Trial Starts For Woman Charged With Killing Beyoncé’s Cousin

Kardone

The aspiring artist’s wife testified about knowing the woman on trial.

The woman accused of fatally shooting Beyoncé’s cousin Martell DeRouen is finally going on trial two years after the incident.

As previously reported by AllHipHop.com, aspiring rapper Martell DeRouen, who went by the moniker Kardone, was murdered in January 2021. Sasha Skare allegedly shot the 34-year-old through the door of his apartment at The Towers following an argument, killing him with a single bullet.

On Tuesday (August 29,) jurors overseeing Skare’s murder trial were shown a startling video of the suspect walking to his apartment with a gun in one hand and phone in the other, as reported by the San Antonio Express-News. They also heard audio from a 911 call from a woman claiming to be the victim’s wife and stating she believed he was hurt or in danger but didn’t have a key to get into their apartment.

According to DeRouen’s actual wife, Joia DeRouen, it was not her voice on the recording. She said she believed it was the 21-year-old defendant. She said Skare, whom she knew, gave the dispatcher the wrong information.

“She pronounced the last name wrong,” DeRouen said. “My name starts with a J and not a G. He was not 28, he was 34. Not correct at all.”

An associate of DeRouen’s, Pedro Padilla, was called on the stand to testify. He said he actually saw DeRouen and Skare together a few times.

Padilla states his Ring doorbell camera captured the woman in a long blue-green dress walking barefoot down his hallway that night, holding the firearm and her cell. Near 9 p.m. local time, he said he heard what would later be determined to be a gunshot.

“I thought it was just a firework,” he told the jury. 

Caroline Eichman, who lived directly across from DeRouen, said she saw Skare banging on the victim’s door around the time of the shooting.