An Alamance County jury has acquitted Tyshawn Esamuel Wiley, 20, of two counts of first-degree murder in the August 25, 2022 shooting deaths of Melvin Wiley and Malik Martin, both 16. Martin was murdered hours after his 16th birthday party.
[Story continues below photo of defendant and murder victims.]
DEFENDANT: TYSHAWN ESAMUEL WILEY
MURDER VICTIMS: MELVIN WILEY AND MALIK MARTIN
Jurors deliberated approximately seven hours, after they returned from their lunch break Monday afternoon and much of the following day, before announcing their verdicts Tuesday afternoon.
Wiley had confessed to both murders during a one hour, 45-minute interview with Graham police investigators on September 20, 2022 but entered pleas of not guilty to both counts late last year.
A co-defendant in the case, Kymoni Melendez-Poteat, 18, formerly of 906 East Hanover Road, Apartment A, Graham, pleaded guilty in Alamance County superior court in October 2025 to two counts of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or inflict serious injury, according to a transcript of his plea. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus a consecutive sentence approximately seven to 10 years, and is currently incarcerated at Foothills Correctional Institution in Morganton, according to the state Department of Adult Corrections.
Jurors heard the testimony and evidence in the case last week, including approximately 115 pieces of evidence assembled by investigators. Wiley also testified in his defense last week.
Wiley’s attorney, Lisa Noda of Greensboro introduced a motion to dismiss the charges on Thursday and a subsequent motion to introduce all of the evidence on Friday. Alamance County senior resident superior court judge Andrew (“Andy”) Hanford presided over the trial and denied both motions.
Defense: ‘He made a dumb decision to confess to a murder he did not commit’
On Monday morning, the jury heard closing arguments from Noda and Alamance County district attorney Sean Boone, who prosecuted both cases against Wiley and Melendez-Poteat.
“‘Because “I’m a dumb[expletive]; I make dumb[expletive] decisions.’ He drove with his pregnant girlfriend to pick up [Melendez-Poteat, then 14, and a second defendant in the case] to smoke,” Noda told the jury during her closing argument in Alamance County superior court Monday morning. “On September 20, he made a dumb decision to walk into [the Graham police department] and confess to a murder he did not commit.”
Noda contended that Wiley had thought he would be able to prevent his girlfriend, Lora Flynt, from being charged as an accessory to first-degree murder, for her role in driving to pick Melendez-Poteat up, and therefore would keep his unborn child from being born in a prison. Flynt was never charged in connection with the two teens’ murders.
Wiley had said, during a brief, initial interview with Graham police detective Noah Sakin on September 12, 2022, that denied giving Melendez-Poteat a ride to Martin’s birthday party and denied meeting Melendez-Poteat, Melvin Wiley, Martin, and Kameron (“Kam”) Byrd later that night to “go smoke” (a possible reference to marijuana) and shoot guns.
“[The defendant] never puts himself anywhere near [the birthday party or Graham Village Apartments] until the evidence puts him there,” Boone said later during his closing argument, referring to Wiley’s initial interview on September 12.
In the subsequent interview on September 20, Wiley made multiple, conflicting statements to investigators but said he hadn’t gone into the wooded area at the apartment complex. Evidence introduced at the trial last week showed that the murders occurred at Graham Village Apartments at 106 East Hanover Road shortly after 1:00 a.m. on August 25, 2022, and the victim’s bodies were discovered later that day.
[To the jury Monday morning] “We do not have to give you an alternate story. We do not have to solve this murder.”
– Defense attorney Lisa Noda
“We do not have to give you an alternate story. We do not have to solve this murder,” Noda told the jury Monday morning, while acknowledging that her client had told investigators multiple versions of the events leading to the murders.
The defense attorney told the jury that, after reviewing surveillance footage from the apartment complex, every one of the investigators thought they’d seen four individuals emerging from the wooded area where the victims’ bodies were ultimately located.
“However, after Tyshawn gave his third, even fourth, version, every officer now believes there [are] five individuals,” Noda said during her closing argument.
Boone had argued that five people had gone into the wooded area at Graham Village Apartments that night: the defendant; his cousin, Melvin Wiley; Martin; Melendez-Poteat; and Byrd, then 18.
Byrd was shot in the leg with a .380 handgun, which had initially prompted Graham police to respond to the scene after receiving a report of shots fired, based on press release that the police department issued at the time. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment and was never charged.
Noda theorized during her closing argument that Byrd might’ve shot himself in order to escape scrutiny, which she said put one of two firearms from which casings were recovered at the scene – a 9mm and the .380 – in Byrd’s hands. “That is but one plausible explanation,” she told jurors Monday morning, adding that Byrd had been ruled out as a suspect because he’d been shot.
Defense contends Wiley was coaxed into confessing to spare his pregnant girlfriend
The defense attorney suggested that investigators coaxed the then-17-year-old Wiley into confessing to the murders so that his pregnant girlfriend wouldn’t be charged and his child wouldn’t be born in a prison.
Noda replayed a clip of Wiley’s September 20 interview, in which Graham police detective A.J. Inman told him, “I don’t want that baby to born inside a prison…You put a baby in this position. Bad enough, but now are you going to make her [Wiley’s girlfriend, Flynt] fall with you? They don’t let you keep babies in prison.” Inman continued to press Wiley, “Who fired this gun?”
“I can’t legally make promises to you,” Inman said during the interview, “but I can tell you, I’ve been doing this for a minute, and they typically take my word pretty seriously…I want you to tell me who pulled this trigger to this gun.”
The defense attorney told jurors Monday morning, “He heard this over and over – literally a dozen times – ‘We need to know who pulled the trigger’ so that his pregnant girlfriend doesn’t give birth in prison.”
In his fourth version of the events, Wiley told Graham police investigators, “I shot Mel in the head; I shot Malik in the stomach.” (Martin was shot in the lower back and the bullet exited from his shoulder, based on evidence and testimony introduced last week.)
“We still have this long pause by detectives; it still didn’t add up,” Noda said Monday, as she urged jurors to weigh the evidence and determine whether they found Wiley’s confession to be credible. “[He] incorporated the evidence into his story so he could make it fit…He knew his cousin had been shot in the head. He didn’t know how Malik had been shot.”
D.A.: ‘This ain’t about going to smoke a little weed’
Boone began his closing statement by replaying a four-minute 9-1-1 call from Melvin Wiley’s mother, Nakeel Rogers, as she frantically sought to locate her son the morning of August 25, 2022. “He was here last night with a group of boys.” she told the 9-1-1 telecommunicator between sobs. “He snuck out. I don’t know what to do.”
The D.A. reminded jurors, “Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and in four minutes, you have heard what a mother is: all the love, despair, sadness, all the range of emotions…If you are a parent, if your kids are grown, or even started to grow, you have heard [the saying that] ‘time is a thief.’
“Tyshawn Wiley is a thief. He took it all and then belittles everything with lie after lie after lie. Then he comes to this courtroom and tells you yet another lie.
“All the shade pointed at Byrd, the man who escapes…with his life from a gang trying to kill him. [Byrd] had a .380 in his leg – an actual bullet. So he took [Melendez-Poteat’s] gun and shot himself with it? No, that didn’t happen.
“He lies from the start; he lies in the middle; he lies at the end.”
– District attorney Sean Boone
“Tyshawn Wiley is a thief,” Boone told the jury Monday morning. “He took it all and then belittles everything with lie after lie after lie. Then he comes to this courtroom and tells you yet another lie.
All the shade pointed at Byrd, the man who escapes…with his life from a gang trying to kill him. [Byrd] had a .380 in his leg – an actual bullet. So he took [Melendez-Poteat’s] gun and shot himself with it? No, that didn’t happen.”
“He lies from the start; he lies in the middle; he lies at the end,” Boone said later in his closing argument. Even after confronted by investigators – who said the evidence showed that there was no way Martin could’ve fired first, as Wiley initially claimed – “He doubles down,” the D.A. told the jury. “He says, ‘Ain’t no way. I got two eyes, and I know how to use them.”
Boone recounted the social media messages that the defendant and his co-defendant, Melendez-Poteat, had exchanged the night of Martin’s birthday party, evidence which Boone contended had corroborated Wiley’s confession.
At 7:42 p.m. on August 24, 2022, Wiley (whose nickname was “Smooth”) and “his girl bring [Melendez-Poteat] to the party,” Boone said during his closing argument.
Shortly afterward, Melvin Wiley and Martin got into a group chat via social media with another man, “Treco,” then 20, which the investigation later revealed to be Taijon Martre Laury, black, male, of 978 Plantation Drive, Burlington. [Laury currently has two charges of felony accessory after the fact to first-degree murder pending in Alamance County superior court in connection with the case.]
“At 9:47 p.m., Treco says, ‘they goin’ die,’” the D.A. said during his closing argument, referring to a message from Laury. “11:59 [p.m.] is when this goes to [Melendez-Poteat]; 20 seconds later, [Melendez-Poteat] calls Tyshawn, gets him and his pregnant girlfriend out of bed. Why? To go smoke? Is it reasonable to think – they are just getting home, she has to be at work at 6:00 [a.m.] – and they are going to get up, just to ‘go smoke’?”
Boone pointed out that, based on photographs introduced into evidence last week, Melendez and Wiley had been “mugging for the camera” at Graham Village Apartments just a week before the murders, on August 17, and flashing gang signs.
“This ain’t about going to smoke a little weed,” the D.A. said during his closing. “This is murder. This is a hit…[Melendez-Poteat], 14, needs a ride but has a gun.”
Cell phone location data retrieved during the investigation later confirmed that the defendant had traveled to Melvin Wiley’s residence, at 922 Dixie Street in Graham, where he and Melendez-Poteat, picked up the three victims (including Byrd) at 12:45 a.m. and traveled to the end of Kelly Street to shoot guns. Byrd’s cell phone data put the group near a dumpster at the back of the apartment complex where the first gunshots were heard, Boone reminded jurors.
[Melvin Wiley] did not see it was coming. . . he thought he was with friends. It was [an] ambush. It was cold-blooded murder.”
– District attorney Sean Boone
‘The physical evidence does not lie’
Martin was shot through the back, the D.A. said. “Explain how the bullet starts at the lower back and exits out of the top [of his] shoulder. The physical evidence does not lie. That’s because Malik Martin’s ducking.”
Meanwhile, Melvin Wiley “died where he stood,” Boone said. “He did not see it was coming…he thought he was with friends. It was [an] ambush. It was cold-blooded murder.”
The D.A. argued that the defendant never told the truth until he knew he was cornered by the evidence, and then he started bargaining with investigators. “In every story he told, the defendant never says Kameron Byrd shot anyone or even held a gun at Graham Village. Kameron Byrd got shot, and the evidence was in the leg. He knows he’s stuck.”
“The only time he thought he’s getting a quid pro quo, he tells the truth,” Boone told jurors Monday morning. “He lies 21 other times.” Wiley lied four times during his September 12 interview with Sakin, nine times during his September 20 interview, and when he took the stand in his defense last week, the D.A. said.
Among the evidence recovered at the scene were two .380 casings. Melendez-Poteat had the .380 pistol, which was loaded, and had five rounds in the magazine, Boone said. Byrd carried a “9mm glock-style” handgun, which Wiley later admitted to firing during his interview with Graham investigators on September 20.
Though Martin had a .45-caliber handgun, it was unloaded, and a single bullet was recovered from Martin’s clothing. No .45-caliber casings were found at the scene. Wiley had a “rusty” .32-caliber handgun that had magazine, and no .32-caliber casings were found at the scene, the D.A. recalled Monday morning.
Martin was shot twice – including in his back, while attempting to flee – with the 9mm. Wiley was shot once in the head with the 9mm, Boone said in his closing argument.
One of the details that Graham police had intentionally omitted from an August 2022 press release about the murders – that the 9mm had come apart – could’ve only been known by the person who fired it, Boone said.
“Think: when police are trying to solve a murder, they don’t put everything in the newspaper; they don’t put everything in the press release,” Boone pointed out.
“The defendant testified that [Melendez-Poteat] tried to get somebody to retrieve it. Why? It couldn’t be traced to either [of them]. Only Tyshawn Wiley and [Melendez-Poteat] knew this detail. Ergo, only the defendant could’ve fired the gun that broke [because the evidence showed that Poteat-Melendez had fired the .380].”
“Once he told the truth, there’s no fixing it,” the D.A. told the jury. “Everything else has been a desperate attempt to reel it back in.”
Boone thanked the Graham police department and the victims’ families at the conclusion of Wiley’s trial late Tuesday afternoon.
“I believe the Graham police department did a very good investigation, and we put on everything we wanted to put on,” the D.A. told The Alamance News. “I am very proud of the police and the way that they investigated, and I am very proud of the family and the dignity that they showed in the courtroom throughout the process. They will continue to be in my prayers and hopefully everyone else’s.”
