Bell and Green are suspects in the high-profile shooting deaths of Bri-Yanna Williams and Koredresse ‘Kory’ Tyson in July 2021. The incident took place at the home of George Taylor, III, chief operating officer for Tru Colors Brewery, and son of the company’s founder, George Taylor, Jr. — which has lent the ‘Tru Colors killing’ moniker to the case.
Tru Colors hired active gang members as part of its social mission to deter gang-related violence in Wilmington. It shuttered in 2022.
Bell and Green have been in the New Hanover County Detention Center since they were arrested in August 2021; their trial has faced numerous delays. Last year, a third suspect, Raquel Adams, was convicted, and prosecutors apparently hope to use some of the same evidence from his case in the current trial.
Related: A joint trial for two suspects in the high-profile Tru Colors case begins in New Hanover County
On the first day of court, Green’s attorney Matthew Geoffrion and Bell’s attorney Meleaha Kimrey made several arguments regarding the scope of the trial and the need to ensure jurors would be fair and impartial. The most contentious request was to ‘sever’ the cases against Bell and Green into separate trials, with the defense arguing that trying the two men together could be unfair to both. Presiding Superior Court Judge G. Frank Jones denied the request.
Day two
On Tuesday, Geoffrion and Kimrey made several additional motions in limine that could limit the admissibility of certain evidence. While the defense likely will have more objections to individual pieces of evidence during the trial, in limine motions exclude evidence before a jury is selected because even showing the evidence to a juror could irreversibly prejudice them against a defendant, even if a judge later sustained an objection and the evidence was struck, or the jury was ordered to disregard it.
During the morning session, Geoffrion motioned to dismiss a search warrant for Green, saying it inaccurately described him as a fugitive and questioning its grounds for probable cause. Assistant District Attorney Doug Carriker said that because of the urgency of the situation during which the warrant was issued, it was held to a lower standard. Judge Jones noted the officer may have made a superficial error, but denied the motion to dismiss.
Geoffrion also asked that evidence of weapons not tied to the shooting be ruled out as prejudicial. Carriker argued that including them would show the thoroughness of the state’s investigation. Jones said he would take up the issue in closed council, meaning in a private meeting in the judge’s chambers. (Notably, it's not clear if law enforcement has recovered a murder weapon.
A similar motion, asking to omit details from an unrelated shooting, will be dealt with at trial.
The defense and prosecutor also argued over whether to include rap music videos that discuss the 2021 shootings. The state has argued there may be something to glean from the videos, but Geoffrion argued they are irrelevant since they don’t mention victims and could also be inflammatory. The issue may also be discussed in closed council.
Notably, the issue of rap songs has come up before, including over controversial claims by the defense and Green's family that false or misleading information was used in securing a grand jury indictment against him. Defense attorney had, at one point, asked to dimiss the case against Green entirely because of these issues, but a judge ruled that they could be dealt with at trial.
Related: Inside the Grand Jury’s Black Box
Geoffrion also asked to bar any mention of the death penalty, since it’s not a capital case, and it could imply that the state was granting mercy. Judge Jones denied the request.
Text messages
Much of Tuesday’s hearings focused on text messages that prosecutors wanted to enter into evidence.
One motion asked to exclude texts from a witness identified as “Shannon,” first mentioned in Adams’ trial last year. The state contended that the texts were sent to Bell, and included allegations that Bell didn’t refute.
Geoffrion and Kimrey argued the texts were based on rumors, and should be inadmissible as hearsay. Judge Jones agreed to redact those messages.
Another set of text messages, introduced by the state, were presented as being between Adams and a man named Tyzheem Nixon, who was at the time incarcerated in Pasquotank Correctional Institution. The texts allegedly discussed the 2021 shootings.
Geoffrion and Kimrey made several arguments to exclude them, including that the state had not “authenticated” that Nixon was actually the person sending the texts, and that they were hearsay.
Prosecutor Sean Spiering presented several documents as temporary pre-trial evidence, including phone conversations, to support the state’s case that Nixon was the person texting. Spiering noted that the state needed only to meet a ‘low burden’ of authentication at this point in the trial.
The argument over whether the texts were hearsay was highly technical — described as “academic” by Geoffrion and “word play” by Kimrey.
Carriker’s argument, essentially, is that hearsay rules prohibit ‘statements,’ which are allegations that can be proven true or false. He argued to the judge that these texts fell in a broader category of “utterances,” which are not allegations, and are not being introduced as something that can be true or false.
The defense strenuously argued that, in effect, the prosecution was trying to smuggle truth claims past the barrier of hearsay.
Judge Jones ultimately sided with the prosecution, agreeing that the state had ‘authenticated’ the text messages’ provenance and that the “probative value [of the texts] was not substantially outweighed by the prejudicial effect.”
The defense noted they had several other motions, but said those could wait until later in the trial process.
Bifurcate ‘gang enhancement’ charges from the rest of trial
Indictments for both Bell and Green include a Criminal Gang Activity Enhancement, which, unlike other statutes, serves as an aggravating factor rather than a substantive crime in and of itself.
Geoffrion noted that, for one, the gang enhancement only applies to lower-level felonies faced by Bell and Green: first-degree burglary and robbery with a dangerous weapon. If the two are convicted of the more serious crimes of conspiracy, murder, and attempted murder, that would render the lower-level crimes effectively moot.
Both Geoffrion and Kimrey noted that proving the gang enhancement would allow the state to introduce evidence that would otherwise be irrelevant. As Geoffrion wrote in his court motion, “One likely effect, whether intended or collateral, of the enhancement in this case is to possibly widen the scope of the evidence in favor of the state and against the fairness of the defendant on the original charges.”
Geoffrion asked the court to ‘bifurcate’ that gang enhancement, meaning it could be dealt with by the same judge and the same jury, but after the ‘substantive’ charges were tried. He noted that the court had previously agreed to bifurcation under similar circumstances in the Adams trial, where it was, ultimately, a moot point, given the life sentence he received for convictions on more serious charges.
Carriker argued that any evidence for the enhancement would also be evidence as motive for the more serious crimes. He took a moment to make a point about how seriously the state took gang affiliation.
“I'm going to do something kind of unusual, and defend the honor of the North Carolina General Assembly, which has enshrined into law this criminal gang enhancement,” he said, adding that “when you hear that people have become so imbued with these almost sectarian ideologies of gang rivalries, it offends the conscience.”
Judge Jones ruled that “in the interest of justice,” he would allow the defense’s motion for the gang enhancements to be bifurcated from the main trial, if they were necessary.
Media in the courtroom
One of the last major issues of the pre-trial hearings was the issue of media access to the proceedings.
Kimrey’s motion asked to “exclude photographers, TV cameras, and microphones from the courtroom,” which she said was necessary to protect Bell’s right to a fair trial.
Part of her argument seemed to hinge on the press being visible in the courtroom.
“Any sort of cameras, photographs, anything that witnesses may see, with respect to the media, being in a courtroom [...] could potentially alter the witness's testimony for fear of potential retribution, for fear if they are going to end up being quoted in the media, for fear of being on TV,” she told the judge.
But she also voiced concerns about there being any coverage of the trial.
“That may have an impact with respect to jurors, and that there is coverage about this case, and that the coverage is happening in the courtroom. And then the concern for the jurors about what happens when they go home? What about their safety? What about potential retaliation? Those are all real issues, Your Honor, in terms of a jury being able to sit and come to a decision and be fair and impartial, and also, are they paying attention while there's media sitting in a courtroom,” she said.
Kimrey also said she had concerns “with the media being in the courtroom through the duration of the trial,” of jurors seeing coverage in the media, noting reporting that had already been published this week. Kimrey acknowledged that jurors are instructed not to watch or read the news, but said, “That doesn't stop it from happening.”
For those reasons, she asked that “all media be banned from the courtroom and courtroom proceedings” during jury selection and once the trial began.
Geoffrion said he had no position on the matter. Carriker asked only that, if the court banned photography or recordings of jurors, those rules also protect witnesses.
Judge Jones denied Kimrey’s request, but offered a compromise.
Jones said he would allow photography and video recording, banning flash photography as distracting. He said, “Under no circumstance may the likeness or image of a juror, potential juror, or witness be displayed by either video or still photography.”
He specifically noted that the media could record audio and use it to prepare reports, but was clear that “no audio portion of these proceedings may be broadcast.”
Next steps
Jury selection was initially slated to begin on Wednesday, but was postponed due to “unforeseen circumstances,” and is expected to start instead on Thursday morning. The process may take several days, given the notoriety and complexity of the case, which could increase the likelihood that the defense or prosecution may want to exclude certain potential jurors.
