In 1999, an Oakland man was one juror away from conviction of torturing a woman to death. Now he stands accused of murdering his wife

OAKLAND — Nathaniel McCowan claimed that he and his wife were in such an intense argument, that it was best they parted ways.

So around 2 a.m. on Feb. 26, 2023, McCowan, 49, claimed he pulled over his Hyundai and let 36-year-old Laketha Humphrey-McCowan out on 73rd Avenue in Oakland. He told police he was so drunk that he crashed the car on 106th Avenue near Interstate 580, then simply walked back to his home on Malcolm Avenue, authorities said.

Somehow, Humphrey-McCowan turned up dead of a gunshot wound on the freeway. When he was interviewed about her death last year, he claimed no knowledge of it, telling homicide investigators he felt “disrespected” that they actually read him his Miranda rights as if he was a legitimate suspect, according to court records.

A social media post memorializing Humphrey-McCowan describes her as “a beautiful soul” who “would light up any room she walked in.”

Now, authorities say that the nearly 12-month investigation has produced evidence that it was McCowan who pulled the trigger, leaving his wife for dead alongside Interstate 580 after the two argued at a friend’s birthday party earlier in the morning. Being accused of murder is nothing new for McCowan, who in 1998 was charged with murdering his married brother’s love interest to prevent the victim from revealing the affair.

In 1998, the evidence against McCowan largely came from McCowan’s then-girlfriend, who’d claimed he confessed to the murder but later attempted to recant on the witness stand. His confession to her, according to police reports, came in the form of a single sentence: “I shot the b—-.”

McCowan went on trial in 1999, where a jury gave him a chance of a life outside of prison walls. Eleven of the 12 jurors were ready to find McCowan guilty. One held out, and convinced a judge that they weren’t going to budge. Prosecutors later handed McCowan a plea deal that came with a seven-year prison term, which he accepted, court records show.

Nathaniel McCowan’s brother wasn’t so lucky. Emmanuel McCowan was convicted of murder, torture, and use of a knife. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and to this day the 53-year-old remains behind bars at a prison cell in Vacaville, records show.

Now, Nathaniel McCowan stands accused of a near identical crime, and his brush with the law in 1998 may come back to haunt him. The charging documents list his voluntary manslaughter conviction as a prior offense, and he faces more than 50 years to life if convicted, records show.

Court records describe McCowan as a lifelong Oakland resident, one of three siblings and the son of a maintenance man and factory worker who kept a loving, supportive household. McCowan’s older brother, Emmanuel, played football at Oakland Tech but dropped out without receiving a degree, then — along with Nathaniel — reportedly turned to crack cocaine as a primary income source, authorities said at the time.

In 1998, the brothers lived together at the same Malcolm Avenue address that Nathaniel McCowan still claims. They both maintained multiple romantic relationships, with Nathaniel dating two women and Emmanuel maintaining a marriage to a woman named Rhonda, and a mistress named Yulanda Dedmon .

In 1997, Emmanuel McCowan was arrested for possessing 37 crack cocaine “rocks” and a gun, and spent some time in Santa Rita Jail. He sent love letters to his wife and mistress, who both showed up to visit him on the same day, leading to a confrontation between the two women, according to court records.

By the Summer of 1997, Emmanuel McCowan was out on $30,000 bail. Then he started to regret penning letters to Dedmon, fearing she’d use them as leverage to interfere with his marriage and ruin his life. Dedmon, an Oakland resident who lived at an apartment with her 4-year-old daughter, had agreed to turn over the letters to Nathaniel McCowan on June 24, 1997, witnesses would later tell police.

Instead, Dedmon simply disappeared. On June 25, 1997, a friend went to check on her and found her 4-year-old daughter, Myesha, alone at the unlocked apartment. Stunned by the implication, Dedmon’s brother called police and reported her missing.

Dedmon’s body was found that afternoon, at a now-defunct middle school on Fontaine Street, by an 8-year-old boy walking to baseball practice. She’d been stripped nude, stabbed 18 times, beaten extensively, and shot in the head. Emmanuel McCowan would later tell a cousin that he’d stepped on her head in an attempted to break her neck, then stabbed her when that failed, according to court records.

After the McCowans’ cousin was arrested for robbery, he relayed the alleged confession to police. Nathaniel McCowan’s girlfriend also told the cops about his alleged confession to her, also relaying she’d seen him with up to 2,500 crack rocks for sale at a time according to police reports.

At trial, the defense challenged both witnesses’ credibility and claimed that Emmanuel McCowan had an alibi that was backed up by his parents. Before he was sentenced to life with no chance of freedom, Emmanuel maintained that he had nothing to do with Dedmon’s death.

“I was wrongly accused and convicted,” he told a probation officer. “I’m innocent of all charges.”

After serving his sentence, Nathaniel McCowan returned to Oakland. On the night before Humphrey-McCowan was killed, witnesses told police that McCowan seemed angry about how intoxicated she was at the birthday party.

Police say the argument continued after they got into the Hyundai and headed home. At some point, McCowan allegedly pulled over on the freeway, and shot his wife in the head.

An eyewitness passing by in another vehicle spotted part of the altercation, later telling police that he saw a man standing over a woman and appear to be “stomping” her as she lay on the ground.

When police interviewed McCowan later that day, he expressed concern over her whereabouts. But then detectives told him a woman matching his wife’s description was found, dead, along the freeway. McCowan pressed them for more information, agreed that it indeed sounded like his wife’s description, but said he refused to believe it was really her, according to court records.

McCowan remains in Santa Rita Jail on a no-bail hold.

As for Dedmon, her loved ones have done what they could to keep her memory alive, running several tributes to her in the Oakland Tribune and online memorials over the years. One, written by her daughter in 2006, concludes, “I miss your beautiful face and long for you so.”

“I miss the way you call my name. Dang I miss those days,” Dedmon’s daughter wrote. “I miss the way you used to look at me in my eyes telling me good advice. I miss you mama.”