Maurice (Melissa) Dupree Green (Ace of Spades, Arizona)

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Speaker 1 Our card this week is Maurice Dupree Green, the Ace of Spades from Arizona. Maurice was 22 when they were shot and killed in Phoenix, Arizona.

Speaker 1 They were just starting to build a name for themselves as a performer, making it to the regional finals for American Idol and acting in dozens of local productions, including The Wiz, Westside Story, and Alice in Wonderland.

Speaker 1 But the curtain fell too soon.

Speaker 1 According to friends and family, gender identity was fluid for Maurice.

Speaker 1 They sometimes presented as femme and went by Melissa, as they did the night of the shooting, which led both LGBTQ plus activists and local officials to fear that maybe this was a hate crime. Maybe.

Speaker 1 But investigators have struggled to pin down a definitive motive, and with the lack of that, a killer. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck.

Speaker 1 On March 21st, 2006, a security guard named Fidel was stationed outside a Central Phoenix apartment complex.

Speaker 1 It was shortly after midnight and he was taking care of some routine paperwork on the trunk of a car.

Speaker 1 The streets weren't any busier than normal, but from where he stood, he could see a woman walking alone on a nearby sidewalk. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man running towards her.

Speaker 1 Fidel watched as the man caught up to her, walked with her for a few steps, and then for no apparent reason, shot her in the back and ran away.

Speaker 1 Immediately, Fidel grabbed his phone and started toward the victim. And just as he did, he saw another man running towards her as well, with his head in his hands.

Speaker 1 When this man noticed Fidel, he abruptly changed course and started towards him, urging Fidel to call 911, which he was already in the process of doing.

Speaker 1 Two patrol officers responded as more calls came in from other eyewitnesses.

Speaker 1 When they arrived at the scene, police found the victim lying in the roadway, already dead from a single gunshot wound to the back.

Speaker 1 Detective Dominic Rostenberg, the lead investigator on the case today, explained that the crime scene didn't give the Phoenix Police Department much to go on, just a single 380 spent shell casing.

Speaker 1 Fortunately, though, there were a handful of people in the area who saw what happened, including the man who told Fidel to call 911.

Speaker 1 His name was David, and he was actually friends with the victim, who he identified for police as Melissa. According to David, he and Melissa had been walking together, but they had just parted ways.

Speaker 1 Melissa went off in one direction, him in another, and she was crossing the street when he said two men approached her.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, there was a loud popping sound, and David turned to see Melissa fall to the ground as the suspects fled.

Speaker 1 While David was able to tell the police what the two suspects were wearing, he wasn't close enough to describe their faces or identify them. Neither was Fidel, who only saw one suspect from behind.

Speaker 1 But a third eyewitness, a man named Jose Lopez, had a better view.

Speaker 1 Jose was standing outside of his apartment building, smoking a cigarette at the time of the shooting, and he claimed to have seen exactly who fired the gun that killed Melissa.

Speaker 2 You know, in his words, he was 100%

Speaker 2 positive that it was Caesar.

Speaker 2 I don't know how close they were, but not close enough where he can drive us to his home or tell us what kind of vehicle he drove or how we could locate him or his last name.

Speaker 1 That was Detective Rostenberg. He said that at the time, this potential ID by Jose was huge.
But without a last name or anything more to go off of, they had a hard time finding this Caesar.

Speaker 2 So there were several,

Speaker 2 we do what's called crime analysis in the area. We knocked on several doors.
Who's Caesar? Does anyone use a nickname Caesar? They were able to identify two or three people with

Speaker 2 a similar type name.

Speaker 2 Photo lineups were generated of these people and presented to Jose,

Speaker 2 but nothing really led to much.

Speaker 2 He was unable to identify any of them.

Speaker 1 Police hoped that Melissa's family could help them. But first, they had to break the terrible news to Melissa's mother, Cece Greed.

Speaker 2 Around four o'clock, I said, knock at the door. You know, the police go knock, they don't,

Speaker 2 you know. There's a banging at the door.
And so, like,

Speaker 2 knocking on my door like that.

Speaker 2 So I get up, of course, to go see what's going on. And then I came to the door.

Speaker 2 They said,

Speaker 2 I said, do you know Melissa?

Speaker 2 I said, yes, my son.

Speaker 2 I said he was gone.

Speaker 1 You'll notice that Cece says Melissa and her son all in the same breath.

Speaker 1 Friends and family are fluid when they talk about Maurice Melissa's gender identity because that's how Maurice Melissa was in life.

Speaker 1 Back in the 2000s, the idea of gender fluidity or being non-binary, like those terms weren't widely recognized or understood.

Speaker 1 So folks who didn't identify strictly as their sex assigned at birth might not have had the language to fully capture their experience.

Speaker 1 Now, CC told police that she had last seen her son the night of the shooting getting ready to go out with David. But looking back, she remembered the interaction seemed odd.

Speaker 2 So she came upstairs and he says, Mom, I'm going to go out.

Speaker 2 I said, okay, Maurice, go out and have a good time. I'll see you later.
So I'm watching TV and then he came back in about not even a minute later. He says, mom, you think I should go out tonight?

Speaker 2 I said, Maurice, yeah, if you want to go, that's up to you. You know, go and have fun or you want to stay home.
He says,

Speaker 2 and he's looked at me. So he went back out.

Speaker 2 And then the third time he came up. It's almost like they were downstairs saying, yeah, come on, let's go.
You should go, man. Like he didn't know if he should go out or not.

Speaker 2 Like something, like he knew something was going on or something was going to happen or something.

Speaker 1 Even with a bad feeling, Melissa finished getting ready and said goodbyes and left the house to go out with David.

Speaker 1 At the time, David told detectives that he was accompanying Melissa because there was a group of people who had been harassing or bothering her.

Speaker 1 And he wanted to go out with her to try and keep her safe. But Cece said that she wasn't aware of any sort of harassment taking place.
And neither were police.

Speaker 1 Detective Rostenberg said that no formal complaints had ever been filed.

Speaker 2 There's no information that I have that, you know, he was scared of anybody, that, you know,

Speaker 2 he had an order of protection or an injunction against anybody, or he had a problem with his neighbor, or whatever, wherever that... It could be.
We have no indication of that.

Speaker 1 And yet, less than an hour after saying goodbye to her family, Melissa was shot and killed at point-blank range.

Speaker 1 At autopsy, the cause of death was determined to be a single bullet to the thorax. There were no defensive wounds or foreign DNA found.

Speaker 1 And the toxicology report revealed the presence of both amphetamines and methamphetamines in their system.

Speaker 1 Detectives also learned that, unfortunately, there was no DNA on the 380 shell casing found at the scene either.

Speaker 1 And a forensic search revealed that it could have been shot from at least three or four different types of guns.

Speaker 1 The casing was entered into Nibin, the Federal Ballistics Database, but it didn't match any projectiles or firearms from any other known crime scenes.

Speaker 1 So, a couple of days into the investigation, all detectives had to go off of was the lone first name they got from their eyewitness, Caesar. and no clear motive for the crime.

Speaker 1 According to Detective Rostenberg, investigators had several theories at the time. They wondered if Green could have owed somebody money, or maybe it was a random crime of opportunity.

Speaker 1 According to detectives, the street where the shooting took place was sort of a remote hub for illicit activity at the time.

Speaker 1 But for Green's friend Gina, who works for an LGBTQ advocacy group based in Phoenix, the motive was clear.

Speaker 7 I mean, we definitely felt that it was a hate crime, that the person that targeted Melissa was doing so because it was Melissa.

Speaker 7 Because it's easier to

Speaker 7 kill someone that,

Speaker 7 you know, doesn't conform to society. It's much easier to do that than it is to choose someone else.
And they were also chicken because if I remember,

Speaker 7 they shot Melissa in the back.

Speaker 7 You know?

Speaker 1 Gina's point is backed up by statistics. Studies have shown that you are nine times more likely to experience violence if you are an LGBT person than if you are not.

Speaker 1 And queer people of color specifically experience disproportionately high rates of violence.

Speaker 7 Particularly at that time, I would say, because of the atmosphere, most LGBT people were very subdued. You had your days where you were

Speaker 7 sad because, you know, we weren't in a very accepting world at that at that point and here was this kid who came in full of energy full of life full of hope

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 he was he had been in foster care um he

Speaker 7 was a young man of color he was gay and

Speaker 7 It was just,

Speaker 7 he had every right to to be angry or upset with the world. And that's not what he chose.
I mean, he definitely, and he did this. He definitely had to choose every day.

Speaker 7 I am

Speaker 7 going to hope for the best. I'm going to be the best person that I can be today.

Speaker 7 And like I said, he didn't, he always encouraged other people. He never brought anybody down.

Speaker 7 But everything else played against him.

Speaker 1 Included in the things that were working against them at the time was the reporting on the shooting, which made use of harmful language and anti-trans slurs.

Speaker 1 Everything in the media became about Maurice Mouliss's identity and it overshadowed the tragedy of their death.

Speaker 7 In the mainstream media, it was sensationalized. And so they never

Speaker 7 reported on

Speaker 7 what a wonderful person this kid was.

Speaker 7 And I think that was the saddest part is that it all got, everything got lost.

Speaker 7 His personality,

Speaker 7 the fact that he was always encouraging of others, he was positive,

Speaker 7 his love of musical theater, his love of acting,

Speaker 7 all of that

Speaker 7 that made him who he was,

Speaker 7 you know, just

Speaker 7 it got pushed to the side and it just became a story about someone who was born male that trust is a female.

Speaker 1 Gina and Maurice first met when Maurice started going to meetups at 1 in 10, the LGBTQ plus advocacy organization where Gina was a founding volunteer.

Speaker 1 They immediately connected over their shared love of musical theater and Maurice started coming in weekly, routinely bringing in other LGBTQ plus youth that they'd met.

Speaker 1 And it didn't take long for Gina to see just how special a person Maurice was.

Speaker 7 I mean, I hate to use the word bubbly, but if there was anyone that would epitomize someone who's bubbly, it would be Maurice. He was always, always

Speaker 7 coaching other young people to embrace themselves more or, you know, you're great, you're fantastic, and trying to build everybody up.

Speaker 1 Maurice particularly liked to spread joy through performing. They were constantly singing and dancing to and with those around them.
And Cece says that Maurice had big dreams.

Speaker 2 Just a loving young man. Just loving.
Ambitious, wanted to make it, wanted to be somebody. He had plans and get us off, you know, out of poverty.

Speaker 2 And he was going to buy mom a house and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. And

Speaker 2 he loved it, just, you know. Just wanted to do better, wanted to be better, wanted to entertain people.
Wanted to, he loved singing, loved Mariah Carey, he loved it.

Speaker 1 Maurice went into foster care at a young age, but still continued to see Cece as they grew up. And at 18 years old, Maurice came out to Cece.

Speaker 2 It was hard at first to accept, you know, your son being gay,

Speaker 2 but I just learned to love him for who he is. And we'd go shopping sometimes.

Speaker 2 And then at 20, he started dressing up and he would get dressed up and go as Melissa on the street

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 go out to clubs and with his friends and stuff. Especially on the weekend.
Most of the time he would dress as Maurice, but most of the time it's like on the weekends, he was Melissa.

Speaker 2 So it was hard sometimes to accept that, but I found I loved him no matter what. That's my son.
That's my son.

Speaker 1 Against so many odds, Maurice went off to college at Northern Arizona University. But once there, they began to struggle with substance use disorder.

Speaker 1 And when Maurice returned from school, unable to sustain the habit or find permanent housing, Maurice turned to odd jobs and eventually sex work.

Speaker 1 Gina told our reporter, Nicole Kagan, that leading up to the shooting, Maurice hadn't been coming to 1 in 10 as often.

Speaker 8 Did you at the time know anything about Maurice's involvement in sex work? Did that ever come up in any meetings or conversations?

Speaker 7 Okay. No, because like I said, Maurice had been gone for a few months.

Speaker 7 And so that had not come up.

Speaker 7 I know later on they reported drugs or whatever. And I never ever saw Maurice high or,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 7 acting like

Speaker 7 he was on drugs.

Speaker 1 Cece, on the other hand, was aware of the sex work and the substance use. But it didn't make the news of her son's death any less surprising or painful.

Speaker 2 And you never wish they're gonna die before you.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 just to know someone would come and shoot him, you know, he doesn't deserve that. He didn't deserve that.

Speaker 1 While police struggled to make headway in Green's case, the community rallied around the Green family, organizing and attending candlelight vigils near the intersection where Melissa was shot.

Speaker 1 And then, on May 5th, just over a month and a half after the shooting, investigators got an unexpected break. And it all stemmed from a routine traffic stop.

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Speaker 1 Officers had pulled over a car and in the passenger seat was David, like David who was with Melissa right before the shooting.

Speaker 1 And at some point during this stop, David apparently pulled one of the officers aside as the driver was being questioned.

Speaker 2 David asked to independently, privately speak to one of the officers at the scene. And at that time,

Speaker 2 he said he had information on this homicide and he wanted to speak to one of the detectives assigned to the case.

Speaker 2 He whispered that it was his boyfriend that he believed was involved in Green's death, and he provided the name of Bonacio Mata Jr.

Speaker 1 Detectives hadn't heard of Bonancio Mata Jr., aka Benny, before David whispered his name to police. So they had a few follow-ups for David.

Speaker 1 For starters, why did he wait almost two months to come forward with this information? I mean, he'd already been interviewed three times by that point.

Speaker 1 He had ample opportunity to tell investigators about this Benny guy.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 1 why now?

Speaker 1 Well, David said now he and Benny had just broken up after a rocky relationship. Police reports filed by David with the Phoenix Police Department detailed just how Rocky.

Speaker 1 According to those, David said Benny had assaulted him and that he knew Benny owned a small semi-automatic pistol.

Speaker 1 When asked why he thought Benny killed his friend, David said that coincidentally, just four days earlier, Benny told David that he'd committed the murder.

Speaker 1 David said they'd gotten into an argument and at one point Benny said, quote, too bad I missed you, which David took to mean that the bullet that killed Melissa that night was really meant for him.

Speaker 1 Now, our reporter, Nicole, connected with David, but he declined an interview, saying that it was just too hard to talk about that night.

Speaker 1 Now, the traffic stop eventually wrapped.

Speaker 1 David was sent on his way, and a bolo or a be on the lookout alert was put out for Benny so that if any officers came across him in the state of Arizona, they would know to bring him in.

Speaker 1 But for some reason, that was pretty much the extent of their follow-up.

Speaker 1 Detective Rostenberg wasn't on the case yet, and it's not clear from the police file why there wasn't more of an active effort to try and track Benny down.

Speaker 1 And we know that detectives didn't have any interaction with Benny at all until over two months after this whispered tip, when the silent hero of this story, routine traffic stops, put their guy right in front of them.

Speaker 1 This next one happened on July 13th. That's when an officer pulled Benny over, ran his information, and saw that Benny was a person of interest in a murder.

Speaker 1 But per the police report, quote, the interview with Mata was postponed and he was released until additional investigation is completed, end quote.

Speaker 1 What additional investigation needed to be completed, it didn't say.

Speaker 2 The reason why he was released at the time, there was just no probable cause to support him being arrested or transported for questioning.

Speaker 2 So if he just says, you know what, listen, I don't want to talk to the police. I don't want to be involved in this investigation.
We really were, you know, our hands are tied at that point.

Speaker 2 So we do the best we can. We get the best infra biographical information on him.
We take, you know, new photographs of him.

Speaker 2 document what he's wearing, his clothing, his physical description, and kind of we just had nothing really at that point to detain him or arrest him.

Speaker 1 They did eventually go looking for him, though. A month later, detectives went to Benny's mom's house, but there was no answer at the door, so they left a business card and requested a call back.

Speaker 1 And I bet they wish they would have hung around because by the time they got back to the station, there was a voicemail from Benny saying that he got the card and he would try calling them again tomorrow.

Speaker 1 But tomorrow came and went with no call. And it doesn't seem like the detectives ever tried reaching out to him again.

Speaker 1 They clearly did still have him on their radar, though, because a full eight months after David first gave police Benny's name, a new photo lineup was prepared for Jose, the original eyewitness that they had from the scene that night.

Speaker 1 And this lineup included Benny's photo, but Jose did not pick him out.

Speaker 1 Now, granted, it was almost a year after the shooting, which had occurred at night in the dark, But detectives didn't really have anyone else to turn to.

Speaker 2 He was really the only one identified at the scene that was claiming that he could ID. David said he couldn't ID.
So we were relying on Jose at that point to help us with

Speaker 2 identifying a possible suspect.

Speaker 1 Nowadays, we know that eyewitness accounts can be both manipulated and distorted by stress, the passage of time, or a handful of other factors.

Speaker 1 And I mean, people have been straight up wrongfully convicted based on eyewitness testimony.

Speaker 1 But back then, even though the circumstances of Jose's eyewitness account were less than ideal, detectives took Jose's inability to pick out Benny's photo from the lineup to mean that Benny must not have been involved in the murder.

Speaker 1 And so, at least at the time, nobody thought to continue down that path. And without any other leads, the case went into limbo.

Speaker 1 During this time, Cece was holding the police department accountable.

Speaker 1 Along with continuing annual vigils to commemorate her child alongside friends and family and city councilmen and LGBTQ plus allies and activists, she would call detectives every three months asking about Maurice's case, making sure it was still being investigated.

Speaker 1 And she passed along any tips that she might have had. And she and her other son, Marcus, continued to visit Maurice's grave together.

Speaker 2 My son can no longer live on earth. You know, he can't drive a car or he can't get married and have children and go finish college up and finish his career up.

Speaker 2 And you don't get to see him knock on the door no more. I don't get to see love notes under the door or hear him sing to me or no music.
You know, we don't get that. We don't get that.

Speaker 2 We don't get to go to graduations or you don't get to drive a car.

Speaker 2 What we get to do is visit a graveyard.

Speaker 2 That's what we get to do. We get to put flowers there.
We get to visit him there. We don't get to hold him.
We don't get to talk to him. We don't get no conversation going back and forth no more.

Speaker 1 Nothing will bring her son back, but answers and holding someone accountable sure would go a long way toward healing for Cece.

Speaker 1 And in 2009, the investigation came the closest it had ever been to those answers. Thanks to, guess what? Another traffic stop.
Now, this traffic stop didn't happen in 2009.

Speaker 1 It happened all the way back in June of 2006, just three months after the shooting.

Speaker 2 So there's two males in the vehicle. The driver of that vehicle is Jesus Alfredo Burgos.

Speaker 2 The front seat passenger is Oscar Figueroa.

Speaker 2 So a search of the vehicle is conducted, which included the trunk.

Speaker 2 In the trunk, there's a shoebox. Inside this shoebox, a single 380 spent casing is located.

Speaker 2 This casing is collected and impounded as evidence and submitted to our lab for testing and entered into a national database.

Speaker 1 At the time, that is sort of where the story ended. Neither man was brought in for questioning.
But in 2009, that's when everything changed.

Speaker 2 So three years later, we get a hit. Detectives are notified that this casing matches the casing collected at the green homicide.
Both those casings were fired from the same weapon.

Speaker 2 And so we really thought at that point that we may have had a good, we may have had a break in the case.

Speaker 1 As for why it took so long for the system to return this match.

Speaker 2 It was just, it's entered and it's just

Speaker 2 in it. I have no idea.

Speaker 2 No idea, but it doesn't hit till three years later for unknown reasons.

Speaker 1 When pressed, Detective Rostenberg's best guess was that there was most likely just a processing delay.

Speaker 1 The casing would have been impounded at the police station, then sent to the lab when someone had the chance, then tested when the lab tech got around to it, and then finally uploaded to the database.

Speaker 1 It should not have taken three years, but for whatever reason, it did. Detective Rostenberg said his agency has since implemented new procedures to expedite tests like these.

Speaker 1 Regardless of the time lapse, though, back then, with this match, detectives now had to track down the two men who were in that car, Jesus and Oscar.

Speaker 1 They also did a background search on both men to see if they had any associates in common with the name Caesar. And lo and behold, they did.

Speaker 1 A man named Julio Cesar Cesar Garcia, and that's Cesar with an S, who some people might confuse as Caesar.

Speaker 2 All of them were eventually

Speaker 2 interviewed by police, and they all denied involvement, denied knowing the victim, denied being involved in the shooting.

Speaker 2 One of them provided a very vague account of the casing being collected from a shooting scene involving gangs as a souvenir.

Speaker 2 His story just really didn't make sense.

Speaker 1 The story was that Oscar and his cousin had been shot at by a rival gang, and they had picked up one of the casings to commemorate the moment because it was their first time being shot at.

Speaker 1 During his interview, Julio also denied ever going by his middle name, Cesar.

Speaker 1 He told detectives that no one ever called him that and that he had never been to the intersection where Green had been shot.

Speaker 1 Detectives asked Julio if he would submit to a polygraph to prove that he was telling the truth, to which he said yes, but for some reason, no test was ever administered.

Speaker 1 So six months later, as had become the standard practice in this case, detectives reached back out to their eyewitness, Jose, about this lead.

Speaker 1 Jose was presented with yet another photo lineup with all three individuals associated with the traffic stop in it.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, he was unable to identify any of them in connection with Green's case.

Speaker 1 So once again, even though it had been four years since the shooting at this point, detectives moved on from these three men.

Speaker 1 And with that, Green's homicide was shelved until 2015 when Detective Rostenberg was assigned to the case.

Speaker 2 Obviously, I wasn't out there. I didn't respond out there.
I didn't know Mr. Green.
I didn't know any of the witnesses. So what I do,

Speaker 2 and this is what I like, it's like a puzzle. I review everything.
The reason why we do that is I may see, or another detective may see

Speaker 2 like something that was possibly missed, or some item of evidence that wasn't submitted to the last.

Speaker 1 And what Detective Rostenberg found was that something was missed, something big.

Speaker 1 Bonancio Mata Jr., aka Benny, still had never actually been interviewed. So, Detective Rostenberg set out to find Benny.
And after a couple of months, he did.

Speaker 1 So for the first time since the shooting nine years prior, Benny was brought into the station for questioning.

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Speaker 1 At the time, Benny was unemployed and living on the streets. And according to Detective Rostenberg, it was a tough interview.

Speaker 2 He was incoherent. He was slurring his speech.
It appeared to me that he was intoxicated.

Speaker 2 He would cite, randomly cite Bible verses.

Speaker 2 He was just kind of all over the place, if you will. So it was hard for me to really, you know, find out what was true and what was not true.

Speaker 1 Benny told Rostenberg that he was not under the influence, nor did he currently use drugs, but it was difficult to know what to believe.

Speaker 1 Still, he laid out the scenario that David described, that Benny meant to shoot David, but Melissa got caught in the crossfire.

Speaker 2 And when I presented that scenario to him and asked him if it was true, he stated yes.

Speaker 1 But when Detective Rostenberg began asking follow-up questions, Benny started contradicting himself, said he wasn't involved in the shooting and that he didn't even own a gun.

Speaker 2 So I wasn't sure at that point if he didn't understand the question that I presented or he was being deceitful or truthful. You know,

Speaker 2 as investigators, we not only have to look at, you know, the actual words that are being stated, but the the the disposition of the person being interviewed. He

Speaker 2 just, the way to describe it, he just appeared under the influence. And I just didn't feel like it probably was the best time to further continue talking to him.

Speaker 1 Before concluding the interview, though, Detective Rostenberg decided to try one more time with an open-ended question. He asked Benny if he, quote, wanted to give his side of the story.

Speaker 1 Benny responded that he didn't have a side of the story, and he started citing Bible verses.

Speaker 1 When Detective Rostenberg concluded the interview, he left Benny in the interview room singing softly to himself. And that was that with Benny.

Speaker 1 On a follow-up call with Detective Rostenberg, our reporter Nicole asked why no one ever tried to re-contact Benny and get a lucid statement.

Speaker 2 After that interview, did you want to speak with him again?

Speaker 2 No, you know what?

Speaker 2 So the last time I did talk to him was in 2015. So I believe he's not living in the state.
Last time I checked, he moved, and I went out to his old address and he wasn't there.

Speaker 2 So I still haven't been able to locate him.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 2 And is that something that you are hoping to do?

Speaker 2 If I can find him, yes. But we're kind of when he's just kind of an investigative lead.
I can't detain him. Obviously, I can't arrest him.

Speaker 2 You know, I think it was just based on the totality of everything.

Speaker 2 He's just an investigative lead. I know his name surfaced early on in the investigation, but it just,

Speaker 2 I don't think Benny's involved. But I certainly want to talk to him again.

Speaker 2 Following that, is there someone at this point you think is a most likely suspect?

Speaker 2 No, in my opinion, based on the totality of everything, the way it went down, you know, there was no word spoken. They didn't have an argument.

Speaker 2 It wasn't like Maurice was in the street, get out of the street, and they were banter back and forth. He was basically executed in the street.
So I think he knew him.

Speaker 2 He was targeting him and he shot him.

Speaker 2 You know, like he wasn't trying to scare him. He leveled the gun right at him and pointed it directly at him, according to the witness, and shot him.
You know what I mean? So I think he was targeted.

Speaker 2 I think they had some connection. At this time, we just have no idea who is.

Speaker 1 As for the hate crime suggestion, Detective Rostenberg says he can't discount that, but he can't definitively say that that was the motive either.

Speaker 2 It is absolutely possible.

Speaker 2 Somebody was just driving by and didn't like the way he looked, didn't like his clothing, didn't like the way, you know, and absolutely

Speaker 2 he could have been targeted for that. We weren't able to substantiate it, but it's definitely a possibility.

Speaker 1 So with the motive still unclear, Detective Rostenberg has struggled to find new leads. We tried to contact Benny, but we never heard anything back.

Speaker 1 So, Bonancio or Benny, if you're out there and listening to this, please contact the Phoenix Police Department.

Speaker 1 Detective Rostenberg also sent off the 380 casing from the trunk shoebox for DNA testing, hoping for some kind of miracle after all this time, but it didn't come back with anything.

Speaker 1 And there is no more physical evidence to test. The shooter never made physical contact with Maurice Melissa.
And a murder weapon has never been found.

Speaker 2 At this point, in my opinion, we need an eyewitness or somebody to, you know, take accountability, you know, come in here and just say, listen, I made a mistake. I was angry.
I was upset.

Speaker 2 For whatever reason, get it off their conscience, clear their conscience in it. And, you know,

Speaker 2 take responsibility for the damage they've done to Green and his family.

Speaker 1 Detective Rostenberg said he feels confident that Green's case is a solvable one. He's just waiting on that one person to do the right thing and give Green's family closure.

Speaker 1 Maurice Melissa has been gone for almost 20 years now. The media hasn't covered their case in a decade, and the candlelight vigils have waned.

Speaker 1 But the impact that they have left on family and friends is eternal. For Gina, it's like no time has passed at all.

Speaker 7 But whenever I hear certain songs, I immediately think of Maurice. You know, and I think of him either singing it to me or singing with me.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 there really has never been a time where I forgot about him.

Speaker 7 I realized after I spoke to you about Maurice that I hadn't been singing for a while. So I've been, yeah, so I've been putting on musicals and singing again.

Speaker 7 It's a big stress reliever, you know.

Speaker 1 Maurice's family honors him in the same way. Marcus says that he can feel his brother looking down on him whenever he's singing or acting or performing, as he sometimes does as Monica.

Speaker 1 And he even sings to him at his grave.

Speaker 2 I had holes in my shoes, I was crying and lose, and I didn't have no place to stay.

Speaker 1 Hey, that was yeah. Cece continues to sing to Maurice at his grave site too.

Speaker 1 And now on TikTok as well, where she posts daily.

Speaker 1 There's actually one special song that she offers, one that she wrote just for her son.

Speaker 2 It'll never

Speaker 2 be to sing.

Speaker 2 Someone took my heart away,

Speaker 2 left me broken

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 in pain.

Speaker 2 I'll never forget

Speaker 2 that day.

Speaker 2 But true love never

Speaker 2 fades.

Speaker 1 And Maurice's own voice lives on as well in VHS tapes and recordings that Cece has kept and cherished all these years, like this one from when Maurice played Drake in the musical honk.

Speaker 1 In our patch behind the farmhouse, where the face of life is slow,

Speaker 1 and the lilies on the lake are brought in lush.

Speaker 1 We're all living here and clover,

Speaker 1 and the mating season's over.

Speaker 1 So there won't be cause for anyone to blush.

Speaker 1 in our land, both green and pleasant.

Speaker 1 Every banter, duck, and pheasant, if they had them, would be walking arm and arm.

Speaker 1 For our life is good and steady, till we're plotted and up and ready

Speaker 1 in the country.

Speaker 1 I'm born down

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 If you have any information at all about the murder of Maurice Dupree Green, also known as Melissa, in March of 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona, please come forward.

Speaker 1 You can reach Detective Rostenberg directly at 602-534-5920,

Speaker 1 or you can call the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-6151.

Speaker 1 And if you would prefer to remain anonymous, you can also call the silent witness tip line at 480-948-6377.

Speaker 1 Additionally, if you or someone you know is affected by anti-LGBTQ plus violence or in need of support, you are not alone. Help is available.

Speaker 1 For immediate crisis support, the Trevor Project offers 24-7 assistance for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386

Speaker 1 or by texting START to 67-8678.

Speaker 1 You can also contact the LGBT National Help Center at 1-888-843-4564 or visit lgbthotline.org. All of this info can be found in the show notes.

Speaker 1 The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com.

Speaker 1 So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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