CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – After four days of testimony, an extended holiday weekend, and almost two days of jury deliberation, brothers KyJuan Fuller and Jakarius Medley, charged with the murder of a 19-year-old, were found guilty of the lesser charge voluntary manslaughter.
On the night of Feb. 22, 2020, police responded to a shots fired call on Cranklen Circle near the Clarksville Regional Airport. Responders arrived to find Malik Madison, 19, gravely injured. He was rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and six days later, on Feb. 28, Madison died from his injuries. During the investigation, police arrested Fuller, 16 at the time, and Medley, then 18.
Both were charged with first-degree murder and related charges. On Wednesday, a jury found them guilty of voluntary manslaughter and other lesser charges.
Prosecution: $100 for a life
“$100 was all it took to take Malik Madison’s life,” Deputy District Attorney Michael Pugh told the jury as he held up the counterfeit cash. On the screen behind him was a picture of Madison smiling. A moment later, the picture of Madison’s head wound from his autopsy was displayed.
On Feb. 22, 2020, the brothers and two of their friends, one of them Alexis Nolin-Fowler and Charles “Colin” Steidiger, went to a set of Needmore Road apartments to sell some THC edibles and a vape cartridge to a then, 17-year-old named “Jack-Jack.”
Pugh said Medley was trying to show his little brother, Fuller, how to “make a play,” and after the transaction, he realized Jack-Jack had paid him with fake money. Pugh said this became about money and pride.
After a tussle between Medley and Jack-Jack, the group left in Nolin-Fowler’s car to go back to her apartment where Fuller grabbed a backpack containing a gun. They returned to the Needmore apartments, covered the Ring camera observing them, and knocked on the door before trying to kick it.
They went to a nearby convenience store to use the Wi-Fi when they received a message telling them to meet Jack-Jack at a park on Jack Miller Boulevard to fight. When they got to Jack Miller, they drove around for several minutes before stopping at an apartment on Cranklen Circle that Medley was familiar with, according to Pugh.
Witnesses claim they heard Medley say, “There he is,” before Fuller leaned out of the window of the car and shot at the window of the apartment no fewer than 11 times. Three rounds went through that window, one striking Madison in the head. Jack-Jack was not there.
“It doesn’t matter that they weren’t intending to kill Mr. Madison,” Pugh told the jury. “What matters is that Mr. Madison was shot and killed. … Jack-Jack was the intended target, unfortunately Malik Madison was the victim.”
Defense: Missing facts from Jack-Jack
“We aren’t here to seek vengeance,” Stephanie Ritchie Mize, Medley’s attorney, told the jury. “Your decision has to be made based on facts and evidence that came into the trial. Not supposing, not guessing.”
She turned the jury’s attention to the defense table where her client was sitting.
“Let’s talk about who’s not sitting here,” Ritchie Mize said, and told the jury that Nolin-Fowler was at the center of crime. “According to Alexis, her gun is in her backpack. That cheetah backpack doesn’t belong to Fuller. Her gun is in her backpack in the back seat of her car with her.”
According to testimony from Nolin-Fowler, her charges may be getting dismissed for cooperating in the trial.
Ritchie Mize told the jury the gun was brought only for protection, calling Jack-Jack a “loose cannon.” She argued that when they went to the Needmore apartments after Jack-Jack refused to give them the edibles or money, that if they were smart enough to cover the doorbell camera, then they were smart enough to know they can’t kick in a steel door.
“These aren’t professional drug dealers,” she said. “They couldn’t even afford phone service.
“There was no testimony that Dayveon Young or Malik Madison were in any way involved in this,” Ritchie Mize told the jury. “So why did Jack-Jack send them over to that area? Was he getting rid of his problem by sending it to someone else? And I’m sure his girlfriend was right in on it because we don’t see Gianna either … we don’t know, because those facts aren’t in evidence.”
Ritchie Mize pointed out that neither Gianna Urgiles nor Jack-Jack testified.
“We know why. Because they hightailed it out of Clarksville and they’re in Las Vegas now,” she said. “And I suppose there may be some shame and guilt associated with that.”
Defense: Guilty of being a reckless kid
Timothy Warren, Fuller’s attorney, argued that the state failed to prove intent. “There was no plan, nothing at all, for this child to plan or intend for somebody to get hurt,” Warren said, gesturing to his client. “You even heard the testimony from Colin (Steidiger): ‘Nobody was supposed to get hurt, we were just supposed to fight. These are the words from someone who was there, and by the way, is not sitting over there with us.”
Warren called attention to his client and brother being the only two from the group that were on trial, noting that they were the two youngest people.
He argued that Nolin-Fowler and Steidiger had conflicting testimony, and that most of what they testified to didn’t add up.
“Then, after that night, Alexis goes to Colin’s house to spend the night,” Warren told the jury. “She goes to spend the night and then they sit on the stand and tell us that they didn’t talk to each other about their story or what they were going to come up with. So, they spent the night together, but neither one of them were charged, but they never talked about anything, did they?”
Warren told the jury that the shooting was supposed to be a scare tactic, and his client was told to aim for the roof. But when he asked detectives and others if they checked the roof for bullet holes, no one was able to confirm that they did.
“You saw the Ring doorbell camera. They (state) kept insisting KyJuan was there and had a gun, but you can’t even see him there,” he said. “The only people that place him there are the two people who are not charged with crimes and aren’t sitting at this table.”
Warren encouraged the jury to go back and watch the footage as many times as it took, but they would not see his client there, much less the gun.
“There was no gun there, no attempted robbery, no attempted murder,” Warren told the jury. “Just the reckless actions of a child.”
Guilty of lesser charges
Both brothers were on trial for the same seven charges:
- Attempted aggravated burglary: Fuller was found guilty of the lesser charge of attempted aggravated criminal trespass. Medley was found guilty of the lesser charge of attempted burglary of a building.
- Possession of a firearm with intent to go armed in the attempt of a dangerous felony: Not guilty.
- Attempted first-degree murder: Guilty of the lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
- Employ firearm with the intent to go armed in the attempt of a dangerous felony: Guilty.
- First-degree murder in perpetration or attempt to perpetrate a crime: Guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
- Aggravated assault resulting in the death of another: Guilty of the lesser charge of reckless aggravated assault.
- Reckless endangerment – discharging a firearm into an occupied habitat: Guilty.
Sentencing will be Aug. 14 at the Montgomery County Courts Center.
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