Yella Beezy Begins Defense After Judge Refuses To Dismiss MO3 Case

Yella Beezy‘s defense began presenting its case Monday, November 9, after Judge Chika Anyiam rejected a request to dismiss the MO3 capital murder case in Dallas for lack of evidence.

Prosecutors had rested after Detective Eric Barnes finished testifying. The defense then called Hitco Entertainment employee Lynn Scott as the defense’s first witness, according to FOX 4.

Yella Beezy, whose legal name is Markies Conway, pleaded not guilty to capital murder and denied involvement in MO3’s death. Prosecutors accused him of paying Kewon White to carry out the killing.

MO3, born Melvin Noble, was killed on Interstate 35E in Dallas on November 11, 2020. White was convicted on September 4, 2026 and sentenced to life without parole.

Earlier, Judge Anyiam excluded a jailhouse call by Kewon White that prosecutors sought to introduce.

Attorney Toby Shook also challenged Barnes over calls with witness Jose Bodega in 2025 and 2026, including one lasting 82 minutes and another lasting 70 minutes at 4:48 A.M. Barnes acknowledged keeping no written notes.

The defense suggested Bodega had received improper guidance and support. The detective denied a personal friendship with Bodega and said the witness felt isolated and threatened after being identified online. Barnes said he had never spent so much time talking with a witness.

Bodega, born Theodore Thomas, is Yella Beezy’s childhood friend and a witness who has already disavowed his own grand jury account of the alleged plot to kill MO3.

On November 2, Bodega testified under immunity and recanted the claims he had made to a grand jury on February 13, 2025.

He told jurors he fabricated his earlier account that Yella Beezy and Trapboy Freddy wanted MO3 dead.

Bodega had invoked his Fifth Amendment rights outside the jury’s presence on October 29. He had agreed to cooperate through a separate federal drug case, a connection the defense explored before the murder trial began.

Judge Anyiam had allowed prosecutors to question Bodega as a hostile witness.

The jury’s use of his earlier statements was limited: jurors could consider them when judging his credibility, not as proof that the events he had described actually happened.