A Lie’s Reckoning

Last Wednesday, Jessicah Black sat in a Forsyth County courtroom, her face tear-stained, her voice raw, trying to rectify a lie she said she told nearly 23 years ago. 

She testified that she’d told the lie after Winston-Salem police detectives screamed at her for more than an hour until she gave them what they wanted—a statement that would seal the fates of five teenage boys she’d befriended.

Brothers Nathaniel Cauthen and Rayshawn Banner and their friends Christopher Bryant, Jermal Tolliver, and Dorrell Brayboy were accused of brutally beating Nathaniel Jones, the grandfather of NBA star Chris Paul, in his East Winston-Salem home during an attempted robbery in November 2002. Jones was found lying face-down on the floor of his carport next to his Lincoln Town Car, his wallet missing, his hands tied behind his back with black tape, and his mouth taped shut. He died of a cardiac arrhythmia triggered by the attack. 

Jones was the proprietor of what was believed to be the first Black-owned gas station in North Carolina and was a beloved and well-known member of the community, Paul wrote in his 2023 book, Sixty-One: Life Lessons From Papa, On and Off the Court. Winston-Salem police initially followed several leads, including that of a boy who said he saw a Hispanic man running from Jones’ yard around the time of the attack. 

But four days after Jones’ death, Winston-Salem police narrowed their search to the five teenagers when the mother of one of them told police her son had been acting strangely since Jones’ death. Police pulled all five into separate interrogation rooms, where the boys later said they were coerced into giving false confessions. Four said police threatened them with the death penalty, even though North Carolina had eliminated it for juveniles in 1987. At the time, Banner was 14 and the rest were 15. 

There was no definitive physical evidence, including DNA or fingerprints, tying the boys to the crime scene, and their statements were inconsistent both with each other’s and with what physical evidence the police did have. The boys couldn’t agree on where they left Jones’ body, who participated in the beating, or what weapons were used. 

Black was a 16-year-old who had started hanging out with the boys a few months before Jones’ death. After school, she would drive her 1986 Mercury Cougar from her Davidson County home to Winston-Salem to cruise around town with them and smoke marijuana. 

She became the state’s most critical witness in two trials—one in 2004 and another in 2005—that led to all five boys being convicted and sent to prison. At both, she testified that the day Jones died, the boys had talked about robbing someone and that she had driven them to the park near Jones’ house. She also said that earlier, she had taken the boys to two stores where they bought the black tape they used to tie Jones up. She testified that she sat on a park bench, her back turned to Jones’ house, and could hear the boys yell at Jones while they beat him. She said she also heard Jones scream for help. Black now says none of that was true. 

Cauthen and Banner, who were convicted of first-degree murder, are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Bryant, Tolliver, and Brayboy were convicted of second-degree murder. Bryant and Tolliver served about 12 years in prison before they were released in 2017; Brayboy was released in 2018 and was killed a year later. 

All five have long claimed innocence, and the four living men filed claims with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission between 2015 and 2020, which led to a hearing before a three-judge panel in April 2022. The judges upheld their convictions, but the four filed new appeals in Forsyth Superior Court that resulted in the three-week evidentiary hearing that concluded last Friday. 

Superior Court Judge Robert Broadie said he would issue a ruling at a later date, but did not provide a timeline. The men’s attorneys have asked Broadie to either vacate their convictions or dismiss their charges. Broadie also could order a new trial. 

Just as she was more than 20 years ago, Black was a key witness in the hearing, testifying for two days last week. But now her story has changed. Six years ago, she recanted the earlier testimony to former Houston Chronicle reporter Hunter Atkins in a phone interview and then later at an IHOP restaurant in Winston-Salem. She has told the same story about her recantation under oath multiple times since then, including last week. 

She says Winston-Salem police officers cajoled and threatened her into giving the statement that sent the five teenagers to prison. She said officers called her a liar when she tried to tell them she didn’t believe the boys had anything to do with Jones’ death. Black said the officers lied to her about finding DNA in her car, and that they told her she would be charged with accessory to murder if she didn’t cooperate.

Then just a teen herself, she said she felt terrified and trapped. The only escape route she saw was to tell the officers what she thought they wanted to hear. 

“I started changing my story because I wanted to go home,” she said. 

Back Before the Court

On the stand last Wednesday, Black, 38, was inconsolable. At times, she was combative. At others, she collapsed into tears. 

Late in the day, prosecutor Mark Parent played the 33-minute audio recording of her statement to Winston-Salem police back in November 2002. The other hour and a half she spent in questioning was not recorded. As was the policy at the time, Winston-Salem police didn’t tape all of their interviews with juveniles; they would only record when a young person was ready to give a formal statement. 

In the recording, Black’s voice is soft and calm as officers ask her questions to clarify her statement. The most powerful part of the statement is Black telling officers that she could hear the boys’ voices telling Jones to “get the fuck down” and “give me that shit” from where she sat on a bench in Belview Park. 

Last week, Black laid her head down on the witness stand and sobbed while she listened to her 16-year-old self make the statement that landed the boys in prison. Earlier during her testimony, the judge took a 15-minute break when Black seemed unable to continue. She later testified that her doctor prescribed anxiety medication just for her to get through the testimony. 

When Parent raised questions about her claims that police intimidated her, she lashed out. 

“You don’t know because you haven’t been through it,” she said. 

Parent argued that Black had been consistent in all of her testimony in the 2004 and 2005 trials, and he spent much of Wednesday trying to punch holes in Black’s recantation. Black has previously testified that before the second trial, prosecutors gave her a transcript of what she said in the first one as a way of ensuring she wouldn’t go off-script.

There were obvious flaws in her testimony at the trials, though. The stores she said the group visited did not sell the kind of tape used to tie up Jones, and at least one of the stores did not have surveillance camera footage of any of the boys on the day Black said she took them. 

Much of Parent’s focus was on Black’s interactions with Atkins, the reporter. 

Atkins began contacting Black through Facebook in January 2018. At first, she either ignored him or told him to leave her alone. She wouldn’t agree to talk to him, even when he told her he had contacted her friends and family. At the time, Black said she was going through a rough patch, one of many she has had over the years. She had no permanent home and some minor run-ins with the law. She also struggled with health issues. 

When Atkins finally got her on the phone and later met her in person at an IHOP in Winston-Salem in April 2019, Black was either living in her car or crashing in a motel with a guy she was seeing. She said Atkins told her that he had been investigating the case and had determined she had given false testimony at the two trials. He also told her that there was no definitive physical evidence tying the men to the crime and that the men claimed police pressured them into making false confessions. Atkins told her that police never found any DNA in her car.

Black testified Wednesday that she kept telling Atkins she had put this whole thing behind her. She made herself forget about the case, the boys, and Nathaniel Jones.

But during that meeting at IHOP, she said, she finally relented and told Atkins that she had lied all those years ago. 

Black said she told Atkins that the officers manipulated her. They threatened to charge her with accessory to murder, she told him. She said officers told her she could be sent away to prison for life. 

“The tactics that they were using in that room, they were wrong,” she said. 

Parent claimed Atkins had manipulated her, detailing nearly 50 pages of text and Facebook exchanges between the reporter and Black, many of them one-sided because Black did not respond.

But there was a flurry of messages months after the IHOP meeting between the two as Atkins sought to pay Black’s $200 car payment. Black told Parent she never asked Atkins to make that payment; he offered it. 

Parent also pointed out that Atkins had paid for her food and her birthday cake at IHOP (the meeting took place days after her birthday). He argued that Black’s recantation is not based on what she actually remembered; it’s based on information that Atkins gave to her. 

Atkins has become a controversial figure in the case. He told the Innocence Inquiry Commission board in 2020 that he initially began working on a feature story about Paul and his relationship with Jones after Paul was traded to the Houston Rockets in 2017. It then morphed into an investigative story about the five men’s wrongful-conviction claims, he said. The Innocence Inquiry commission became aware of Black’s recantation to Atkins while investigating the men’s claims, leading to her sworn deposition to commission staff in October 2019. 

Atkins left the Houston Chronicle in February 2020, and now works as a communications consultant for a renewable energy company, according to his LinkedIn page. Former Houston Chronicle executive editor Stephen Riley told The Assembly in 2023 that editors knew Atkins was working on a story about the case, but were not aware that he had made any kind of payment arrangements with a source. That would have been an ethical no-no, Riley said. He declined to say why Atkins left the paper. Atkins never published a story about the case, even though he insisted to Black that he would. 

Parent then argued that Atkins wasn’t the only one influencing Black’s testimony. He asked Black whether any of the men’s attorneys had bought her lunch while she was in Winston-Salem. She said she didn’t know; all she knew was that when she asked for food, it was brought to her. 

“You think I’m doing testimony over a burger?” Black told Parent. “Be for real.”

Free Yet Still Imprisoned

During closing arguments, Judge Broadie asked the prosecution how it would benefit Black to lie now. She risks perjury charges if it is found out that either she is lying now or lied at trial. She has given a sworn deposition and testified under oath in three hearings in the past six years. 

Black has said that after her 2020 testimony in front of the Innocence Commission board, she and her family, including her son, received online death threats. Parent said Black was also scared of the five men she’d sent to prison.

Atkins had told her that he was planning to run a story with her name attached, whether she cooperated or not. And at that time, there was a pending investigation with the Innocence Inquiry Commission that threatened to put Black back in the public eye. Once she recanted her story to Atkins, there was no easy way to walk it back again, Parent argued. 

Parent also claimed Black is a true-crime watcher and is seeking relevance in that world, pointing out that she participated in Counter Clock, a podcast that recently featured the case. (This reporter was also interviewed for the podcast.)

Broadie asked Parent to explain why Black would lie about police telling her DNA from skin had been found in her car. Parent said police seized her car and there’s no way police could have processed the car, obtained DNA samples, and had them analyzed before detectives interviewed Black. 

But Parent’s explanation doesn’t account for the possibility that the police detectives may have just lied to Black. Law-enforcement officials are legally permitted to exaggerate the evidence against possible suspects during an interrogation, including with juveniles. 

Attorney Chris Mumma, who represents Cauthen and Banner, urged Broadie to overturn the convictions and offer freedom for the four surviving men: “The criminal justice system didn’t work for them, and even if relief is granted, it still cannot be said that the justice system worked for them.” 

Mumma also said she wants to free Black, who appears to still be traumatized by what happened nearly 23 years ago. 

During the many times Black became consumed with emotion, Parent asked her if she needed a minute. Black, wiping her face with tissue, said she wanted to finish her testimony. 

And when she finally stepped down Wednesday afternoon, she looked as if she hoped this would be the last time she had to.

Michael Hewlett is a staff reporter at The Assembly. He was previously the legal affairs reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal. You can reach him at michael@theassemblync.com.