Do you know the whole story about Michael Jordan? Only a few times has it been publicly spoken about. But if you’re a fan of Michael Jordan, you may know that his beloved father, James R. Jordan Sr., Was murdered in North Carolina in 1993.
There are plenty of unanswered questions and the world doesn’t know much about the case, so cameras were not permitted in the courtroom. However, the trial became a national media spectacle and the murder sparked international attention.
How did James R. Jordan Sr. die?
The county where the murder occurred is a rural area with a documented history of racism and corruption in law enforcement. The Innocence and Actual Center in North Carolina has uncovered new evidence, raising new questions about the investigation. Sr. Jordan R. James was convicted of the murder and is currently serving a life sentence in a separate prison from Andre Daniel Green and Larry Martin Demery, who were also convicted. Green is African American and Demery is Native American, making them the two teenagers involved in the murder.
Here’s what you may not be aware of regarding this situation.
1. Michael Jordan’s dad was an unidentified John Doe in a swamp in South Carolina. He was cremated before he was identified.
Subsequently, the jaws and hands were conserved, and a post-mortem examination was conducted despite the severely decomposed state of the body and the absence of any missing person report that correlated with the description of the deceased individual. A few days after, a fisherman discovered a corpse hanging from a tree branch in a swamp located in South Carolina, exhibiting a gunshot injury to the chest. As a result, the man’s remains were cremated in August 1993.
2. Michael Jordan’s car was found stripped and vandalized in the woods near Fayetteville, North Carolina.
James R. Jordan Sr., The father of Michael Jordan, is later recognized as the deceased individual in South Carolina. Based on the documentation, the vehicle was purchased in Chicago by Michael Jordan, and subsequently, the astonishing revelations emerge – a ravaged and defaced Lexus sports car is discovered in the forest over sixty miles away in North Carolina, two days following the discovery of the unidentified corpse in South Carolina.
Hear about the progression of the investigation from the initial prosecutor, and WRAL’s exclusive news collection.
3. James Jordan’s body was identified using personal dental records plus his fingerprints.
Following his cremation, the medical examiner retained Mr. Jordan’s jaw and hands for future identification purposes. His identity was verified through dental records, as James Jordan had undergone significant dental procedures. Additionally, the fingerprint on Mr. Jordan’s right thumb corresponded to his existing fingerprint record, which had previously been recorded by the authorities.
4. James Jordan wasn’t reported missing by his family until three weeks after he disappeared.
The Jordan family submitted a report of a person who went missing after Michael Jordan’s vehicle was discovered damaged and stripped in the forest close to Fayetteville, North Carolina, several weeks afterward. It was only at that point that Michael Jordan’s security team initiated their own inquiry upon being unable to establish contact with James R. Jordan Sr., A member of the Jordan family.
The case surrounding organized crime and gambling has never proven the involvement of Mr. Jordan, despite theories of conspiracy surrounding a kickback scheme, and he does not have a criminal record.
Discover more about the intricate life of James R. Jordan, Sr.
Journalist Amanda Lamb reveals how Michael Jordan mourned the passing of his father in her blog.
5. James Jordan was murdered in Robeson County, North Carolina, the county with the highest violent crime rate in the state, with a history of systemic racism and law enforcement corruption.
Today, the community is still haunted by the racial tension that has persisted for decades. Just weeks before the election, a political candidate was targeted and gunned down, turning it into a place where armed gunmen took over to bring attention to police corruption and racial injustice. This led to the local newspaper becoming a platform for highlighting claims of police corruption and racial injustice. Over the years, racism has been rampant towards Black people and Lumbee Indians, leading to the murder investigation of Jordan James. The racism is overt and deeply ingrained, affecting the Black and Lumbee communities. Additionally, Robeson County is known as a drug-running corridor, with cocaine being smuggled between Manhattan and Miami.
6. The Robeson County Sheriff’s Office was charged with corruption several years after the trial.
Does the outcome of the trial have anything to do with the location of the murder, which charged 22 officers from Robeson County Sheriff’s Office were involved in, as part of the sweeping investigation called Operation Tarnished Badge that exposed corruption and various crimes?
Discover more about Robeson County, NC, the location of the James Jordan homicide.
7. Michael Jordan’s NBA ring was found buried in a yard.
The NBA championship ring belonging to Michael Jordan was discovered when a section of soil near his great-grandmother’s residence was excavated. Daniel, an unexpected informant, guided investigators to suspect Daniel Andre Green, providing the investigation with one of its initial significant breakthroughs.
Hear SBI Agent Tony Underwood discuss the moment the ring was found.
8. After his murder, a suspect wore James Jordan’s jewelry in a rap music video.
The media received a leaked video, but only still photographs from the video were presented in court. The music video was not played to the jury due to concerns that it could bias them. During Daniel Green’s murder trial, Larry, the brother of Michael Jordan, confirmed that the jewelry was given as gifts from Michael to their father. Additional incriminating evidence came to light during the investigation, including a gun concealed in a Shop-vac at the residence where Daniel Green resided, as well as a rap music video featuring Daniel wearing James Jordan’s watch and an NBA ring.
Listen to the authentic interrogation recordings as investigators question Larry Demery and Daniel Green.
9. The two main suspects in the murder of James Jordan were best friends.
Both men are serving life sentences in separate prisons in North Carolina. The basis of the State’s narrative was the testimony of Larry Jordan, an eyewitness who claimed that Daniel pulled the trigger. However, ballistics did not confirm that the gun found in a Shop-vac in Daniel’s house was the murder weapon, even though it was later presented at the trial. Larry says that he and Daniel grew up together in Robeson County, North Carolina. They first met in elementary school, Green and Demery.
10. Co-defendant Larry Demery took a plea deal in exchange for testifying against his best friend, Daniel Green.
At Daniel Green’s 1996 trial, for the first time, prosecutors heard the full story of what happened on the side of the road in Lumberton, North Carolina, in July 1993. Demery testified that he and James Jordan tried to rob him as he slept in his car, and it was then that Daniel shot Jordan in the chest, causing his fatal injury. Demery’s testimony was stunning, waking James up and startling him as he saw Daniel fire the fatal shot. Larry Demery, the co-defendant, tells the court this story.
Demery accepted a plea agreement in return for providing this testimony.
Listen to the State’s argument against Daniel Green and Larry’s astonishing, comprehensive testimony identifying Daniel as the gunman who murdered James Jordan.
11. Daniel Andre Green’s main alibi witness, a girl named Bobbie Jo Murillo, never testified at his trial.
When it comes to the question of who killed Michael Jordan’s father, two vastly different stories are told by Andre Green and Demery Martin. The core of Daniel’s defense is that he was not there when James Jordan was killed, and he insists that Larry’s insistence on the scene later helped dispose of the body.
Daniel Green says he was at a cookout with his sister and mother, and multiple witnesses, including multiple witnesses, corroborate Jo Bobbie’s story. Jo Bobbie is named as someone he had a romantic interest in, along with several friends.
However, during Daniel’s trial, the defense did not call Jo as a witness, but instead called only two witnesses, Bobbie and an alibi witness. It was mentioned that the defense did not spend much time exploring Daniel’s alibi.
Listen to Daniel Green as he provides a detailed account of the night when James Sr. Jordan was killed in a car accident by a drunk Larry, who fled the scene in South Carolina.
12. Under the law in North Carolina, if you are with another person committing a felony when someone is killed, it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger.
The key to the case being solved was when Jordan James was killed, and he consistently maintained that he was not there. Although Daniel was convicted and tried as the triggerman, both Daniel and Larry are equally responsible if they were both present at the time of the killing. Regardless of who pulled the trigger, everyone who is present is equally culpable. According to North Carolina law, if someone is killed during the commission of a felony, such as robbery, it is considered a felony murder. The key to the case being solved was when Jordan James was killed, and he consistently maintained that he was not there.
13. The gun presented at Daniel Green’s trial was not proven to be the gun used to kill Michael Jordan’s dad.
One of the pillars of the prosecution’s case in the trial of Andre Green for the murder of James Jordan was the gun. However, the State was never able to prove that the gun found inside Daniel’s home, where he lived with his co-defendant Larry Demery, was the one used in the murder. There were regular ballistic tests conducted on the bullet found in James Jordan’s body, which confirmed that it was shot from the gun entered into evidence, but they were inconclusive. Additionally, evidence was found in a Shop-vac in Daniel’s home, where he lived with Demery, that further linked them to the crime.
14. There was no conclusive evidence of blood found in James Jordan’s car.
Despite the analyst’s testimony, there was no confirmatory evidence of blood in the car. The presence of blood in the passenger seat was not clearly presented as conclusive evidence at trial.
Learn more about the case of Daniel Green’s trial.
15. The original defense team never conducted bullet trajectory tests or its own blood analysis.
Demery’s account of Mr. Jordan’s location in the driver’s chair and Demery’s statement regarding Daniel’s position with respect to the vehicle were founded on field examinations carried out by Green’s fresh lawyer, Christine Mumma from the North Carolina Center on Real Innocence. As per the specialist in bullet trajectory, Larry Demery’s depiction of the shooting is implausible. The initial defense team neglected to perform any tests to challenge Demery’s claim that the shooting could have occurred.
16. Evidence of a bullet hole in Mr. Jordan’s shirt wasn’t observed during the autopsy, but was present years later at the trial.
The conducting pathologist did not find any evidence during the autopsy, but the prosecution presented evidence of gunpowder on the shirt. At Daniel Green’s murder trial, it was revealed that the shirt entered into evidence had a bullet hole in the right chest, corresponding to a single gunshot wound. The coroner’s report states that he died from this gunshot wound. The coroner concluded that he had been submerged in water for nearly two weeks. Mr. Jordan’s body was found draped over a tree limb in the Gum Swamp, which is about a mile from the border of North Carolina and South Carolina, near Mobile Crestline Homes.
During Daniel Green’s trial, his defense team presented claims that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. They presented evidence of a shirt with blood and evidence of how the gun was handled.
Listen to Attorney Chris Mumma from the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence lay out her case as she questions the evidence.
17. One of the first calls made from James Jordan’s car phone the day he died was to Hubert Larry Deese, a convicted drug dealer and the biological son of Robeson County Sheriff Hubert Stone, who investigated the Jordan murder. The jury never heard about it.
Crestline Mobile Homes was the workplace for both Demery and Deese, who were familiar with the prosecution team led by Daniel Green. It was not considered relevant, therefore, that Stone and Deese had no known connection between them, as Judge Gregory Weeks did not allow the evidence presented at the trial to call for that. Jordan’s body was dumped in Swamp Gum, which is less than a mile away.
Mumma states that the defense did not provide a record or conduct an interview. According to Mumma, there is no record of the interview, but Deese was interviewed by the State. Jurors never heard about the phone call from the sheriff.
Listen to the defense’s explanation regarding Deese, Stone, and Crestline.
18. A North Carolina reporter claimed that Larry Demery told her in 1993 that he shot James Jordan. She never published the interview.
Connee Brayboy, the local editor of a Native American magazine called Indian Carolina Voice, learned in her 2015 interview with Larry that the person who James Jordan shot and claimed to have told him about the upside-down case that threatens to turn the entire revelation down, was someone she would not have known had she not interviewed Larry after his arrests.
In November 2015, Connee Brayboy filed a sworn statement with the Court detailing the information Larry shared with her.
Discover additional information about Larry Demery’s history and listen to Chris Mumma discuss Connee’s sworn statement.
19. More than two decades after Larry Demery testified identifying Daniel Green as the triggerman, an affidavit is filed claiming Demery admits he lied on the witness stand.
Daniel never saw himself pulling the trigger, but he claims that Larry Mumma, Green’s current attorney, coerced him to tell investigators the story that contradicts his testimony at the trial. Mumma says that Daniel helped convict James Green, whom Daniel insists he did not see kill. In prison, Daniel admits that he was coerced by investigators to confess, and he visits Christine Demery, Larry Mumma’s bombshell witness.
Chris Mumma submitted a sworn statement to the court detailing the information Larry shared with her.
In this scenario, what comes next is a significant decision in Daniel’s appeal, the possibility of Larry’s parole, and the details of Chris Mumma’s visit to Larry in prison.
20. Daniel Green has maintained his innocence in the murder since 1993.
Daniel’s claim that his legal counsel was ineffective during his 1996 trial, resulting in a violation of his due process rights, has led to multiple appeals being filed by his lawyer, Chris Mumma, and the Innocence Center on his case. They have argued that there is new evidence in the case that grounds for the appeals. However, all of their appeals have been denied by the North Carolina Actual Innocence Center. Daniel Green has been filing appeals since his conviction in 1996, claiming that he was not present when his father, Michael Jordan’s dad, was killed.
21. In 2020, Green’s co-defendant Larry Demery was granted parole.
He was scheduled to be released in 2023. In 2021, his parole date was delayed by a year and then later revoked.
Daniel Green, stating that new evidence proves Jordan James’ innocence in the murder, persists in his right to appeal.
22. A ruling from the North Carolina Supreme Court on a different case reverses a lower court’s decision in Daniel’s case.
The decision of the North Carolina Appeals Court ruling on Daniel’s motion should be reconsidered, but the Supreme Court denied a new hearing for Allen vs State after flatly ruling on it in 2020. One of the reasons Chris Mumma, Daniel’s attorney, said a new hearing was deserved was due to the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruling involving a claim of “ineffective assistance of counsel.”
After 28 years in prison, Daniel’s lawyer describes this as “the initial favorable occurrence in his case.”
Discover further details on how the reversal of Judge Winston Gilcrest’s decision led to the overturning of Daniel Green’s appeal.