When New Orleans Police officers came to her door on Memorial Day 2015 and told Chantell Edwards her son might have been involved in a double homicide around the corner, Edwards said she had no idea Widner “Flow” Degruy left an assault rifle and handgun under a pile clothes on his bed when he came by earlier that day.
Degruy stopped by before 6 a.m., and told his mom someone had tried to rob him. She remembered hearing gunshots before he came over, but couldn’t recall at her son’s trial Wednesday (April 3) how much time had passed between the time she heard gunshots and when Degruy knocked on her door.
Edwards spoke tearfully from the witness stand in Criminal District Judge Tracey Flemings-Davillier’s courtroom, where her son is on trial this week on two second-degree murder charges connected to a May 25, 2015, shooting that killed brothers Kendred “Kirby” Bishop, 18, and Kendrick “MuddyCupBuddy” Bishop, 22.
Kendrick Bishop and Degruy, both rappers, had recorded music together, according to testimony. Degruy was signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money record label.
Assistant District Attorneys Alex Calenda and Irena Zajickova allege Degruy was one of two gunmen who killed the brothers. Jonathan “Lil Joe” Evans also was indicted and has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He is expected to testify this week.
The Bishop brothers were gunned down inside a black Kia Cadenza in the 4800 block of Bright Drive – roughly a quarter mile from Edwards’ house in the 4900 block of Nottingham Drive in New Orleans East – around 5:45 a.m.
Dr. Cynthia Gardner of the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office said Kendrick Bishop was shot 11 times all over his body and suffered three graze wounds to his arm and face. Kendred Bishop was shot eight times also all over his body, she said.
Their wounds were consistent with gunshots from both high- and medium-velocity weapons, Gardner said.
Police have said shell casings found at the homicide scene were from a 9mm rifle and a 7.62x39 semi-automatic assault rifle.
Prosecutors said the motive for the shooting was retaliation for Degruy’s belief the brothers stole guns and a significant amount of cash from his vehicle a week earlier.
After police left her house the morning of May 25, Edwards said she went to DeGruy’s room where she spotted two guns on the bed. She almost passed out at the sight of “a big black gun,” she recalled.
She was “frantically scared,” she said, and called her husband. He grabbed the comforter along with everything that was on top of it, threw it on the back of their truck and they left to get rid of the guns, Edwards said.
Police came by later in day with search warrants, she said, and didn’t ask questions. She didn’t tell them she removed two guns from her house hours earlier.
Edwards was indicted and has pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to second-degree murder in the Bishops’ deaths. According to a plea deal read in court Wednesday, she can withdraw her plea to that felony charge and plead guilty to misdemeanor aiding and abetting if she continues to cooperate and tell the truth.
Edwards sobbed as she went over the terms of her deal with Calenda.
“Have you ever imagined anything like this in your life?” Calenda asked.
“No,” she said.
“But you realize this is something you had to do?” he asked. Edwards replied, “Yes. Yes it is.”
Edwards continued to cry as she stepped off the witness stand, and looked at Degruy while mouthing, “I love you” as she walked out of the courtroom.
Inconsistent statements
Degruy became a suspect in the Bishop brothers’ murders during an interview with homicide Detective Gregory Johnson – the lead detective on the case – and Sgt. Robert Barrere at NOPD headquarters the day of the shootings. Degruy agreed to speak to the investigators after he approached one of the responding officers on scene and pointed out his phone was inside the crime scene tape, next to the shot-up Kia the Bishop brothers were killed in.
Barrere and Johnson both testified Degruy told inconsistent stories during the interview.
Defense attorney Gary Wainwright suggested to Barrere that Degruy might have been tired. Testimony Tuesday showed Degruy attended a Lil Wayne concert with Evans and the Bishop brothers in Mobile, Alabama, the night before they were killed.
Barrere said Degruy first told him and Johnson his iPhone was at the shooting scene because he threw it in anger upon seeing his dead friends, and that cracked his screen. Degruy later said in the same interview his phone screen cracked some time ago and he was so frustrated upon seeing his friends’ dead bodies he couldn’t call 911, so he threw it to the ground, Barrere said.
The officers performed a gunshot residue test on Degruy during the interview and told him it came back positive. Under cross examination by Wainwright, Barrere said that was a lie – a tactic used in police interviews to try to draw information out of people.
Degruy said he’d fired a gun a couple days earlier, but it jammed. He told the detectives in the interview he hadn’t showered in two says when they asked why the residue still would be on his hands.
Barrere said he heard what sounded like Degruy wiping his hands and arms with paper towels in the bathroom – what he described as “excessive” wiping – and thought he might have been trying to get rid of possible gunshot residue on his body.
Wainwright seemed to suggest Barrere’s take on Degruy’s time in the bathroom was absurd, at one point asking the veteran detective, “Were you taught to wash your hands after using the bathroom?”
He questioned why Barrere wouldn’t try to open the door or even knock if he thought Degruy might be trying to destroy evidence.
“He was not in custody,” Barrere said. “He used the bathroom, washed his hands and wiped with the towels.”
Johnson told Degruy in the interview his story had “loopholes,” and after asking several additional questions, read Degruy his Miranda rights. Police took a DNA swab from Degruy’s cheek during the interview.
When they asked Degruy if he killed Kendrick Bishop, Degruy told them, “Y’all be trippin’.”
Testimony is expected to resume Thursday.
via nola.comhttps://www.nola.com
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