The Justice Journal: Vol. 82 (English)

The Justice Journal: Vol. 82

A look at cases recently prosecuted by the Dallas County Criminal District Attorney's Office.

State vs. Kewon White

Capital Murder

Lead: Tommy Adams

2nd Chair: Krystal Biggins

Additional Prosecutors: Marissa Hatchett, Ric Vela

DA Investigators: Lt. Seancory Patton, Sr. Sgt. Raul Obregon, Sr. Sgt. Alex Lipsey

DA Forensic Financial Analyst: DeAnna Debenport

DA Victim Advocate: Sandra Walker

DA Paralegals: Maria Cantrell, Ayleanna Westbrooks

Additional Help: Chris Cec, Tamika Coy

Investigating Agencies: Det./Task Force Officer Eric Barnes, Mt. Pleasant Police Department, FBI CAST, FBI NTRCFL, ATF and US Attorneys Office Northern District of Texas

On November 11, 2020, Dallas rapper Melvin Noble, professionally known as MO3, was shot and killed in broad daylight on Interstate 35E. Noble was traveling northbound when another vehicle approached his vehicle. A masked gunman exited that vehicle and pursued Noble on foot. Noble attempted to flee, but the gunman caught up with him and shot him multiple times with an assault-style rifle. Noble died from his injuries.

The investigation initially focused on identifying the shooter, however, as investigators continued to follow the evidence, they realized this murder was connected to a larger well-organized plan in which Melvin Noble was killed for remuneration or the promise of remuneration. Investigators learned this stemmed from ongoing conflicts between Noble and another well-known Dallas rapper, Markies Conway, professionally known as Yella Beezy. Investigators gathered surveillance footage, witness accounts, digital evidence, cellphone records, jail calls and financial records that identified Kewon White as the shooter in this well thought out murder-for-hire.

Kewon White was found guilty be a jury of Capital Murder. He is the first of several defendants to be tried in court.

GUILTY and sentenced to LIFE in prison without the possibility of parole.

State vs. Rashonda Lowe

Murder

Lead: David Isaacks

2nd Chair: Mackensie Pfleger

DA Investigator: Tom McGrath

DA Victim Advocate: Sydney Yrlas

Investigating Agency: Dallas Police Department

The defendant met the victim. Jaime Rokkett, on a dating app in 2018. In 2022, she learned the victim was married. Over the next three years she harassed the victim and his family in-person, via phone calls, text messages, a false police report and a civil lawsuit. On July 1, 2025, she went to the victim’s business at Red Bird Mall to speak with him. After remaining there for nearly two hours and continually telling the victim that she did not want to live her life without him, she shot him eight times.

In a slow plea, the defendant argued that she only shot the victim because he confessed to molesting her teenage daughter. There was no evidence presented to corroborate the defendant’s allegation, including her own statement from the day of the murder that the victim had never even raised his voice at her over the past seven years.

The defendant pleaded guilty. The jury sentenced her to life in prison.

GUILTY plea and sentenced to LIFE in prison.

State vs. Paul Cramer

Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child Under 14

Lead: Megan Bisacca

2nd Chair: Samantha Jackson

DA Investigator: Rhonda Richeson

DA Appellate Support: Anna Kubalak, Marisa Elmore

DA Victim Advocate: Vicenta Tapia

Investigating Agency: Carrollton Police Department

The jury found the defendant guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child after 12 minutes of deliberation and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole in six minutes.

GUILTY and sentenced to LIFE in prison without the possibility of parole.

State vs. Gregory Escobarliendo

Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon – Serious Bodily Injury/Family Violence

Lead: David Isaacks

2nd Chair: Rachel Champion

DA Investigator: JD Williams

DA Victim Advocate: Sharon Counts

Investigating Agency: Dallas Police Department

The defendant and victim met through a mutual friend and quickly began a dating relationship that lasted about a month. The night before the assault, the victim and her friend went out to the club without the defendant and the defendant texted them several times throughout the night stating that he was going to kill the victim. The next morning, the defendant showed up at the victim’s apartment and proceeded to stab her ten times with a flathead screwdriver. The victim suffered stab wounds to her eye, ribs, and back resulting in complete vision loss to her eye and a collapsed lung. The victim’s friend found her lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.

After the assault, the defendant fled the scene and tried to hide by jumping off a bridge into a creek bed. The defendant broke his leg from the fall. He then called 911, stating he had just committed a homicide and that he needed an ambulance for his leg. Thankfully, the victim survived.

GUILTY and sentenced to 39 years in prison.

State vs. Gilbert Franco

Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon – Family Violence

Lead: Miranda Salazar

2nd Chair: Cassidy Richardson

DA Investigator: John Ludwigs

Investigating Agency: Dallas Police Department and Hurst Police Department

While held captive in a commercial garage without access to a phone over several days, the defendant strangled and beath the victim with a curtain rod, hammer, wrench and metal flashlight.

On December 3, 2024, the victim showed up on her parents’ doorstep battered and bruised. Her parents immediately took her to the ER where she would spend the next week recovering from multiple broken bones and a lacerated spleen.

After reuniting with the defendant, the abuse continued, leading the victim’s parents to file a missing person’s report. One night, the victim texted her father for help. On June 26, 2024, Dallas Police responded to the location, found the victim and arrested the defendant.

While preparing for trial, jail calls were discovered in which the defendant vowed to wait as long as it took to kill the victim’s whole family, ordered his mother to go to the victim’s house multiple times, and crafted new stories for his own father who drove the victim to her parents’’ house that December morning.

There were also multiple police reports from over the years documenting the defendant picking fights and causing problems in numerous cities around DFW. The mothers of both of the defendant’s children and his daughter all came in to testify against him during the punishment phase and gave their own stories of what they have endured at the hands of the defendant.

Ultimately, the defendant pleaded guilty the morning of trial.

GUILTY plea and sentenced to 20 years in prison + affirmative findings of family violence and deadly weapon.

State vs. Jakoi Rice

Manufacture/Delivery of a Controlled Substance PG 1>=4G to-wit: Methamphetamine

Lead: Izaak Day

2nd Chair: Michael Chang

DA Investigator: Bonita Morgan

Investigating Agency: Dallas Police Department

This case was the largest drug bust in the history of Dallas Love Field Airport with 81 kilograms of meth, worth more than $8.1 million.

Dallas Police Interdiction Investigators at Dallas Love Field Airport had a K-9 alert to narcotics in luggage that was being transferred on a connecting flight between Los Angeles (LAX) and Birmingham, Alabama (BHM). Officers searched the luggage and after further investigation discovered a total of nine suitcases, each containing nearly nine kilograms of methamphetamines split between five defendants. Investigators arrested each defendant, including Jakoi Rice, many of whom had already boarded planes to depart.

Further investigation revealed Defendant Rice appeared to have brought at least two of the co-defendants into the scheme based on their lack of flight history compared to repeated similar flights. Defendant Rice had no prior felony convictions. In total, nearly 180 pounds of methamphetamines were seized.

The defendants pleaded guilty and went to the Court for punishment.

GUILTY plea and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

State vs. Ladarious Griffin

Manslaughter

Lead: Rachel Warner

2nd Chair: Priscilla Pelli

DA Appellate Support: Anna Kubalak

DA Investigators: Ron Cathcart, Eric Knight

Investigating Agency: Dallas Police Department Vehicular Crimes Unit

On March 20, 2025, around 8pm, the defendant was driving on Skillman in Dallas and going 88 mph in a 40-mph zone. Kari Krakowski was attempting to turn left and was t-boned in the passenger side of her car where her mother Janet was sitting. They had been to dinner for her mom’s 70th birthday. Kari and her brother had to pull their mother off life support a few days later.

Crash reconstruction showed that the defendant’s vehicle was 565 feet (almost two football fields) away when Kari started to turn left.

At the time of the crash, the defendant was out on bond for two family violence offenses: Assault Family Violence impede breath and Deadly Conduct Discharge Firearm. The defendant also had an extensive motor vehicle history of speeding tickets and driving with an invalid license.

GUILTY and sentenced to 15 years in prison.