Left: Tahj Matthias Ji’Reh Wall (Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office). Right: Melvin Hopper (Obituary).
A North Carolina man will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars for shooting and killing his boyfriend several years ago and then driving around with his dead body for hours after the violence.
Tahj Matthias Ji’Reh Wall, 27, was convicted on one count of murder in the first degree by a jury of his peers in Gaston County on Thursday. Jurors subsequently sentenced the killer to life in prison. In the Tar Heel State, life sentences are issued without the possibility of parole.
The underlying incident occurred on May 27, 2021.
On the day in question, Wall shot Melvin Hopper, 40, in the back of the head during an argument in Gastonia – a medium-sized city roughly 40 miles due east of Charlotte. But the victim did not die instantly.
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So, Wall shot Hopper in the head again.
Jurors were made aware of the grim details.
“Tahj Wall executed Melvin Hopper,” prosecutor Kristen Northup said during closing arguments on Wednesday, according to a courtroom report by Charlotte-based ABC and Telemundo affiliate WSOC. “Melvin Hopper was still alive after the first shot was fired.”
Then, the defendant put the victim in the passenger seat of his car for over six hours and drove, and drove, and drove – on a trip that finally ended in Charlotte. During the macabre outing, Wall showed the body to at least two people.
One of those people, Wall’s high school friend, testified during the trial as the state’s first witness, according to an earlier report by WSOC.
“I really just want to get out of the car,” the witness testified. “Say whatever I need to say to get out.”
The witness said she was walking in Steele Creek – a neighborhood largely within the far southwestern city limits of Charlotte – when Wall drove along and asked if she wanted a ride. She accepted the offer but regretted it after their conversation turned toward Wall’s love life.
The woman testified that the killer told her he just got out of a bad relationship – and how.
“I remember him saying, ‘Yes, I killed him,’ and he lifts the purple blanket up,” she told the jury.
Then, the prosecutor engaged the witness in a quick colloquy about the defendant’s attitude. This quick back-and-forth seemed designed to establish that Wall, despite the gruesome revelation, did not appear to be upset and was not crying, panicked, or even scared.
The defendant was arrested soon after the woman was shown the body of the man she did not know – the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police found Hopper’s body around 12:18 p.m. on Barrands Lane and Wall was quickly identified as the suspect.
Working backwards, prosecutors also had the first person shown the body testify about the defendant’s attitude that day.
Again, the witness said Wall did not seem scared.
“I felt fear,” the second witness testified. “I felt scared. I didn’t believe that my friend had really done something like this.”
But he had. During the trial, his defense tried to justify what he did by citing a long history of Wall being the victim of domestic violence.
Wall’s defense attorney, James Exum, said his client had “festered in domestic violence.” He said the slain man regularly beat Wall and threatened him. Such threats, the defense argued, continued until the day Hopper died, alleging the victim made a move to shoot Wall with a gun kept in his car and that he “feared for his life.”
“And when he reached for the gun, Tahj shot him,” Exum argued.
The defense also tried to account for the bizarre post-slaughter car ride, saying the defendant was merely looking for help.
“I was going to turn myself in but I needed to talk to momma first,” Exum said, channeling his client.
In the end, however, the jury believed the state’s version of events.
The victim’s obituary remembers him fondly:
His biggest joy was his family and friends. In Melvin’s spare time, he helped with a dance team and was part of the Black Lives Matter Moments. He loved cooking, and dancing. Melvin was the life of the party and loved helping people.
