Indianapolis rapper Troy Ward aka T. Ward, was convicted of murder and robbery charges in a 2017 case. Among witness testimony, cellphone records and other evidence presented by prosecutors were the lyrics to his rap song heard on the internet.
In the Ward case, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said, there was no mistaking the specificity of the lyrics, which matched details of the 2017 triple homicide.
The victims were killed after Ward, 21, and four others carried out a plan to rob marijuana dealer Justin Crowder, 19.
On the evening of July 16, 2017, an accomplice arrived at Crowder’s north-side home for a drug deal. He knocked on Crowder’s door while Ward and another man hid nearby.
When Crowder opened the door, the trio charged into the apartment. Ward started shooting.
Crowder and his roommates, Dominique Miller, 25, and Jordan Wright, 25, were killed. The assailants quickly grabbed a safe from Crowder’s room and fled. Two other members of their group were waiting in a getaway car.
During the investigation Ward’s identity became known to police. A detective who later viewed Ward’s Facebook profile found a link to the nearly two-minute track "I'm Different" on the online music-sharing platform SoundCloud.
In an interview with IndyStar, Mears said the lyrics were consistent with the facts of the case.
“This was not a random talk about some random incident,” Mears said.
"I creep up to the door silently and slow/ I opened up that (expletive) and now we clashing poles/ Two shots to the body two shots to the dome/ Finesse the (expletive) stash and then I took it home."
Ward and the other two men, Mears said, crept up the stairs of the apartment complex, according to testimony at Ward’s trial. After they burst through the door with “poles,” a slang term for guns, Ward began shooting. Each victim was shot in the head and the chest. The trio then fled with the “stash," the safe.
The song also has a detail about swimming trunks. Mears said one of the victims was wearing swimming trunks when he was killed.
“When you take all of those things together,” Mears said, “that song is pretty consistent with the facts of the case. We pretty much broke it down, lyric by lyric.”
Source: Indianapolis Star
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