small the city is
30:09the city of new orleans is very small it's the biggest little city out there
30:15that plays a huge part and in the homicide unit there's no six degrees of separation it's like
30:19three here what's going on guys i'm glad we didn't um put anything on the news because i don't think
30:25we'd be seeing it it would have been burnt up but that's the thing right so this is oh wow
30:30you're
30:30right there dude i'm telling you i was trying to hurry up and get my phone so watch that's your
30:35car
30:35that'll be our first like daytime footage of it besides lpr hits you're welcome man anything for
30:40you if it gets solved i'll give you a hundred percent for this encounter no but how wild is that
30:46um yeah so check out my uh my newly developed footage here everything suggests it was the
30:52driver that shot and that's the guy who kind of looks like him and you tell me that that guy
30:57doesn't
30:58look like him six foot two one six yes right yeah that's definitely him dude i mean i'd i'd feel
31:04fine
31:04writing that arrest warrant but i'd like to try and get a little more just so it's even easier for
31:08us right and he's linked to that vehicle right right yeah and what's the odds of a car that's known
31:14they're based out off the west bank your murder happens in the quarter and it just comes bebopping
31:19down the street let's agree to keep each other posted thank you swear about that hey don't do any
31:27hands we got this the ego and arrogance it takes for you to think that you have a right to
31:39just end
31:40somebody and that's unforgivable and that oh i get like that gets me fired up there's real justice and
31:46accountability that needs to be sought
32:08this is what i found this morning this was bourbon street on a night of
32:14the homicide as you can see it's pretty packed right but we're looking down st louis and that's
32:19where we were earlier the hotel and everything is down this block from the hotel we were able to
32:23tell that they keep coming this way towards the crab
32:36you'll see them at the top of the screen here i called joe he asked where do they go i
32:42said
32:42to bourbon street he says oh cool that would be crazy if they went into the st louis market
32:47it has the best cameras in the entire french quarter hd crystal clear you can see for a second
32:52they'll stand here then tall guy who i think is melvin pops into this which is the st louis market
32:59so needle in a haystack you never would have seen them if we hadn't tracked them like to the minute
33:03up to here and i just cannot believe it like jaw drop what did i do to be this lucky
33:12yeah they did the um tall dude comes in first the kind of lighter guy and he steps out and
33:18he gets his
33:18friend in the purple hoodie with the white lettering on it i'm on the phone with detective donnie williard
33:23of the 8th district trying to get this footage from the store once he sends this i'll uh afford it
33:29to
33:29you right away thanks yeah i'm like i'm trying not to stress but i'm like kind of chomping at the
33:33bit
33:33for this because i got an arrest warrant like in the chamber as soon as i got this like we're
33:39we're
33:39we're 90 sure we know who the dude is i just need to clear a picture of his face to
33:42compare it
33:42his driver's license you know you never know until you you take screenshots of still frames
33:47if that's going to be what it takes to to 100 say that this is melvin these guys eating their
33:56pizza
33:56together yeah i think that's melvin that's the same dude
34:03yeah but that's all i needed that's definitely like yeah you can't argue that no no
34:10there's melvin walking around just having fun it makes you wonder you know have i ever brushed
34:16shoulders with somebody who's done something awful or will do something awful in a crowd like that
34:22the night that the homicide occurred melander is returning to the great challenger and getting in
34:27the driver's seat mervyn's relative passes the car followed by mervyn and our other witness
34:36mervyn is past the challenger it pulls out of the parking space it stops alongside him and then
34:44melander shoots mervyn through the open window of the driver's seat
35:13this is what appear to be melvin's phone records this is what it looks like when we get them february
35:1810th was the night of our murder see melvin gets a call at about 12 31 and as they walk
35:24you'll see
35:25that he gets a phone call he reaches into his pocket and puts the phone up to his ear just
35:30before he goes
35:30off frame here and then if you look that was 12 23 you account for seven or eight minute time
35:36frame
35:37and i think that's the phone call that came in at 12 31 and when that call is received it's
35:43hitting on
35:43a tower over here he gets some texts or whatever when he's out and about but the next one is
35:48at 1 31
35:49and that's when they're walking back to their car at that point and that hits at a cell tower at
35:557 39 canal which is like about as close as it gets for cell towers and they are about right
36:02here when
36:03he makes that call all the location data those cell towers are giving us is in keeping with generally
36:09where we're seeing him on the camera footage so this is after the shooting maybe like an hour later
36:15a little less than an hour later the phone hits at a cell tower on douglas right which is way
36:23out in
36:23lower ninth ward this is the same area that maggie and joe saw the car a couple days later so
36:29there's
36:29some address here that he felt like he needed to go back to after the shooting and then back to
36:34again
36:34on wednesday after the shooting when maggie saw him it looks like nine in the morning he ends up back
36:41here which is in marrero and then if you look up his home address you'll see that that's where he
36:50lives
36:50so almost directly south of that cell tower so it looks like he found his way back home the next
36:55morning so he spends the night in the lower ninth ward it looks like then heads back home to that
36:59address so between all the surveillance footage that we've gathered and the cell phone data that kind
37:05of corroborates that it's pretty well confirmed that this is melvin millender now i can write an arrest
37:11warrant for melvin millender about 6 a.m i got a call from state police who said they did like
37:29a spot
37:29check melvin millender's house wow yeah this looks active
37:36and uh saw what they believed to be the suspect challenger parked in the driveway there
37:49i immediately see the challenger i'm walking up to it and i get close and you can see these
37:55glue stripes where the racing stripes were apparently removed i was like hell yeah slam dunk
38:04hey sir you're melvin too right yes sir melvin's father tells us that melvin lives here that's
38:10melvin's car i don't expect anybody to sort of implicate their own son in something like this
38:17anybody doing evidence um i'll do your evidence yeah
38:23it's pretty clear which room is melvin's
38:27and in that room in the closet we find a couple different license plates
38:33we find some clothing which ties him to the video footage his belts and his shoes are very distinct
38:39from what we see on video having a murder weapon is always nice but it's not necessary in a case
38:47like
38:50this that's one of the first things to go missing after a homicide thrown in the lake or whatever
38:55especially you know when it's a week or more for you to actually apprehend the person
39:01so it's kind of the the perfect storm you wanted the car
39:04and the suspect in the same spot to further time together
39:08fortunately that's how it worked out so i mean i think it's it's a done deal
39:13so now i'm headed to jefferson paris detective bureau where melvin has been
39:18kind of hanging out for like the last hour or two i'm just glad it's all over honestly
39:40hey man so i'm detective fife i'm with nlpd okay um do they tell you at all what's going on
39:46okay i'll break it down to you um so there's um there's an arrest warrant for you right which is
39:53why everybody showed up um for second degree murder charge okay i'd love to talk to you about
39:58it try and clarify some stuff and tell you like how we got to where we are i already don't
40:03like
40:03where is it going now i just want to know why am i here this is from uh charter street
40:08in the french
40:09quarter right a couple weeks ago sometimes you'll get an act people what you know this couldn't
40:17possibly be me this is a mistake you know i didn't get that with melvin his body language to me
40:21says he
40:22knows what this is about but i'd like to hear if there was like a reason or anything all right
40:29good luck
40:33i don't relish imprisoning somebody for life but nobody deserves to be murdered period
40:53there is a point when i've worked this case and i've cleared it
40:59and now what the family's still missing the person but now i get to make this call to mom
41:05to tell her that we have an arrest finally on this case and it it's a huge just relief
41:18hello hello hey miss mcgee it's detective fife how are you doing
41:23i'm good i got an update for you if you got a second
41:28believe so um the guy who pulled the trigger and the guy who drove the car
41:34same person in custody under arrest for second degree murder right now i just wanted to let you
41:39know oh my god yeah oh my god my heart is full right now good that makes me happy i
41:49i tried to talk
41:50to him he didn't really want to say much to me but that's fine it's a strong case and and
41:54we you know
41:54i wasn't going to beg him for a confession you know because i this this is a good one
41:59i truly appreciate you you have no idea you know i get to breathe a little sigh of relief but
42:06it's
42:06it's definitely not not the end i know it's not over i know it's not all you're doing good
42:11any questions or anything for me no you told me everything i needed to know thank you detective bye
42:17no no problem um thank you so much call me whenever if if you think of something that you wanted
42:22to
42:22ask or just want some more details or whatever okay thank you all right i will uh i'll talk to
42:28you
42:28soon okay okay have a good day all right you too bye bye bye it feels good okay
42:42i'm wiped out dude
42:47when your life is ended at 25 we don't get to see the full picture of that man
42:52what he might have done who he might have become
42:56now it's just the void the vacuum of that person and everybody's trying to figure out how to live
43:02without them
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