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On April the second, two thousand seventeen, a man taking a break from his job was strolling through the woodlands of Richmond, Virginia, when he stumbled upon something peculiar: a Rubbermaid container with a shoe projecting from it. He discovered the deceased body of nineteen-year-old Martre Coles inside.

'The most precise way to depict it is almost like being arranged akin to an accordion. With his knees drawn close to his chest,' explained prosecutor Shannon Taylor on Snapped, which airs on Oxygen on Sundays at 6/5c.

Coles, whose sisters reported him as missing on March thirteenth, two thousand seventeen, had his wrists restrained with tape, in addition to a powder coating his body.

The medical examiner came to the conclusion that asphyxiation served as Coles' cause of death. His system contained GHB, more commonly recognized as the date rape drug, alongside trazodone, identified as a sedative and antidepressant.

'It's plausible that what transpired involved this individual being drugged, losing consciousness, and perhaps being positioned inside the container in that peculiar accordion-like posture, while still conscious, leading to suffocation inside the confines of the box,' Stacey Davenport, a former assistant prosecutor, elaborated on Snapped.

Law enforcement found it challenging to comprehend the circumstances surrounding Martre Coles' murder.

'The sheer heartlessness of these actions — why did a young man of nineteen have to meet his end in such a manner?' Taylor questioned.

Martre Coles' difficult relationships alongside Denise Gay and her family

Martre Coles' mom unfortunately passed away due to a heart attack three years preceding his murder. Sixteen years old at the time, this bereavement left him grieving together with his widowed father, Maurice, because his elder sisters had already vacated their family home.

Following the passing of his wife, Maurice grew progressively closer with Denise Gay, his colleague.

'Denise, in a way, acted like Maurice's comforting shoulder when his wife died," Jon Burkett, a WTVR reporter, explained on Snapped.

Gay and Coles soon began their relationship; subsequently, Gay along with her daughters relocated and resided with him and his son.

'I couldn't imagine any woman actually moving into a deceased woman's residence in less than thirty days. She gave me a negative vibe right from our first encounter," Michelle Coles, Martre's sister, mentioned on Snapped.

Martre's sisters informed law enforcement that he experienced disputes with Gay's daughter, who would steal and vandalize his personal items.

'Whenever Maurice found out something occurred, Denise would try to place the blame on Martre in order to safeguard her daughter,' Davenport mentioned. "They entered into physical altercations that included shoving and loud arguments."

On one occasion, Martre was even attacked with scissors by the girl — and he received no support whatsoever from Denise Gay.

'Martre made it known to me that he perceived Denise was attempting to create division between him and my father," Michelle Coles recounted.

Martre Coles had planned on visiting Full Sails University situated in Florida in order to pursue admission as an art student once he had been reported missing, which was a result of exchanging emails with an individual there. Nonetheless, detectives later came to the realization that the emails Martre had been getting were actually fraudulent.

'Someone put forth a lot of effort in order to make it seem that Martre had embarked on a journey to Florida to attend school," Burkett stated.

A twelve-year-old witness gives a description of Martre Coles' murder to authorities

Shortly after the discovery of Martre Coles' body on April second, a pair of officers recalled a service call to which they'd answered at the Coles' household merely three days earlier. LaToya Gay and her younger sister, age twelve, were embroiled in an argument, but as the law enforcement officers departed, the twelve-year-old took an officer to the side.

'I witnessed my mom murdering my stepbrother,' is what she confessed to one officer, which was captured on bodycam footage.

The girl recounted to the authorities that she'd overheard a scream emanating from Martre's bedroom, thus prompting her to look.

'She noticed her mother along with her sister pinning him to the ground, one holding his feet while the other restrained his chest," Davenport stated.

The child alleged that a few moments later, she peeked out her bedroom door and saw her sister, LaToya, maneuvering a plastic container down the hallway. Law enforcement initially believed that the child was merely seeking to get her older sister into trouble and conjuring up a story from anger.

'She brings up Martre's corpse being placed inside a bin and transported away from the premises, and when they start to grasp the specificity of that depiction, as well as how closely it aligns with the actual location of Martre's corpse, they began to be highly concerned about the possibility of this young girl actually being honest," Davenport explained.

With Denise and LaToya Gay being the main suspects in Martre Coles' homicide, law enforcement conducted a search of their residence on April the third. During the search, LaToya came back home before again leaving, so the officers kept tabs on her. She proceeded straight to the area in which Coles' remains were located.

'The investigators had yet to disseminate any details about the body to the family members,' Burkett stated. 'The person most likely to possess knowledge of the whereabouts of that corpse was the perpetrator.'

One of the officers had a hunting camera equipped with motion-activation, which he then fixed onto a tree, with the expectation of capturing any individuals exhibiting suspicious actions on film. Throughout the night of April seventh, the camera recorded images of a black SUV parked along with an individual donning a hoodie. Law enforcement reviewed the security recordings from the workplace of Maurice Coles alongside Denise Gay on April seventh and found footage depicting her departing from work, entering his black SUV, and driving away. Her cell phone location data indicated her presence near the exact location where Coles' body had been discovered.

A shocking witness comes forward alongside new evidence at Denise and LaToya Gay's murder trial

An analysis of Denise Gay's personal computer revealed that she fabricated a false identity for the purpose of emailing Martre Coles through trickery regarding plans of attending Full Sail University. Her personal computer additionally disclosed the fact that she had searched for both "GHB" and "suffocation."

'This particular case stands out as among the most heartbreaking and deeply unsettling that I've ever been involved in," Davenport reflected. 'She allocated her personal time getting acquainted with Martre, discovering what brought him joy, and then exploited that information as a means to end his life."

During the course of the murder trial in December of 2017, the prosecutors contended that Denise schemed over a span of weeks with the intention to murder Martre, and she subsequently manipulated her daughter into helping carry out her plan.

'Denise assigned blame to Martre for all the happenings within the household in order to encourage my father to have Martre removed from the home," Marqweisha Coles, who is Martre's sister, mentioned on Snapped. 'I have reason to believe that Denise desired for Martre to be gone as he was something that was remaining from my mother within the household. And she was very envious of my mom. Denise became unhinged resulting from jealousy.'

Denise Gay's defense lawyer alleged that her youngest daughter was actually the real murderer.

'Not only was Denise Gay unwilling to assume accountability, but more concerning, she would attempt to place the responsibility for this case on her twelve-year-old daughter," Taylor expressed.

 Nevertheless, the jury could not come to an agreement on the charge of first-degree murder. As the prosecuting lawyers got ready for a retrial, Maurice Coles got in contact with them, offering additional evidence.

'Witnessing the genuine concrete evidence firsthand led him to start to believe what he had previously never been prepared to accept,' Davenport recounted. 'The woman whom he had welcomed into his residence, and that he believed actually had genuine affection for both him and his family had, in actuality, murdered his very own son.'

Maurice Coles presented Denise's personal handbag, alongside both her wallet and mobile device situated inside. The phone contained the genuine text correspondence exchanged between her and her daughter.

'Denise was relaying information to her daughter LaToya that she could not successfully locate the body on April seventh,' Taylor recounted. 'That in turn furnished us with unambiguous and compelling confirmation that Denise Gay was indeed the individual depicted within that imagery captured via the game camera.'

At the time of the subsequent trial, both women received convictions for the charge of first-degree murder. Denise Gay was handed a sentence of incarceration for life in conjunction with an additional 10 years.

'Denise was just absolute unadulterated evil," Marqweisha Coles commented.

LaToya Gay's sentence consisted of a thirty-year prison term.

Watch completely new episodes of Snapped on Sundays at 6/5c which you can find on Oxygen and also now streaming on Peacock.