Life Without Parole: What the Yella Beezy Capital-Murder Verdict Means Under Texas Law

DALLAS — Markies Conway, 35, professionally known as Yella Beezy, was unanimously convicted of capital murder on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, by a Dallas County jury in the death of Melvin Noble, 28, professionally known as MO3. Judge Chika Anyiam of Criminal District Court No. 7 sentenced him immediately to life in prison without parole.

The charge matters statewide because of the category prosecutors chose. Conway was charged with capital murder by remuneration under Texas Penal Code §19.03(a)(3), the provision that covers murder for hire. Prosecutors said Conway paid Kewon White $40,000 to carry out the killing — an allegation that, if a jury accepts it, elevates a murder charge to capital murder without any separate allegation about the manner of the shooting itself.

The sentence followed the same kind of legal logic. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in Conway's case, so under Texas Penal Code §12.31(a), life in prison without parole was the mandatory and only sentence for a capital-murder conviction. Judge Anyiam imposed it right after the verdict, with no separate sentencing phase to weigh another outcome.

The underlying crime was a midday freeway killing six years earlier. On Nov. 11, 2020, around noon, on I-35E in south Dallas near Clarendon Drive and Illinois Avenue near the Dallas Zoo, White pulled alongside Noble, stepped out masked, and chased him on foot while firing more than 40 rounds from an AK-47-style pistol, prosecutors said. Noble was hit 11 times and died at a hospital, and a bystander in a car was shot and survived. The verdict came exactly six years to the day after the killing. Jurors saw dashcam video and heard a 911 call from the scene.

To prove the remuneration allegation, prosecutors presented bank records and cell records from FBI agent Taylor Page, including records showing both phones on the same Houston towers around Nov. 3, 2020. The state also pointed to White's Google search for “yella beezy net worth” eight days before the killing, a disputed Nov. 9, 2020, text from Conway reading “don't grab no gun,” testimony from Cedric Bradley under a proffer agreement, and autopsy testimony.

The defense attacked the money trail directly. In White's earlier trial, the state had said Conway withdrew $40,000 in cash on Nov. 20, 2020, and White ultimately received $20,000, and Detective Eric Barnes conceded the cash could not be directly traced to the killing. Conway pleaded not guilty and denied involvement. His lawyers, Toby Shook and John Gussio, argued the state brought “a lot of speculation,” in Gussio's phrase, and noted that grand-jury witness Theodore Thomas, also known as Jose Bodega, had recanted.

Prosecutors framed the motive as a feud dating to 2017, which Detective Barnes traced to a 2017 online dispute involving comedian Roy Lee Pate, a friend of MO3. Conway was shot three times in October 2018 while driving on the Sam Rayburn Tollway in Lewisville and survived; prosecutors used that history as motive context only. In closing, they played a 2019 interview clip in which Conway talked about getting his “lick back,” and prosecutor Krystal Biggins said: “Over a rap beef, we are here for capital murder.”

Conway was not the first defendant decided in the case. White was unanimously convicted of capital murder on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, after an eight-day trial, and Judge Anyiam sentenced him to life without parole; he has filed a notice of appeal and a new-trial motion alleging a sleeping juror, with no ruling reported. Before White's sentencing, Noble's mother forgave him in a victim-impact statement — “I love you” — and he cried. A third defendant, Devin Brown, is charged with capital murder, has pleaded not guilty, and awaits trial; prosecutors alleged he helped track Noble, while Conway's defense pointed to Brown as an alternative suspect.

The road to Wednesday's verdict was long. White was arrested Dec. 9, 2020, and Brown in April 2021. Conway was not indicted until March 18, 2025, and was arrested March 20, 2025; Judge Gracie Lewis reduced his $2 million bond to $750,000, and he was released March 28, 2025, on house arrest and monitoring, remaining free on bond through the trial before being taken into custody after the verdict. Jury selection began Oct. 26, 2026; testimony ran 11 days; closings were Tuesday, Nov. 10; and deliberations, which began Wednesday at about 9 a.m., ended with a verdict after several hours. Prosecutor Tommy Adams said jurors “got it right,” and Shook is planning an appeal — none has been filed.

Both men at the center of the case were Texas rappers whose careers were cut across by it. Conway, from Oak Cliff in Dallas, broke through with “That's On Me” in 2017 and “Bacc At It Again” in 2019 with Quavo and Gucci Mane, signed with L.A. Reid's Hitco Entertainment, and opened for Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Noble, from North Dallas, released the Shottaz mixtape in 2014, built his signature song “Errybody” into a 2019 remix with Boosie Badazz, gathered more than 800,000 Instagram followers, and released Badazz MO3 in February 2020. Noble's mother was the trial's first witness, and many in the courtroom, including Conway's young son, were crying when the verdict came in, according to WFAA. There were no victim-impact statements in Conway's case.