On the evening of April 29, 2018, a date night for Lonnie Taylor, a male known to some as 'Lil Lonnie,' and his companion, Ashanti Jones, ended in tragedy in Jackson, Mississippi. After enjoying a movie and dinner, the pair was on their way to a friend's house on Montebello Drive when their journey took a horrifying turn. As they drove, their vehicle was ambushed in a hail of gunfire.
Reacting quickly, Taylor pushed Jones down for safety as the car was riddled with bullets, causing it to swerve and crash into a nearby house. Jones, physically unharmed, waited in fear before cautiously exiting the wrecked vehicle to find Taylor unresponsive. Her desperate search for help led her to bang on the doors of nearby homes before she called 911. When investigators arrived, Lonnie Taylor was pronounced dead at the scene from a single, fatal gunshot wound to the head.
The initial investigation by the Jackson Police Department offered few immediate leads, as Jones had not seen the shooters or their vehicle. However, the crime scene yielded crucial evidence in the form of shell casings. Investigators recovered eight 7.62x39 casings, indicative of a rifle, and a single. 40-caliber casing from a handgun. The case began to take shape when a Crime Stopper's tip in May 2018 pointed to a man known as 'CBH YaYo.' This tip, along with further investigation, led law enforcement to identify Monya Davis as a suspect. The investigation eventually revealed that four individuals were allegedly in the vehicle that pursued Taylor and Jones: Monya Davis, a woman named Lewis, and two other men identified as AC and Marshun.
A significant breakthrough came in February 2019 when investigators located and questioned Lewis. She provided a statement, gave police access to her cell phone, and identified Davis, AC, and Marshun from a photographic lineup as being involved in the shooting. This information solidified the case against Davis, who had moved to Texas in August 2018. In April 2019, nearly a year after the murder, U.S. Marshals located and arrested Monya Davis in Texas. He was extradited back to Mississippi to face charges.
Monya Davis was tried and convicted of the first-degree murder of Lonnie Taylor in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Mississippi. During his trial, Davis provided a statement to the police that was played for the jury. In it, he denied being one of the shooters and claimed he had been threatened by other individuals involved, which was why he had not come forward sooner. Despite his defense, the jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. His subsequent appeal of the conviction and sentence was denied.
