On a cold December morning in 2012, Nicoh James Mayhew, a 25-year-old male, arrived at his mother's apartment in Capitol Heights, Maryland, with his two-year-old son. As he made his way towards the front door, carrying his child, he was ambushed and fatally shot. His young son was also wounded in the attack but survived. The sudden eruption of gunfire startled Nicoh's mother, who rushed out to the horrific scene of her son lying in a pool of blood on her driveway.
The investigation into
Nicoh's murder swiftly uncovered a sinister plot of witness retaliation orchestrated from behind prison walls. Nicoh was the star witness in the upcoming double murder trial of his own nephew, Brian Mayhew. Fearing his uncle's testimony would lead to a life sentence, Brian, already incarcerated for the 2011 killings of Anthony McKelvin and Sean Ellis, arranged for his uncle's execution. From jail, Brian Mayhew made a series of phone calls, recorded by authorities, in which he hired two men, Stanley Winston and Anthony Cannon, to carry out the murder.
The evidence against the trio was overwhelming. Prosecutors presented surveillance footage that captured two men, identified as Winston and Cannon, running into the apartment building moments after Nicoh and his son arrived. The jailhouse phone recordings were a crucial piece of evidence, capturing Brian Mayhew ordering the hit and later celebrating its completion. A maintenance worker near the scene also witnessed two men in grey-black jackets approach Nicoh with guns as he got out of his car with his son.
In February 2016, a jury found Brian Mayhew, Stanley Winston, and Anthony Cannon guilty on 45 counts, including first-degree murder. Brian Mayhew, the mastermind, was already serving a life sentence for the 2011 double murders. For his role in his uncle's death, he was sentenced to an additional life sentence without the possibility of parole, plus 85 years. Stanley Winston and Anthony Cannon were also sentenced to life in prison, with an additional 105 years. The convictions brought a measure of justice to a case that highlighted the grave dangers of witness intimidation and the cold-blooded nature of a crime that silenced a key witness and left a young child fatherless.
