Nathaniel Jones Murder Case: The Winston-Salem Five

The Winston-Salem Five are five North Carolina teenagers who were convicted of the 2002 murder of Nathaniel Jones, the grandfather of NBA star Chris Paul, and who spent between roughly twelve years and more than two decades in prison before a judge vacated the convictions of the four surviving men in August 2025. Two of them remain incarcerated anyway, held in custody while the state appeals the ruling that declared them innocent.

The 2002 Attack on Nathaniel Jones

On the evening of November 15, 2002, Nathaniel Jones, 61, was found face down in the carport of his Winston-Salem home. His hands were tied behind his back and black tape had been used as a gag. His wallet was missing, but roughly $950 was still in his pockets. The attackers never entered the house. Jones suffered a fatal heart attack during or immediately after the assault. Police arrived around 7:50 p.m. and collected evidence including footwear impressions from the hood of Jones’s car.¹

Who the Five Are

The investigation moved onto a group of local teenagers after the mother of one of them, Jermal Tolliver, called a detective. Police interrogated five young people: Rayshawn Banner, 14; Nathaniel Cauthen, 15 (Banner’s brother); Christopher Bryant, 15; Jermal Tolliver, 15; and Dorrell Brayboy, 15 or 16. A sixth teenager, Jessicah Black, was also questioned and became the prosecution’s key witness.¹

All five eventually gave statements implicating themselves. No DNA, fingerprints, or other physical evidence from the crime scene ever linked any of them to Jones’s murder.²

Convictions and Sentences

The teenagers were tried as adults. Nathaniel Cauthen and Rayshawn Banner were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.³ Christopher Bryant, Jermal Tolliver, and Dorrell Brayboy were convicted of second-degree murder and common law robbery. Bryant and Tolliver served roughly 12 years each and were released in 2017. Brayboy was released in 2018.⁴

The prosecution’s case leaned heavily on Jessicah Black. She told jurors she had driven the group around on the night of the murder, heard them discuss robbing someone, taken them to stores to buy the black tape used on Jones, and waited on a park bench while she heard the teenagers beating him and heard him screaming.⁵

Why the Case Fell Apart

Two things unwound the convictions: Black recanted, and defense experts documented that the five had been in no condition to withstand the interrogations that produced their statements.

Jessicah Black’s Recantation

After reporter Hunter Atkins contacted her repeatedly, Black said in 2019 that she had lied at trial. She gave a sworn deposition to staff of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission in October 2019 and testified before its board in March 2020. She said she had been interrogated by Winston-Salem police for more than an hour, that detectives screamed at her, called her a liar, falsely claimed they had found her DNA in her own car, and threatened to charge her as an accessory to murder if she did not cooperate. Only 33 minutes of the interrogation were audio-recorded; the remaining 90 minutes were not. She said she began changing her story because she wanted to go home.⁵

Cognitive Impairments and False Confessions

All five defendants were documented as functioning in the bottom 2 to 14 percent of intellectual ability for their age group, operating at the level of elementary school children at the time of their interrogations.⁶⁷⁸

The confessions themselves did not match one another, did not match the physical evidence, and included details that could not be corroborated, such as claims about buying tape from stores that did not sell that product.⁹

The 2022 Setback and the 2025 Exoneration

The Innocence Inquiry Commission referred the case to a three-judge panel after its March 2020 hearing.¹⁰¹¹¹²

Defense attorneys Christine Mumma and Mark Rabil then took a different route, filing motions for appropriate relief requesting new trials. Superior Court Judge Robert Broadie held a three-week evidentiary hearing in January 2025 at which the defense presented 19 witnesses and more than 100 exhibits. The state presented no evidence in response.⁹

On August 8, 2025, Broadie issued a 33-page ruling vacating the convictions of all four living defendants and dismissing the charges with prejudice. He found Black’s recantation “credible and significant” and concluded that without her false testimony “a different result would have been reached in the defendants’ trial.” He ruled that trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to investigate the defendants’ intellectual disabilities and failing to present the science of false confessions, and he credited newer research on adolescent psychology and interrogation as newly discovered evidence.⁹⁶

Why Two of the Men Are Still in Prison

Christopher Bryant and Jermal Tolliver, already released years earlier, had their charges formally dismissed. Rayshawn Banner and Nathaniel Cauthen, still serving life sentences, did not go home.

On August 11, 2025, the office of North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson petitioned the Court of Appeals to stay Broadie’s release order. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill also filed a notice of appeal.¹³³ In September 2025, the Court of Appeals denied the state’s request for a permanent stay and later affirmed the exoneration.²

The Attorney General’s office escalated to the North Carolina Supreme Court, which on October 15, 2025, issued an emergency ruling keeping Cauthen and Banner in prison pending appellate review. The state argued it had a right to appeal Broadie’s order, that the order contained “multiple errors,” and that keeping the men in custody was necessary to preserve the “status quo” and protect “public safety.”¹⁴

On October 6, 2025, defense attorneys proposed that all four men agree to be retried if Cauthen and Banner were released on bond in the interim. The Attorney General’s office rejected the offer on November 24, 2025, saying it needed District Attorney O’Neill’s agreement. In December 2025, defense attorneys asked the Supreme Court to dissolve the stay, arguing the men’s continued incarceration “perpetuates an injustice that began more than 23 years ago.” On December 23, 2025, the Supreme Court denied the motion in a split decision, with Justices Richard Dietz, Allison Riggs, and Anita Earls dissenting.¹⁵

As of mid-2026, Banner and Cauthen remain in prison despite the trial-court exoneration and the Court of Appeals affirmance. The appellate process is expected to take years and could continue into federal court after the state proceedings conclude.¹⁵

Christine Mumma, executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence and a lead attorney for the men, said of the state’s position: “It’s beginning to feel like this is the justice system is just going to do what it wants to do.”¹⁴

Dorrell Brayboy

The fifth member of the group, Dorrell Brayboy, was released from prison in late 2016 after serving roughly 14 years. On August 28, 2019, he was fatally stabbed in a Food Lion parking lot on New Walkertown Road in Winston-Salem while his girlfriend and children watched. Joseph Hannah, then 30, was arrested and charged with murder.¹⁶¹⁷ Because Brayboy died before submitting a claim of innocence, he cannot be posthumously exonerated under North Carolina law.

Chris Paul’s Connection

Nathaniel Jones was Chris Paul’s grandfather. Paul was a high school basketball player in Winston-Salem when Jones was killed. He titled his 2023 memoir Sixty-One: Life Lessons from Papa, On and Off the Court after his grandfather’s age. In the book, Paul wrote that while he was “conflicted about their long sentences,” he “still believed the men were guilty.”⁹ Paul has not commented publicly on the exonerations, and reporters who reached out to Jones’s family and to Paul after Broadie’s August 2025 ruling did not receive a response.⁴

1
North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence. Rayshawn Banner Awaits Three-Judge Panel to Consider Innocence
2
The Assembly. Chris Paul Grandfather Winston-Salem Five
3
WXII 12. Convictions Overturned Appeal Murder Chris Paul Grandfather
4
The Assembly. Nathaniel Jones Murder Chris Paul Grandfather
5
The Assembly. Jessicah Black Chris Paul Grandfather Murder Case
6
Defendants’ Response to State’s Petition for Writ of Supersedeas. Defendants’ Response to State’s Petition for Writ of Supersedeas
7
Wake Forest University Old Gold & Black. Winston-Salem Five Seek Exoneration
8
WXII 12. Witness Recants Testimony From Murder Case Against 5 Teens
9
The Assembly. Appeals Court Affirms Exoneration
10
North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission. State v. Bryant
11
WXII 12. Three-Judge Panel Hears Testimony Beginning Process That Could Exonerate Winston-Salem 5
12
Wake Forest University Old Gold & Black. Citing Lack of Evidence Judges Decline to Overturn Winston-Salem Five Convictions
13
ESPN. Judge Tosses Convictions in 2002 Killing of NBA Star Chris Paul Grandfather
14
WXII 12. North Carolina Supreme Court Issues Permanent Stay Blocking Release of 2 Winston-Salem Five Members
15
The Assembly. Nathaniel Jones Murder Exonerated Release
16
WXII 12. Murder Suspect Accused of Fatally Stabbing Man in Food Lion Parking Lot Captured by Authorities
17
Winston-Salem Journal. Stabbing Death Brings Back Memories of the Murder of Chris Paul’s Grandfather