Mississippi man gets 40 years after pleading guilty to killing he rapped about in online video
Published 6:34 am Friday, June 28, 2024
A Mississippi man who posted a rap video online about a murder that he committed was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to the 2022 killing referenced in the video.
Michael “Traedoe” Thomas, 28, of Natchez, was sentenced for the shooting death of Johnny Ricardo Mason on Jan. 4, 2022.
The Natchez Democrat reports that Thomas pleaded guilty to second-degree homicide in Sixth District Circuit Court earlier in June. Circuit Court Judge Debra Blackwell ordered a pre-sentencing investigation before sentencing him.
Sixth Circuit District Attorney Tim Cotton asked that Thomas be sentenced to 40 years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. That was the sentence Blackwell handed down on Wednesday afternoon.
Thomas, who goes by the nickname Traedoe, considers himself a rapper, and a video was created and posted on YouTube, which Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten said centers on a murder Thomas committed. Patten said the video has since been removed from public view.
Thomas was on the run for 24 hours before turning himself into the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. Thomas shot and killed Mason on Jan. 4, 2022, near Holiday Apartments in Natchez. Natchez Police officials at the time said other people, including children, were in the area when the shooting occurred.
Police said Mason identified Michael Thomas as his shooter before he died at Merit Health Natchez from a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen.
Thomas was sentenced to five years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections for an aggravated assault charge beginning in 2018. He was released after serving three years of that sentence.
Thomas was arrested again in June 2021 after kidnapping his girlfriend at gunpoint. However, Natchez Police officials said the girlfriend “backpedaled” and refused to press charges.