[dramatic music]
[bluesy guitar music]
- A savannah community activist takes up
A cause against gun violence.
- He's 6"2", 300 pounds, with a bullhorn.
He wanted to save lives.
- Fight that fight!
- So when he's murdered, shockwaves ring out.
♪ ♪
- I got a call that there was a shooting.
There were tears.
There was anger.
- Y'all better stay tuned.
It's about to go down.
[sirens wailing]
- Police follow breadcrumbs through
A dizzying investigation...
- Oh, here we go. Got them. 9-millimeter.
- Until it's an all-out crime spree.
And investigators discover how it's all connected...
- Now we have the murder weapon and a suspect
At the scene of the crime.
We knew from talking to individuals that night
That shawntray had gone on a gambling boat.
- Leading detectives to uncover a sinful plot.
- The pressure started coming down on them
About, what were you doing?
Did you set it up?
- When I got the screenshot, I almost passed out.
♪ ♪
["just another ghost"]
♪ ♪
- ♪ oh, child ♪
♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
[tense music]
- Cobblestone streets, flickering lights.
Savannah, georgia, is just like the set
For a southern gothic movie.
- Savannah is a part of the coastal empire.
It's spectacular.
Spanish moss--it is paradise.
- Savannah is actually known to be the front porch community.
[indistinct chatter]
- There's seafood, there's drinking.
And it's not just tea.
It's sweet tea. We're in the south.
- But savannah has a dark side
In drug trafficking,
With shooting and murdering.
- In this town, the peace and quiet of a late spring night
Ends way too early.
- I was sleeping.
And I heard this shot that sounded like a cannon.
[gunshots]
And it was, like, four shots immediately behind it.
I came outside, and as I'm walking across the street,
I saw puff sitting down, slumped over
On the side of his vehicle.
And I just immediately just started screaming...
Until I couldn't scream anymore.
♪ ♪
- The first call came in approximately
2:08 in the morning.
Officers were dispatched to randolph and wheaton streets
For a possible shooting.
- Officers arrive at the view on oglethorpe,
A new apartment complex on savannah's east side.
- When they got to the scene,
They saw an individual, a black male,
That was laying on the ground.
They saw a white ford f-150-style pickup truck
With multiple bullet holes in it,
Multiple shell casings
Surrounding the victim as well.
- Another officer came from out of nowhere and grabbed me.
I was like, why is he not moving?
Why is he not moving?
- Chatham ems showed up.
- When I saw the ambulance with the stretcher,
They came running to the scene.
And then I looked a couple of seconds later,
And they were walking back without him.
At that point, I knew he was definitely dead.
- Eventually, a coroner is called.
The coroner comes out and just pronounces
The victim dead on the scene.
[sirens wailing]
- As forensics and violent crimes arrive,
The crime scene investigation begins.
- They began putting up crime scene tape,
Cordoning off the area.
He had his wallet and his phone in his hands.
Those were things that were found at the scene.
They began looking for bystanders or any witnesses.
A large group of people started forming in the area,
Coming out of the apartment complex.
They knew who he was.
He was well-known there.
- It turned out to be 32-year-old shawntray grant.
♪ ♪
- His family started coming on the scene.
We were all just trying to make sense of what happened.
- We couldn't really see his body because they
Had those markers up.
It was like a feeling I never had before,
The worst feeling in the world,
Knowing that someone took, you know,
My uncle's life.
- I was woken by a phone call.
They think puff got shot.
So I jumped up.
I ran over there where he was.
I couldn't believe it was him.
- Shawntray grant, who was also known as puff,
Is a legend in savannah known for his social activism.
Word of his passing even reaches
Savannah's mayor, van johnson,
Who was a city councilman at the time.
- I was home and got a call that there was a shooting.
But then, the streets started talking,
And I heard it might have been puff.
I represented the neighborhood that his family grew up in,
So we crossed paths often.
There were tears.
There was anger.
- We look for defensive injuries
To see if there was a fight, a struggle.
In this case, there was none.
The engine was still warm
As if the vehicle had just parked.
The victim was shot multiple times.
That tells me that the suspect may have known the victim
Or there was a purpose for this homicide.
- As detectives interview people at the crime scene,
They begin to piece together shawntray's
Last-known whereabouts.
- One of the first things you want to do
Is determine who the victim is and what occurred that night.
We knew from talking to individuals
Shawntray had gone on a gambling boat.
It's in brunswick, georgia.
It's about an hour and a half south of savannah.
- He would call and tell me, I hit big on the boat.
And I'm like, you did?
I'm like, well, let me get $100.
- He loved to make money.
He loved to spend it just as fast as he made it.
I spoke with shawntray earlier that day.
He went on the boat with erica street,
Which is my sister, her friend, nelaunte grant,
And our friend, michelle law.
- We were able to quickly interview those individuals
Because they were on scene.
What we learned is that once they left the casino boat,
He dropped off erica street and nelaunte grant first.
He then drove to his complex,
Where both he and michelle law lived.
He dropped off michelle and then pulled his truck
Around to his parking space.
♪ ♪
We could tell that he had been shot very quickly
From getting out of the truck
Because the door was still open.
[gunshots]
At the early stages of an investigation,
Especially of a murderer,
You look at all possibilities.
The people on the boat with shawntray
Said that he won a large sum of money.
They were not sure how much it was.
They just saw him getting paid in stacks of hundreds.
And that money was not recovered at the scene.
It was too early to tell if it was random
Or it was some sort of crime of passion or a personal attack.
- As folks all over town wake up
To the news of shawntray's murder,
A veil of sorrow cloaks the entire city.
- We're sitting in our editorial meeting.
It was a normal day.
We saw the release from savannah police,
And it named the victim, shawntray grant.
A colleague came in and said, that's the bullhorn guy.
How could this have happened to someone so lovable?
- Savannah, georgia, what's going on, man?
It's dj puff, the number one hype man of the south, man.
- He loved to dj, and he was always
Calling himself the "number one hype man of the south."
- Savannah-born and raised to a large family,
Shawntray grew up trying to make a difference
In the neighborhood that he loved.
- Shawntray was a large, big, imposing guy,
But I think his size was only dwarfed by that of his heart.
He had a heart for his community,
Had a heart for children.
- On behalf of the bullhorn crew and yamacraw village,
What y'all wanna say?
All: Thank you!
- He was the founder of the bullhorn group.
And the bullhorn group was really
About showing kids a positive thing
And standing up against gun violence.
All: Get into it.
- Fight that fight!
- There was nothing fake about shawntray.
He gave of himself.
Puff gave you courage to do something that you
Would not normally do.
And I picked up the bullhorn, and I was shouting,
"no justice, no peace," all around savannah.
- With a beloved local hero gunned down,
A southern community gripped in fear,
And a killer on the loose,
Investigators have to hit the streets in a hurry.
- You start following up on leads.
One of those potential leads was going to the casino boat
Where shawntray grant had won his money.
Could somebody follow him off the boat?
Could somebody have trailed him?
♪ ♪
- Coming up...
- When shawntray grant showed up in your neighborhood,
There was no ignoring it.
It was bold.
It was in your face.
- Question was, who did he talk to?
Who knew he was coming back?
Then who were they connected to?
♪ ♪
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[dramatic music]
- Savannah detectives investigating
The brutal murder of southern activist
Shawntray "puff" grant
Are headed south to the last place he was seen alive.
Shawntray had spent a very successful night gambling
With three of his friends aboard an oceangoing
Cruise ship named the "emerald princess."
- We learned that he would gamble frequently on that boat.
There were times that he would win $15,000,
$20,000, and times that he would lose $9,000, $10,000.
- Shawntray's friends told investigators
Puff had hit it big, but the money he supposedly had won
Is nowhere to be found.
♪ ♪
- They were able to interview the manager of the casino
As well as security on the casino boat
To see if they had seen anything
That stuck out in their minds that
Would be interesting to us.
What stood out at that point was the amount of money
That he had won.
- We learned that that evening, mr. Grant had actually
Won upwards of $12,000.
- When we obtained the surveillance video,
We were able to see that shawntray, erica street,
Michelle law, and nelaunte grant all
Arrived just after 6:00 p.M.
And there was a timestamp on the bottom of the video.
- And there was footage of him playing blackjack that night.
- He gambled on the boat for about 4 1/2 hours,
And we were able to see him getting paid out
And leaving the boat around 10:25.
They kind of held everybody else on the boat
And took shawntray off first because of the amount
That he had won.
And we could see no arguments, disagreements, anything that
Really stuck out in our mind that something had happened
Amongst the group of people on the boat.
♪ ♪
- While shawntray's windfall is certainly a viable motive,
At this point, investigators need more evidence.
They reach out to puff's crew again--
Erica, nelaunte, and michelle,
The last souls to see shawntray alive.
- My sister erica called and was like,
The detectives called and asked for everybody involved
Who went with him on the boat to come to the precinct.
- The pressure started coming down on them about,
What were you doing? Where have you been?
- One of those questions produces
An unexpected response.
- When investigators interviewed erica street,
She mentioned that shawntray had recently
Purchased a springfield pistol, and he had brought it with him.
She mentioned him taking it and leaving it
In the vehicle when they went into the casino boat.
It seemed strange initially to us
That someone who was so anti-gun violence
Would own a gun.
- Because shawntray's gun wasn't found
At the crime scene, investigators get a warrant
To search his apartment.
- Shawntray grant's apartment was searched.
Investigators located a empty gun box
For a springfield xd 9 firearm,
Legal purchase receipt for it.
Mr. Grant was legal to carry firearms.
It's not in the apartment.
It's not in his vehicle.
- At that point, we believe it had been taken in the robbery.
There were no shell casings on scene
That matched shawntray's gun, so we knew that he didn't
Fire his gun at the time.
- While it may seem odd to some for the anti-gun violence
Advocate to own a gun, investigators soon learn
It's not such a stretch.
- He won thousands of dollars all the time.
He grew up in a rough neighborhood.
Why would he not be armed?
He wanted to protect himself.
- He would routinely go to the rougher areas of savannah
And advocate for an end to gun violence.
He would work directly with the at-risk youth.
- When we have somebody that is a political activist,
As mr. Grant was, we have to look to see,
Was he making too much of a noise in the area
That he was living?
- Even though investigators have good reason
To believe shawntray's gun and cash were stolen
In his slaying, they also have to remain open
To other motives.
So detectives begin to dig into shawntray's activism
For leads.
- One of the things you want to do
At the beginning of any investigation
Is to begin looking at all of their social media.
- What's up, y'all?
Again, man, I'm not 100% sure what's going on out here, man.
- People would always see him on facebook,
You know, with his lives at a scene of a shooting.
- I'm out here on west 42nd street.
Somebody called me and told me that they had a homicide.
- He has, like, 200, 300, 400, 500 viewers already on live
Explaining what's going on.
- The funeral home won't give this man his paycheck.
If they don't give my brother what he deserve,
We're gonna shut this one down too.
- There's always that penalty of speaking out
And telling people to use your voice
And bring these people to justice.
And that was a concern of ours as well
That maybe he was advocating against the wrong person.
They decided to silence his voice.
- Fight that fight!
- Did he have a target on his back?
♪ ♪
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[light guitar music]
- A week after shawntray grant's murder,
Savannah detectives scour social media for clues.
- Y'all better stay tuned. It's about to go down.
We're waiting on the manager to call the police.
It's about to go digital.
- Could shawntray's live feeds have stirred up
A hornet's nest and provoked the wrong person?
Detectives talked to fellow activists to learn more.
- When you have a rogue community,
Nobody, not even politicians or police,
Would go into the community.
We went into those communities.
- When shawntray grant showed up in your neighborhood,
There was no ignoring it. It was bold.
It was in your face.
- Savannah, what's going on, man?
I'm reporting live on the scene, man.
- Crime is so prevalent in savannah.
It is hard to get people to talk about it because people
Are afraid to talk about it.
Am I going to be a victim next?
- There's something out there that
Would show who was involved in the murder of shawntray grant.
Did somebody retaliate against him because of who he was?
After conducting all of the interviews
And looking through his facebook records
And his facebook page, there was nothing of any value that
Could tell us what happened.
- Everyone detectives talk to says
Puff is more saint than sinner and raise up
A mighty amen at the huge turnout for his homegoing.
All: ♪ he is my friend ♪
- My photographer and I got there early,
And we sat in the balcony.
- We've seen large funerals before,
But this right here took the cake.
- People from all walks of life of savannah,
Those that were more affluent,
Those who were mired in poverty,
People from the east side, the west side.
- And everybody just screaming, puff, puff, puff, puff.
And to carry him out, a horse and carriage pulled up.
And it was a second line.
- You had your savannah high band,
Puff's all-time favorite, they was out there playing music.
You had the majorettes dancing.
It was a celebration.
- And they marched right into the cemetery.
And it was something like you would see in a movie.
And they put him to rest.
[somber music]
It'll bring you to your knees.
- But the specter of an unsolved murder
Hung in the air like mournful spanish moss
From savannah's stately trees, the danger close.
- As a former police officer, I was well aware, well in tuned
That either the killer or someone
Who knew who the killer could have
Easily been right among us.
- As autopsy results come in,
It's clear as georgia moonshine
Shawntray's killer wanted him dead.
Eight bullets, five in the back,
Pierced his lungs and heart.
- The fact that shawntray was shot in the back
Was important to us because it shows
That he was ambushed, that this was not a stickup robbery.
Whoever it was had to have known
That shawntray had a large sum of money on him
And that he carried a gun, because they never gave him
A chance to use that gun.
The big question we had at that point
Was that we knew that this was a setup.
And we just didn't know who was involved in it.
- As investigators continue investigating this case,
They went back and looked at security footage
Of the individuals that were with them that night.
Maybe there's something we missed.
- When detectives review that footage multiple times,
Something catches their eye.
- Nelaunte said that she was playing slots.
But it's not just as she said.
She was watching shawntray grant.
You can see on the video nelaunte
Following shawntray and standing behind him
While he gambles.
She doesn't know exactly how much he's winning,
But she knows it's a lot.
- You could see her texting at one point
When shawntray was winning at the blackjack table.
Who is she texting?
What's going through her mind?
- We go back and talk again to erica street and michelle law
And ask specifically about nelaunte.
She had only met shawntray once or twice.
They had gone on this boat together,
But there was no indication that they were friends.
Was she involved in this somehow?
- Detectives dig deeper on nelaunte's background
And discover she had done some sinning in the past.
- Nelaunte was someone who had a prior criminal record,
And so we knew that she had been involved with things
In the past that may lead her or put her
In contact with people who would do some things like this.
Nelaunte becomes somebody that we want to focus on.
[suspenseful music]
Nelaunte grant was interviewed by detectives,
And she provided very little information or details to them.
All she would say was that she was invited by erica street
To go out on the gambling boat.
- Nelaunte was released right after her interview.
She is still a person of interest at that point
Because we couldn't rule her out
As knowing something or having some sort of information
About what occurred.
We really hit a dead end.
And we're just waiting for possibly something to come up.
- Just as police hit a wall on shawntray's case...
[gunshots]
Their attention is diverted by an outbreak
Of violent shootings.
- I've got multiple, multiple victims here.
- After shawntray's voice was silenced,
Savannah crime spikes for the next seven weeks...
- Oh, here we go. Got them. 9-millimeters.
- Something y'all would call a crime spree,
That makes investigators wonder
If this all might be connected.
- I would say it's more than a crime spree.
I don't really even have a good word for it.
We have a team of law enforcement officers
Reinvestigating each and every one of those cases
Looking for any evidence that would link
All of this together.
♪ ♪
On August 7th, there was a shooting
On capital street in savannah.
That was the thing that just opened the floodgates.
- Detective valdivieso is working on an unrelated case
When he gets a radio call
About another crime spree shooting in progress.
[sirens wailing]
- Where's he at?
- We pulled up on the back side of where
The phat heads barbershop was.
We knew that's where the shooting had occurred.
- Hey, come back. Stay over here. Stay over here.
Hey, we got a black male running, white shirt!
- He was not listening to a lawful command
To stop running by law enforcement.
Once he started running on foot, we gave chase to him.
- White shirt, blue jeans running towards pennsylvania!
[dramatic music]
- Coming up...
- The recovery of that gun started an avalanche
Of evidence in this case.
Just everything
Flooded out.
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[indistinct radio chatter]
- In the simmering heat of a savannah crimewave,
Detective ben valdivieso and his partner
Respond to a shootout at a barber shop on capital street.
- Where's he at?
- It's the sixth shooting in the eight weeks
Since anti-gun violence crusader shawntray grant
Was gunned down.
- Hey, come back. Stay over here. Stay over here.
[suspenseful music]
Your heart rate increases. You start getting sweaty palms.
He's running towards pennsylvania!
It's a shooting scene, so you don't know
If there's going to be multiple shooters there.
You don't know if there's going to be multiple victims.
I drew my firearm because I didn't know
What I was getting into.
[sirens wailing]
- Hey, get on the ground! Get on the ground!
- I observed a firearm in kind of the right hip area.
We later determined that gun was a glock
And that he did have a license to carry that gun.
♪ ♪
- Confident they've apprehended a runaway suspect
From the shootout, police found
Another suspicious individual next door.
- As we are handling our part of the scene,
There were other officers that responded
To the phat heads barbershop, and they did find
An individual that was shot.
They began rendering aid to that individual
And waiting for the ems to get to the scene
To transport him to the hospital.
- As the two suspects are taken into custody,
Detective valdivieso heads back into
The capital grocery store to search for evidence.
- I went back in just to check in with the owner
And see if they have cameras, anything like that.
He's told us that they heard something thrown
When we came in the grocery store.
So I walked around a couple of the shelves, and lo and behold,
I knew what it was. It was a springfield handgun.
- As a matter of fact, a 9-millimeter springfield
That fits the description of shawntray grant's gun
That went missing the night of his murder.
- I immediately recognized that it had
An extended magazine on it.
So it's 30 rounds that can be shot in a matter of seconds
With somebody who's trained with that firearm.
When you see that and the fact that it had a laser adaptor
On it, that made me think that,
Okay, why did he throw this gun?
This gun had to have been used in something.
[dramatic music]
- The two suspects are questioned upon arrest.
The suspect who was wounded is familiar to police.
- He identified himself as osha dunham.
♪ ♪
- We knew that osha dunham had a long criminal history,
Drug charges, gun charges, aggravated assaults.
He was progressing in his criminal activity.
- Investigators can't help wondering if the gun belongs
To dunham, if it might be stolen,
And if it matches shell casings found
At the other spree shootings.
- When osha was treated at the hospital,
He was spoken to by detectives right away.
At that point, his phone was seized,
And a warrant was obtained
To see who he'd been in contact with,
Really looking to see what had happened in this shooting.
- Savannah pd is going hard to fit
Dunham's phone and gun into the shooting spree puzzle.
Could it be the first major break in shawntray's case?
- The gun from the capital street grocery store
Was sent off to the georgia bureau of investigation.
They swabbed it for dna.
The serial numbers are logged into an etrace system,
And they're able to, at that point,
Match it with any gun that has been reported stolen.
- Next day, the etrace result is in.
- It comes back to matching shawntray grant's gun.
- A potential game-changer in shawntray's case,
But investigators aren't sharing any of these leads.
Their long wait for dna results could take months.
With each passing week, frustration mounts,
And crowds grow large, demanding justice for puff.
[indistinct shouting]
- We're beating on the door of the police chief.
Every time he showed up in public, we were--hey, chief.
Can you give us anything?
- We didn't really have no answers.
You know, we was just waiting and praying
That something comes out soon.
- Three months later, detective valdivieso
And his unit get a call from the lab.
Dna results on the 9-millimeter gun
Found at capital market are in.
- It came back with a positive dna match
That osha dunham did, in fact,
Have possession of that firearm.
- When he was shot at the capital street market,
He handed it to another person, who fled from police
And threw it down inside of a convenience store.
At that point, shawntray's case becomes hot again.
We're back in the investigation of shawntray's murder.
That really was the key, was tracing this gun
And whose hands it was in, from the point it was stolen
From shawntray grant to the point osha dunham had it
On August 7th on capital street.
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[tense music]
- On a balmy autumn day, savannah detectives
Get their first real break in shawntray grant's case
When his stolen 9-millimeter gun is traced to someone
Very familiar to detectives--
24-year-old repeat offender osha dunham.
Now detectives need to trace the 9-millimeter shell casings
Found at each of the six spree crime scenes
To see if they match puff's gun.
- It's a lot of legwork.
We have a system for matching shell casings
From firearms and shootings across the country.
We were also able to look at osha's cell phone locations,
Which show him moving from place to place and put him
At the scene of the shootings.
- Forensic detectives are able to place dunham and his gun
At all six recent shooting locations.
- Osha dunham takes shawntray grant's gun.
He modifies it to be more deadly than it was
And then uses it in every crime and every shooting
That he commits.
- But when investigators try to place dunham
At the scene of shawntray's murder,
They hit a roadblock.
- On the night of shawntray grant's murder,
There were no shell casings on scene
That matched shawntray's gun.
So we knew that he didn't fire his gun at the time.
- Because the gun used to murder shawntray
Was never recovered, all investigators have
To place the suspect at the crime scene is his phone.
- And when we're looking at osha's phone records,
We could only go back so far into his records.
- Records that had mysteriously come to a halt
The day after puff's murder
And months before dunham's arrest.
- We have no contact in his phone
With anybody who was with shawntray grant that night.
We have no contact in his phone with shawntray grant.
- Dunham remains in jail because of his connection
To the shooting spree.
But the investigation into shawntray's murder
Stalls until the dead of winter.
- We hit a wall if you're going back in time
Before shawntray's murder.
When we search osha's phone number in the jail system
To say, well, who's been calling osha,
We were able to find a phone call
From inmate majid green to osha dunham
The day after shawntray's murder.
What was of interest was osha dunham telling majid green
That he was changing his cell phone number,
And he wouldn't say why.
We wondered why osha would be changing his number,
But not getting a new phone.
We believe that was because osha thought
That if he changed his number,
He would be able to hide his records.
The lead detective had an idea to get a search warrant
For the electronic serial number
Of the phone he was using.
And then we got more data than we had before.
- It reveals the very same phone number
Osha was trying to hide.
- And now we had osha's phone records
For the day of shawntray grant's
Murder and his locations.
It basically broke the investigation open again.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
Now we could take that data and look
At where he was at the time of shawntray grant's murder.
And lo and behold, he was in the area.
Now we want to know who knows osha dunham.
And what we learn is that he had
A contact with nelaunte grant.
Detectives get a search warrant and they
Collect nelaunte's phone and extract the data from it.
Looking at what would be visible to the average person,
There's nothing of interest.
- Nothing, that is, till they see
What nelaunte wanted hidden.
- What we saw from that data extraction is,
Nelaunte had deleted a ton of data over a six-day period.
From the 10th to the 16th, it appeared as though
Her phone wasn't even being used.
The system that extracts the data
Is able to show us what nelaunte grant
Deleted from her phone.
And what she deleted was all of her contacts with osha dunham.
♪ ♪
- Investigators pull dunham's cell phone records and start
Cross-referencing them with nelaunte's to try
And figure out exactly what went down that night.
- At 12:50 a.M., nelaunte texts osha dunham.
We can show him moving towards the crime scene.
He was only minutes away from the scene
When he got that text message, which showed us
That he sat there and laid in wait
For shawntray grant for almost an hour.
What was most important of all the calls that were made was
That nelaunte grant called osha dunham at 1:51 a.M.,
And two to three minutes later shawntray grant was murdered.
♪ ♪
- Now is the time for justice.
But with nelaunte grant still free, easier said than done.
- Nelaunte is brought in under completely different
Circumstances this time.
She's now in handcuffs.
- As chatham county prosecutors prepare for trial,
A deal is on the table.
- We sat nelaunte grant down with her attorney
And, again, said, listen, you are going
To go to prison for the rest of your life
Unless you tell us what happened.
And she still refused to talk.
♪ ♪
Osha dunham was one of the most violent individuals
I have seen in my 20-year career.
She thought the risk of going to trial
Was safer than the risk of the wrath of osha dunham.
- But without nelaunte's cooperation,
There's no one to point the finger at osha dunham.
- I always wonder if we have enough.
Because you have the victim's family who
Has been waiting for this day,
And this is their one chance at justice.
And you never know what a jury is going to want.
And so we're always asking...
Is it enough?
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[tense music]
- Electrifying news is released
To a savannah community fighting for justice.
Two people are indicted for the murder
Of towering anti-violence crusader
Shawntray "puff" grant.
- When it came down, everybody was like, whoa.
- When I got the screenshot and I saw osha, and I'm like,
I don't know him.
And when I swiped to the right, and I saw nelaunte,
I almost passed out.
♪ ♪
For her to be the cause of everything, like, I was numb.
I was numb.
- And they would still have to wait almost a year
For their day in court.
♪ ♪
- Our decision was to try nelaunte grant
And osha dunham together because they
Planned this crime together.
- The air in the courtroom is vibrating
With the searing pain of shawntray's murder.
- It was solemn, quiet,
His family on one side,
Their family on the other side.
[gavel bangs]
- In opening arguments, prosecutors describe
How dunham and grant put their sinful,
Greed-fueled plan into action.
- Our theory of the case was that nelaunte grant,
Who had no connection to shawntray grant,
Watched how much he was winning on the boat.
From her prior dealings with osha dunham,
She knew that he was the type of person
Who could commit a robbery.
And once they left the boat, she began texting and calling
Osha dunham where shawntray grant would be,
When he would be there, so that osha dunham could
Be ready when he got there.
We looked at his facebook records as well.
And then what we see is posts from osha dunham
After the murder of shawntray grant holding up
And fanning out $100 bills.
There was no reason for nelaunte grant or osha dunham
To want shawntray grant dead, none whatsoever.
It was solely for the money
That he won on the casino boat.
- Prosecutors drive home how dunham used shawntray grant's
9-millimeter gun after murdering him
In a summer of terror.
- The way I described it to the jury,
He was a hurricane of violence and death.
- Defense points to the undeniable fact
That the case is entirely circumstantial.
- We don't know what was said
Between nelaunte grant and osha dunham.
We don't have a single person to sit in courtroom
And point and say, that's osha dunham.
I saw him when shawntray grant was murdered.
And that worries us.
- After three hours of deliberation,
The jury returns to the courtroom.
- The feeling, you have butterflies
Because you don't know-- it can go this way.
It could go that way.
♪ ♪
- Finally, the verdict is in.
- Osha dunham and nelaunte grant
Were found guilty of all charges
In the murder of shawntray grant.
Osha dunham was sentenced
To two consecutive life sentences,
Plus over 300 years of additional time
To serve in prison,
Making sure that he would never
Be back on the streets of savannah again.
And nelaunte grant was sentenced to life in prison
With the possibility of parole.
She would be eligible for parole in 30 years.
[door clanging shut]
[birds cawing]
- When he read it, I was just so relieved.
I was so relieved that he had justice.
- Whether it was a small part or not,
I'm proud that I helped contribute
To that investigation.
- It felt good, but at the same time,
It still was sad because my uncle is gone.
The guilty verdict won't bring him back.
- That's the real tragedy in this,
That shawntray grant was a person who was trying
To better our community.
He was trying to prevent the thing
That ultimately took his life.
♪ ♪
- While the killers' sin of greed is plain as day,
So is shawntray's mission to end gun violence.
- I made a commitment to puff to continue on
With what he was trying to do in our city.
You know, talking to children, talking to young men and women
About homicides
And bullying and suicide.
♪ ♪
- If we keep going, then shawntray's memory
Is going to live on.
We're going to continue to carry the torch.
♪ ♪
- There's an old african proverb
That says, as long as you call someone's name, they never die.
We'll still remember the day of shawntray grant's birth
And the day of his transition.
So he continues to live in this city.
♪ ♪