Yella Beezy Convicted of Capital Murder in Mo3's Killing

A Dallas County jury on Wednesday unanimously convicted the rapper Yella Beezy — born Markies Conway, 35 — of capital murder by remuneration, finding that he hired the gunman who killed fellow Dallas rapper Mo3, the Associated Press reported. Judge Chika Anyiam sentenced Conway immediately to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the mandatory sentence under Texas law because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

The verdict came on November 11 — exactly six years to the day after Melvin Noble, who performed as Mo3, was shot to death in midday traffic on Interstate 35E. The jury deliberated more than four hours after 11 days of testimony, WFAA reported, and jurors were given no lesser offense to weigh: the choice was capital murder or acquittal.

As the hearing closed, Conway asked the judge for permission to kiss his young son goodbye. Anyiam left the decision to the bailiff — "If they'll let you," she said, according to XXL — but the boy, who had been crying in the courtroom, had already been taken out.

A shooting in midday traffic

Around noon on November 11, 2020, Noble was driving on I-35E in south Dallas when, prosecutors said, Kewon White pulled alongside his car, stepped out masked and opened fire with an AK-47-style pistol — more than 40 rounds — then chased Noble on foot as he ran. A bystander in another vehicle was also struck and survived. Noble was taken to a hospital, where he died.

The state's case: $40,000 and a feud

Prosecutors built their case on a payment and a motive. The payment was $40,000, which they said Conway gave White to carry out the killing. The motive was a years-long feud between the two Dallas artists. According to the AP, prosecutors played the jury a clip of Conway saying he would "get his lick back," and prosecutor Krystal Biggins, in closing, compared the killing to an October 2018 shooting on a Lewisville tollway that left Conway wounded three times. Biggins also named Jerry Johnson as a middleman who helped funnel the payments.

The state's witnesses included Theodore (Jose Bodega) Thomas, a childhood friend of Conway's whose grand jury answers helped produce the indictment. On the stand, Thomas repeatedly pleaded the Fifth, then testified that he had fabricated parts of his grand jury account — testimony the defense used to attack the foundations of the case, according to XXL's trial reporting.

The defense's answer

Conway pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers told the jury the state had connected dots that were never proven to touch him. "This is capital murder, and the state has brought you a lot of speculation," defense attorney John Gussio said in closing, according to the AP. The defense attacked the money trail directly: the $40,000 bank withdrawal at the center of the state's theory came nine days after the shooting, on November 20, 2020, and Detective Eric Barnes acknowledged that investigators could not directly trace the cash recovered in the case to that withdrawal.

After the verdict, defense attorney Toby Shook said the fight is not finished. "We're going to keep fighting. We have excellent appellate points," Shook said, according to FOX 4.

Two more cases on the docket

Conway is the second man convicted in Noble's killing. White was convicted of capital murder in September 2026 and received the same sentence: life without parole. A third defendant, Devin Brown — whom prosecutors described as the tipster in the plot — is charged but has not been tried. His trial is scheduled for later this month, and his case is separate from Wednesday's verdict.

"We think they got it right today," lead prosecutor Tommy Adams said after the verdict, according to the AP, calling it "one of the most challenging cases over the last six years."

Who Mo3 was

Noble built a national audience out of Dallas — more than 800,000 Instagram followers, and, as the AP recounted in its verdict report, a 2019 remix of Errybody with Boosie Badazz that became his signature record, and a Kevin Gates remix of Broken Love that was certified double platinum. His posthumous Outside remix with OG Bobby Billions reached No. 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. Conway's own career ran on the same city's stages — That's On Me in 2017, Bacc At It Again with Quavo and Gucci Mane in 2019 — and prosecutors argued the feud between the two men ran alongside it, until it ended on the interstate.