Tyrone Steele is a teen killer from New Orleans who would be convicted of four murders and acquitted on another murder
According to court documents Tyrone Steele was on a one man crime spree where during a month period he would cause the deaths of five people
- Donald McNeil would be murdered on February 9 2022 and his possessions would be stolen (Tyrone Steel would be acquitted of this murder
- Darrin Williams would be murdered as he slept on March 21 2022
- As the same time Darrin Williams was killed Tyrone would also fatally shoot Nehemiah Jones, 24, and Amya Cornin, 21
- Shane Brown would be murdered on March 26 2022 before his vehicle was stolen
Tyrone Steele would be arrested, convicted of four murders and acquitted of the Donald McNeil murder. Steele will be sentenced at a later date where he faces a mandatory life sentence
Tyrone Steele Case
Tyrone Steele slayed friends and strangers in a more than monthlong murder spree, collecting “trophies” from each of his five victims, Orleans Parish prosecutors argued this week in his trial.
But a defense attorney claimed that Steele himself was a victim, one failed by a shoddy investigation lacking DNA evidence, eyewitness testimony and other records.
A jury deliberated for about four hours Thursday before finding Steele guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, while acquitting him on one count of second-degree murder.
Steele, who was 18 at the time of the killings, was also found guilty of aggravated burglary, conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary and discharging a firearm during a violent act; he was acquitted of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and one count of discharging a firearm during a violent act.
Prosecutors said Steele’s deadly streak began on Feb. 9, 2022, with the shooting death of 18-year-old Donald McNeil. Steele allegedly shot McNeil in the back of the head, leaving his body to rot in an abandoned 7th Ward home, stealing his phone, said Assistant District Attorney Corbin Bates. But the jury acquitted Steele in McNeil’s death.
On March 21, 2022, Steele allegedly sneaked into an Encampment Street apartment with an accomplice, slaying Darrin Williams, 27, as he slept on a sofa. Steele also shot to death Nehemiah Jones, 24, and Amya Cornin, 21, then took Cornin’s gold bracelet, Bates told the jury.
Steele sought to kill Williams after the young men exchanged gunfire weeks earlier outside a local meat market, the prosecutor said.
Finally, he claimed, Steele shot Shane Brown, 20, in the back of the head on March 26, 2022, then dumped his body in a Little Woods canal, taking Brown’s bloody Nissan Altima as he fled.
The jury found Steele guilty in each of those four killings.
A confessed killing
Prosecuting the case with District Attorney Jason Williams and Assistant District Attorney Corey Tassin, Bates offered no motive for the alleged murders of McNeil or Brown, Steele’s friends.
Bates claimed Steele had called his grandmother from McNeil’s phone after his death, linking him to the killing.
The jury watched surveillance footage that prosecutors said showed Steele outside the Encampment Street apartment, and in Brown’s sedan. Steele’s DNA was later found inside.
Ballistic testing showed that bullet casings found at Spider’s Meat Market, where Steele and Williams had warred weeks before, matched the casings found in and around Williams’ body, Bates said.
Social media posts also appeared to connect Steele to some of the killings.
In one post, Steele wrote, “I hit Duke, lil Mya and his bitch.” Duke was Williams’ nickname, while “Mya” stood for Nehemiah Jones, the prosecutor said.
“You can believe his words when he confesses,” Bates told the jurors.
‘Selective storytelling’
Jerome Matthews, Steele’s defense attorney, said prosecutors presented jurors with a puzzle “missing critical pieces,” including phone records to substantiate their claims that Steele had used McNeil’s phone after his death.
“They could have shown you a cell phone bill or some type of record to prove to you that actually happened, but they did not,” Matthews said.
Also missing, he said, was evidence that Steele had ever possessed the weapon tied to the deaths of Williams, Jones and Cornin. Of the six guns confiscated from Steele at his arrest, none were the murder weapon.
Matthews also accused prosecutors of “selective storytelling” in an attempt to sway the jurors.
He pointed to the shooting between Steele and Williams at Spider’s Meat Market. That incident involved four suspects, Matthews said. But prosecutors only acknowledged the presence of others during the cross examination of a New Orleans police detective, he claimed.
Instead, prosecutors zeroed in on only Steele and Williams, Matthews said, so that they could “put Tyrone at the center [of the crime], regardless of the evidence.”
He asked the jury to “prioritize truth over expediency … and demand evidence over assumption.”
Steele, now 20, faces a mandatory life-in-prison sentence.
Outside the courthouse Thursday evening, Williams, the district attorney, said his office had removed “one of the most violent predators that I’ve ever seen” from New Orleans’ streets.
That didn’t satisfy McNeil’s mother, Larisse Smith, who left the court screaming in protest over the jury’s lone acquittal.