Kewon White, charged with capital murder, enters the courtroom for a trial on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas.
White is accused of shooting down Dallas rapper MO3 in an ambush on Interstate 35.
A man who prosecutors say was hired by Dallas-area rapper Yella Beezy to kill another local rapper over a violent, years-long feud was found guilty of capital murder Friday.
Following the jury’s finding late Friday, State District Judge Chika Anyiam sentenced 27-year-old Kewon White to life in prison without the chance of release.
The term was the last alternative left under Texas law after the Dallas County district attorney’s office declined to seek the death penalty.
Melvin Noble, commonly known as MO3, was shot and killed on November 11, 2020, during a daytime ambush on Interstate 35 near the Dallas Zoo exit.
The 28-year-old rapper was struck 13 times and pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after.
Surveillance film from a dashboard-mounted camera on a nearby Kroger delivery truck showed the moment Noble stopped his sedan in the middle of the highway, exited, and was pursued into oncoming traffic by a shooter wearing a ski mask and brandishing an assault-style rifle.
White was charged a few weeks later, after police revealed screenshots of the gunman in the delivery truck film. Conway was not charged until last year, when a grand jury indicted him for capital murder.
Toby Shook, a defense attorney, discusses with his client rapper Yella Beezy during a motions hearing in his capital murder trial at the Frank Crowley Courthouse in Dallas on Thursday, July 16, 2026.
Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, is accused of being involved in a murder-for-hire plan in 2020 against fellow North Texas rapper Melvin Noble, also known as MO3.
Toby Shook, a defense attorney, discusses with his client, rapper Yella Beezy, during a motions hearing in his capital murder trial at the Frank Crowley Courthouse in Dallas on Thursday, July 16, 2026.
Beezy, whose real name is Markies Conway, is accused of being involved in a murder-for-hire plan in 2020 against fellow North Texas rapper Melvin Noble, also known as MO3.
Devin Brown and Jerry Johnson, two people with ties to White and Conway, are also charged in the investigation. White was the first defendant to be tried.
The trial dates for the others have not been established. All three have pleaded not guilty.
Noble’s mother, Nichole Noble, gave a victim impact statement before the sentence was handed down. White wept as she talked.
“I love you,” Nichole Noble told him. “Maybe that’s what you needed to hear, and you were looking for love with people that don’t love you.”
During closing statements on Friday, White’s defense team stunned many by suggesting that their client may be guilty of murder but not capital murder.
If convicted of murder, White may have received a life sentence, but he would still be eligible for parole.
At the conclusion of their remarks, defense attorneys Myra McIntosh and Bree West requested the jury to find their client not guilty of capital murder, but did not address whether he should be convicted of murder.
To be convicted of the more serious charge, the state would have to show that Conway either paid or promised to pay White for the assassination, according to the lawyers.
Lead prosecutor Tommy Adams contended that the evidence proving Conway paid for the murder was overwhelming.
Noble and Conway’s feud began in 2017 with a series of social media interactions that escalated into various violent episodes between the two men and their associates, including one in which Conway was critically injured in a drive-by gunshot on a North Texas tollway.
Conway saw White as “expendable” and “disposable,” according to Adams. The rapper was in Los Angeles at the time Noble was killed, with a 27-day stay scheduled.
He returned to the Dallas region in the middle of his stay after White complained about not being paid, claiming that what happened to Noble “will happen to other people.”
Adams claimed Conway returned to the Dallas region on November 22 and took $40,000 from his bank. He flew back to Los Angeles soon after.
FBI Special Agent Taylor Page testified Friday about the considerable information he was able to gather about the defendants’ activities and communications by reviewing their cell phone records.
According to Page, White drove a black Camaro to an apartment complex where Noble was staying the night before the murder and stayed for 18 hours while conversing with co-defendant Devin Brown.
When Noble drove away the next day, the Camaro was spotted following him. The agent stated that both men’s cell phones were traveling in the same direction.
On the freeway, the gunman is seen exiting a black Camaro. White’s phone then travels to an area where chop shops tear down autos for pieces, according to Page.
White’s phone immediately shuts off and never turns back on, he said. Surveillance footage from a place where White was staying the day before the shooting showed him wearing drooping pants and an unusual blue underwear color.
The gunman on the highway is wearing the same color underwear under his sagging jeans.
The video also shows White burning garments on a grill in the hours following the shooting.