It was a quiet evening on Greenly Drive until an Oakland rapper drove up, allegedly confessed to a homicide, stripped naked, and fled

OAKLAND — An East Bay rapper accused of murdering a fellow youth mentor in front of more than 100 witnesses allegedly fled from the shooting to a Greenly Drive neighborhood, confessed to a resident, then stripped naked and fled, leaving clothes and an envelope full of cash behind.

These new details came out in the recent preliminary hearing of 38-year-old Daniel Stith, who was ordered to stand trial on charges of murdering Concord resident Reuben Lewis III, 37, at Concordia Park in Oakland and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Though the hearing offered the public its first blow-by-blow account of the tragic homicide, in many ways it raised more questions than it answered.

Preliminary hearings are standard procedure for all felony cases, where prosecutors call witnesses in the hopes of convincing a judge that the case meets the low-bar legal standard of probable cause, and if it does, a trial date will be set. As is typical, no defense witnesses were called at Stith’s hearing. The prosecution called an Oakland police sergeant, Greenly Drive residents, and football coaches and parents present for the February 2021 shooting.

The eyewitnesses testified they saw Stith — a onetime youth football coach and rapper who uses the stage name Danny from Sobrante —  at the Oakland Dynamites football practice on Feb. 24, 2021, and that they heard gunfire and saw Lewis’ body lying on the grass as dozens of parents rushed to protect the children.

Greenly Drive residents testified Stith showed up in the Eastmont Hills neighborhood shortly after the 5:30 p.m. shooting. One woman said she was watching TV in her living room when someone started pounding on her front door. When she cracked it open she came face-to-face with Stith in a panicked state.

“‘I think I killed someone. I killed someone, I killed someone. Call the police,’” the woman testified she remembers Stith saying. Then he stripped naked in her driveway, hopped in his van, and drove away, she said on the stand. An envelope with $900 in cash was found near his pile of clothing.

The woman said she did call police, who took roughly 45 minutes to arrive. She testified that she did not know Stith.

Hours later, Stith reportedly turned himself in at the San Leandro police station, pressing an intercom button and telling the receptionist he was the man police were looking for. Oakland police Sgt. Yun Zhou testified Stith had between $10,000-20,000 in his possession when he was booked.

But what no one, including police, could explain was what reason Stith would have for shooting Lewis. Walte Orr, head coach of the Oakland Dynamites, testified that Stith and Lewis had grown up together, recorded music in the same garage studio, and that both had been heavily involved in youth sports as coaches, mentors, and parents.

Orr said when he heard shots ring out his first thoughts were for the safety of the more than 100 children he estimated were present for the practice. Then he heard one of Lewis’ three sons call out.

“‘I think that’s my dad,’” Orr recalled the boy saying, as he pointed to Lewis’ distinctive red shoes. Lewis was lying face up, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound, more than 100 feet away.

But neither Orr nor several other witnesses — testifying under a subpoena by the District Attorney — could seem to remember who shot Lewis. All those present for the shooting claimed memory issues with that detail, though they recounted specific details when asked about what happened before and after.

Steve Peterson, a Dynamites coach who was present for the shooting, said he kneeled down and prayed when he heard the gunshots, after realizing they weren’t firecrackers as he initially assumed. He could think of no reason why Stith would shoot anyone, calling him, the “most dedicated parent that we had out there, most respectful parent that we had out there.”

Deputy Public Defender Christina Moore, who is representing Stith, spent much of her time on cross-examination asking questions about Stith’s apparent mental state around the time of the shooting. One eyewitness said Stith “just seemed like Danny” but upon further pressing admitted he seemed “off” and confused at the practice.

In the end, Judge Morris Jacobson relied on the details of the alleged confession and Stith’s remarks to San Leandro police that he was a wanted man in issuing an order for Stith to stand trial, adding there was “certainly” enough to meet the legal standard required for preliminary hearings.

“I will note that there is certainly significant evidence here that this behavior of Mr. Stith is aberrational, to say the least,” Jacobson said. “He was behaving in some very odd ways that certainly suggests some level of an episode of mental illness, whether that gets developed, but indications of that came from several witnesses.”