On the morning of November 12, 2020, tragedy struck in the driveway of a Memphis, Tennessee home. Nancy Macdonal, a 42-year-old female, and her 39-year-old husband, Emmanuel Macdonal Sr., were shot multiple times and killed. Their son, who was in the backseat of their car at the time of the incident, was seriously injured but survived the attack. The family was reportedly on their way to a courthouse so their son could testify against a man accused of shooting him in the head earlier that year,
an injury that had left him disabled.
The investigation into the couple's murder revealed a plot to silence a witness. Investigators discovered that ten days prior to the killings, two men had approached the Macdonals and offered them $10,000 to prevent their son from testifying. The day before the fatal shooting, home surveillance footage captured one of the men leaving an envelope containing $1,000, a lawyer's business card, and a note pressuring them to have their son change his story.
On the same day as the murders, authorities arrested two men in connection with the crime at an apartment in Hickory Hill. One of the men, 60-year-old Jaja Mani, also known as Curtis Gouldin, was later indicted by a Shelby County Grand Jury on two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Nancy and Emmanuel Macdonal, and one count of attempted first-degree murder. The second man, 44-year-old Troy Clay, was indicted on a charge of coercion of a witness. A third suspect in the case was still being sought by law enforcement.
