Murder In The Black

Keith Warren was 19 when he was found hanging in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1986. Authorities ruled his death a suicide without performing an autopsy. His mother, Mary Couey, spent decades questioning that conclusion—and the investigation behind it.
Steph examines the scene photographs, the clothing questions, the anonymous envelope delivered on Keith’s birthday, and the reported warning involving Mark Finley. She also follows Sherri Warren’s fight for answers. Keith’s cause and manner of death were reclassified as undetermined in 2024, and police reopened the investigation in 2025. Neither development establishes that he was killed.
At the end of the episode, True Crime in Current News features an update on Nolan Wells. Steph reflects on why his case brought Keith’s story back to mind while keeping the facts of each case distinct.
Content warning: Discussion of a hanging death, possible suicide, racial violence, and crime-scene photographs.
In The Episode:
Why Keith’s family challenged the original ruling

The missing autopsy and limits of later forensic testing

Questions about the rope, tree, body position, and clothing

Mary Couey’s advocacy and the photographs left at her home

What is—and is not—known about Mark Finley

The 2024 reclassification and 2025 reopening

A True Crime in Current News update on Nolan Wells

Timestamps:
00:00 — The photographs delivered on Keith’s birthday
02:34 — Facts, family accounts, and unanswered questions
03:04 — Why the history of lynching matters
06:58 — Keith’s life and his family’s doubts
08:19 — Keith goes missing and is found
10:55 — The approximately 21-minute scene response
12:21 — No autopsy and the limits of later testing
13:57 — Body position and the rope
16:30 — The clothing questions
17:25 — Mary’s search for answers
19:52 — The anonymous envelope
21:29 — The reported warning and Mark Finley
23:48 — The official ruling and the family’s concerns
25:38 — Race, trust, and the power to classify a death
28:55 — Uprooted and Sherri’s advocacy
30:07 — Reclassified as undetermined
30:49 — The investigation reopens
33:24 — What remains unknown
36:03 — Mary’s persistence and accountability
At the end — True Crime in Current News: Nolan Wells update
What should justice look like when an original investigation may have made the truth harder to find?
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Between 1979 and 1981, Black children, teenagers and young adults disappeared across Atlanta. As fear spread, grieving families organized searches, challenged city leaders and demanded that the cases be treated as a coordinated emergency.
In this special episode, Steph examines the victims, the community’s fight for answers and the controversial case against Wayne Williams.
Williams was convicted of murdering two adult men, Jimmy Ray Payne and Nathaniel Cater. He was never tried for the children’s murders, yet authorities attributed more than twenty additional deaths to him and closed those cases.
We examine the Jackson Parkway bridge encounter, fiber and dog-hair evidence, disputed witnesses, Williams’s changing explanations, racial and political pressure, possible Klan involvement, and the differences among the victims that continue to raise questions.
Was Wayne Williams responsible for every murder attributed to him, only some of them, or was one conviction used to provide Atlanta with an ending it desperately needed?
Content warning: This episode discusses the murders of children and young adults, racial violence and disputed allegations.
Remember the victims as individuals—not simply as evidence for or against Wayne Williams.

On the morning after Thanksgiving in 2014, firefighters responded to a blaze inside a Fort Worth apartment. There, they discovered 31-year-old Ashlea Harris bound and murdered.
Ashlea was a hardworking store manager who had recently helped police identify two former employees suspected of robbing the American Eagle store where she worked. Months later, those same former employees—Carter Cervantez and Clarence “David” Mallory—were accused of entering Ashlea’s home and carrying out a brutal act of revenge.
But what were they looking for inside her apartment—and why did they believe Ashlea had it?
In this episode of Murder in the Black, Steph examines the events leading to Ashlea’s murder, the evidence connecting Cervantez and Mallory to the crime, and the investigation that uncovered what they came back for.
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On December 6, 1975, Wesley Diggs returned to his home in Teaneck, New Jersey, and discovered his wife, Jean, and their four children—Audrey, Allison, Wesley Jr., and five-year-old Roger—shot to death.
There was no obvious forced entry. Nothing appeared to have been stolen. Neighbors reportedly heard nothing, despite more than twenty shots being fired.
In this episode, Steph examines the crime scene, Wesley’s business connections, the Harlem leads, three potential suspects, an informant’s account, and the controversial theory that Jean may have killed the children. We also consider whether race affected the investigation and why, after fifty years, no one has been held responsible.
Someone entered—or was allowed into—the Diggs home that night. The question is: who, and why?
Content warning: This episode discusses the murder of children, family homicide, gun violence, and descriptions of a crime scene.
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On December 3, 2003, federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna left his Baltimore office shortly before midnight—but he never made it home. Hours later, his car was discovered beside a rural Pennsylvania creek, with Jonathan lying facedown beneath it. He had suffered 36 stab wounds and cuts before ultimately drowning.
The local coroner ruled Jonathan’s death a homicide. However, federal investigators reportedly considered a dramatically different possibility: that Jonathan inflicted the wounds himself while attempting to stage an attack or disappearance.
In this episode, Steph traces Jonathan’s unexplained interstate drive, the blood found throughout his vehicle, the professional pressures surrounding him, and the competing theories that have divided investigators for more than two decades. The recently unsealed autopsy confirms important details about his injuries—but does it bring us any closer to understanding what really happened?
Also, before you go, check your feed for Steph’s special video interview with MD discussing the outcome of the Karmelo Anthony evidentiary hearing.
Case discussed: Jonathan Luna
Content warning: This episode discusses suicide, drowning, and sharp-force injuries.
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