Today (November 17) marks one year since Young Dolph was senselessly murdered at Makeda’s Cookies in his hometown Memphis. The investigation into the shooting that killed the 36-year-old rapper lasted weeks before an arrest warrant was issued in January for Justin Johnson, who said he would turn himself in and planned to prove his innocence. A second suspect, Cornelius Smith, was taken into custody for a separate crime that month and indicted in Dolph’s murder. Shundale Barnett was also arrested and identified as a suspect, though he went missing after being released from prison.
Johnson and Smith pled not guilty in February and appeared again in court in May. Today, a third man, 43-year-old Hernandez Govan, briefly appeared in Shelby County Criminal Court in Memphis to plead not guilty to conspiracy and first-degree murder after prosecutors alleged he “solicited the killing” of Young Dolph (real name: Adolph Robert Thornton, Jr.). Govan was arrested last week.
Per ABC News, his next court date is scheduled for December 16. Johnson and Smith are being held in jail without bond and won’t appear in court again until January 20, 2023. But Johnson and Smith received another charge. According to The Memphis Commercial Appeal, they have been charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder to go along with their previous charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, weapons charges, and theft charges.
Mia Jaye, Dolph’s longtime partner and mother to his two children, recently honored him as the one-year anniversary of his tragic death neared.
“It is hard. It is unfair. It is permanent nagging heartache,” she wrote on Instagram last week. “It is a f*cked up position to be in… and if I could have it my way, I would not be here dealing with the ins and out of loss at this magnitude. It is f*cked up that someone felt they had to right to take a man’s life when they have no ability to create life.”
See the full video below.