A key witness who rapper Corey “C-Murder” Miller as the shooter in a 2002 Louisiana nightclub killing has recanted his testimony, saying he didn’t actually see Miller shoot a 16-year-old concertgoer.
In a sworn statement, Kenneth Jordan says Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives pressured him to lie under oath, or else he would face a 10-year sentence on unrelated criminal charges, The New Orleans Advocate reports.
“I know the individual that I saw shoot the gun was not Corey Miller,” said Jordan in an affidavit filed June 23 in 24th Judicial District Court records, The Advocate reports.
Miller, the 47-year-old younger brother of Percy “Master P” Miller, is currently serving a life sentence in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola after a jury voted 10-2 in 2009 to convict him of killing Steven Thomas.
Thomas was killed after sneaking into the Platinum Club in New Orleans. When he stepped off stage during a rap contest, he was attacked by a group of men and shot. Soon thereafter, Miller was arrested and charged with Thomas’ death.
More than 100 people who were questioned at the nightclub after the incident told police they had not seen the shooting. Jordan had left the crime scene and was only questioned over a year later, after his newborn daughter was found dead. The baby’s mother was later charged and convicted with manslaughter in the child’s death, according to The Times-Picayune, but since the mother was only 16 when the baby was born the detectives allegedly used that to threaten Jordan with a 10-year-sentence if he did not testify against Miller. (The age of consent in Louisiana is 17.)
“I was distraught and scared,” Jordan reportedly claims in the affidavit. “JPSO officers told me that if I testified against Corey Miller I could ‘go home’; they told me what to say; they fed me facts about the fight and details about the DJ and the dance party, none of which I really knew.”
Jordan also reportedly recanted in a television episode of a true-crime series “Reasonable Doubt” that re-airs today (June 27) on Investigation Discovery.
“If I could turn back the hands of time, I wouldn’t have did it. In that moment it felt like that’s what I had to do,” Jordan reportedly says in the TV episode.
Jordan’s testimony at Miller’s 2009 trial was supported by a security guard at the club named Darnell Jordan, who told the court he didn’t see a gun in Miller’s hand but saw a muzzle flash at the end of Miller’s arm that was pointed at Thomas on the ground, according to The Times-Picayune. But, according to The Advocate, in the TV episode, Darnell Jordan — who is not related to Kenneth Jordan — also seems to recant, saying he doesn’t believe Miller fired the shot but states he was involved in the fight that led up to the shooting.
In the episode, Darnell Jordan reportedly recalls grabbing Miller during the fight so that his shirt lifted and showed he was not carrying a gun in his waistband.
Miller’s attorney, Paul Barker, is now arguing this development warrants a hearing and is just cause for Miller’s release.
Miller’s last appeal was denied in 2011. He was ordered last year by a Jefferson Parish judge to pay Thomas’ family $1.15 million.
(Photo Credit: @masterp)
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