Memphis Police Tie Young Dolph Murder To Double Shooting After Football Game

Local police confirmed on Monday that the car used in the murder of Memphis rapper Young Dolph was previously used to commit a similar crime.

Capt. Jack Howell of the Covington Police Department confirmed to the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Covington Leader that the car sought in the Wednesday shooting and murder of rapper Young Dolph at Makeda's Butter Cookies in Memphis appears to be the same car used in the Nov. 12 shooting of two women after a high school football game in Covington, Tennessee — 45 miles away.

In the earlier shooting, police say that three cars headed north from the high school on South College Street shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12: the first car carried junior linebacker A.C. Mason and another teenager; the second carried Darnisha Wynn McLeod, Mason's mother, and Anita Wilson, the mother of McLeod's partner; and the third was a white Mercedes Benz coupe, according to the Leader. Less than half a mile from the high school, they all reached the stop sign at Church Street. The car with the teenagers turned but, before McLeod and Wilson could follow, the Benz pulled up next to their car.

Two men got out and opened fire, according to CBS affiliate WREG in Memphis. Covington Police Chief Larry Lindsey told the station that the car had been "weaving back and forth and running up on them fairly closely" prior to the shooting, and the men were armed with "long rifles;" a witness who heard the shots told the station it sounded like automatic gunfire and reminded him of his time serving in Vietnam.

The men fired around 40 shots into the vehicle, then got back in their car and drove two more blocks north before circling back to the scene of their crime, according to the Leader.

McLeod was reportedly hit in her abdomen and back, and Wilson was hit in the shoulder. Both women were airlifted to Memphis for treatment. Wilson died of her injuries on Thursday, according to the Leader.

Young Dolph was shot less than a week later, on Wednesday Nov. 17, while patronizing a Black-owned cookie shop, Makeda's Butter Cookies, in the south part of Memphis near the airport. Makeda co-owner, Maurice Hill, told NBC affiliate WMC in Memphis, that he pulled up to his business in the aftermath of the shooting where other family members were working that day.

Hill said his employees were uninjured in the shooting, which targeted Dolph, who was with another young man. 

"He was distraught. He was hysterical. He was punching on the window," Hill said of Dolph's companion, who was also uninjured in the shooting.

On Thursday, police released images of the two shooters and their car, a white Mercedes Benz coupe, and asked for the public's help in identifying the two men.

Social media circulating on Saturday afternoon appeared to show Memphis Police towing a white Mercedes Benz coupe from the neighborhood of Orange Mound in the southeast part of the city, according to the Commercial Appeal — just over two miles from Makeda's Cookies where Dolph was shot. The Covington Leader reported that it is believed to be the suspects' car, and was found behind an abandoned house.

Makeda's remains boarded up because their insurance doesn't cover the damage from the "dozens" of bullets fired into their business at Young Dolph, owners Maurice and Pamela Hill told WMC.