Background: News footage of the scene where Bernell Hall was killed in November (WITI). Inset (left): Bernell Hall (WITI). Inset (right): Ashanti Davis (Milwaukee County Jail).
A Wisconsin woman was charged with solicitation of first-degree homicide after jailhouse calls revealed her alleged plot to have a father of three children killed in a fake robbery.
Ashanti Davis, 25, was arrested and taken into custody on Dec. 31, just shy of two months after the shooting death of her former boyfriend, Bernell Hall, 29. According to the criminal complaint obtained by WITI, a local Fox affiliate, Davis and Hall were sitting in a car behind a building in Milwaukee when two masked men ambushed them and told them to empty their pockets. Prosecutors said that the robbery was staged, and the only intended victim was Hall.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
At the time of the shooting, Davis reportedly told police that she heard a single gunshot while she was running away from the scene. However, the criminal complaint stated that Davis allegedly arranged the shooting with an unnamed incarcerated man whom she was dating in the days before.
WITI reported that multiple recorded jailhouse calls between Davis and the inmate revealed an alleged plot to kill Hall, including an alleged statement that Davis made to the inmate on Oct. 28: “Baby daddy, boom, pop, boom.”
On Oct. 29, Davis allegedly said that she “got a cat to kill the rat.” She also claimed that she had “to speak in riddles because the call is monitored.” Two days later, on Oct. 31 — the day before Hall was killed — Davis allegedly said, “it’s going to happen real soon.”
About 12 hours after the shooting in the early morning hours of Nov. 1, Davis allegedly told the inmate “they killed him” and “people think I had something to do with it.”
Hall’s mother, Nicole Hall, told WITI, “I knew she would end up getting caught because she doesn’t know how to stop talking. I knew she would incriminate herself.”
Davis appeared in court on Jan. 4 and is being held on $100,000 bond. Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 10.
