YNW Melly‘s double-murder retrial is set for next month, and his ex-girlfriend has now revealed that she was harassed by law enforcement during the case’s initial investigation.
On Friday (September 15), Mariah Hamilton spoke to Law & Crime Network about her involvement in the ordeal and how the police kept pressuring her to give them information that they could use against Melly.
“I don’t want to go to jail for something that I didn’t do or something that I’m not a part of,” she told Sidebar’s Jesse Weber, marking the first time she has commented on the case publicly. “I just feel like they’re looking at me wrong and what they’re showing is not true.”
According to Hamilton, cops and prosecutors have been insinuating that she is lying about not remembering what happened on the night of the murders in 2018.
“Because I was his girlfriend at the time, they thought I knew more than what I telling them,” she explained. “Which I didn’t. So they were just harassing me. When the situation first happened, I was threatened. I was 17, about to turn 18. They came to my house, telling me they were going to arrest me on accessory after the fact. My mom didn’t know what to do.
“I was young and I didn’t have a criminal record, I didn’t have a background. I was trying to go into the military at the time. So I had to tell them what they wanted to hear so they could leave me alone. I thought they would leave me alone, but they didn’t.”
About lead investigator Mark Moretti, who she has since filed a complaint against, she said: “I asked my mom what was going on. She said, ‘They want to talk to you, you have to talk to them. They’re threatening that you’re going to go to jail.’ So I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I told them my story, I told them what I knew.
“He told me that I was lying. He told me I knew more than I was telling and that he could arrest me for accessory after the fact. So he wanted me to get on a tape recording and tell him what he wanted me to tell him, which I did. And after that, he said they wouldn’t bother me anymore.
“[But] they were still calling and texting my mom asking for me. I refused to talk so many times. And I haven’t talked to them since 2019.”
Hamilton’s mother, Felicia Holmes, also joined the conversation later in the podcast.
“We were forced to tell a story,” she said. “Are you going to take my 17-year-old daughter to jail? I don’t want my daughter to go to jail for anybody. Get your case together and stop making the witnesses pay for your mistakes.”
YNW Melly is being retried for the October 2018 double murder of his friends YNW Sakchaser (Anthony Williams) and YNW Juvy (Christopher Thomas Jr.) after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict in last month’s trial.
Judge Murphy announced on July 22 that the case had ended in a mistrial, despite three days of deliberation. “These types of decisions, they’re hard decisions,” he said regarding the inconclusive finale.
A hearing conference has been scheduled for September 22, while the jury retrial is set to begin on October 7.
