On June 15, 2013, throughout the day and into the evening, Glen Cannon received several text messages that he believed were sent by his former girlfriend, Shamika Currington. Shortly after midnight on June 16, Cannon agreed to meet her at a particular address in Detroit, Michigan.
When he arrived, however, two men were there and robbed him at gunpoint. They fled with his car, $500, a gold chain, and other items. Cannon went to the police station to report the robbery. He said he was only able to get a good look at one of the robbers. Cannon, who was 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 170 pounds, described one robber as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 160 pounds. He said the other robber was 6 feet tall and weighed 200 pounds.
One police officer suggested that Cannon scour social media in the hope of spotting the robbers. When Cannon looked on Currington’s Twitter account, he saw a photograph of 20-year-old Quinton Jones-Whitaker, who was Currington’s then-boyfriend and believed that Jones-Whitaker was one of the robbers. In the photo, Jones-Whitaker was wearing a dark gray shirt with yellow lettering.
On June 18, 2013, after Cannon reported his discovery to police, Jones-Whitaker was arrested and placed in a lineup. He was wearing the same shirt that he was wearing in the photograph on Twitter. After Cannon identified Jones-Whitaker as one of the robbers, Jones-Whitaker was charged with carjacking, armed robbery, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
As Jones-Whitaker’s trial date approached, the police discovered that Duane Wilson had used a mobile application called Pinger to send the texts to Cannon as if they had been sent by Currington. On January 13, 2014, police interviewed Wilson, who implicated Deandre Bradley in the robbery. Bradley was not interviewed, however, and two days later, on January 15, Jones-Whitaker went to trial in Wayne County Circuit Court.
There was no physical or forensic evidence connecting Jones-Whitaker to the crime. The prosecution’s case rested solely on Cannon’s identification of Jones-Whitaker as one of the robbers, even though Jones-Whitaker, who stood 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 125 pounds, was significantly smaller than Cannon’s original descriptions of the robbers.
The defense sought to establish that Jones-Whitaker was elsewhere at the time of the crime. At trial, his friend, Clinton Butts, and Currington testified on his behalf, ostensibly intending to provide an alibi defense.
Butts initially testified that he did not speak to or see Jones-Whitaker on June 16 and that he spoke to and played basketball with Jones-Whitaker on June 15. But then he clarified that he was with Jones-Whitaker on both days. Jones-Whitaker’s defense attorney then asked him about June 16. Butts said that Jones-Whitaker had picked him up at about 9 p.m. on June 16. They first stopped at a Citgo gas station. After a couple more stops, they went to Butts’s home, arriving at about 9:30 p.m.
Butts said he and Jones-Whitaker smoked marijuana and played video games until well past midnight when Jones-Whitaker went to pick up Currington from her job.
When Currington took the witness stand, Jones-Whitaker’s attorney drew her attention to June 16, starting at noon. Currington testified that she was at home with Jones-Whitaker at that time and that they went to get something to eat. According to Currington, Jones-Whitaker dropped her off at work in his car around 5:00 p.m. on June 16. Currington testified that she finished work at 2:50 a.m. on June 17, and that Jones-Whitaker picked her up.
Jones-Whitaker testified to events on June 16 and 17. He denied sending the texts or committing the crime.
During the closing arguments, the prosecution pointed out that the defense witnesses, including Jones-Whitaker, had testified about various events, but none of the events covered the time period shortly after midnight on the morning of June 16 when the crime occurred.
On January 17, 2014, the jury convicted Jones-Whitaker of carjacking, armed robbery, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to 12½ to 22 years in prison.
While his case was being appealed, it was remanded to the trial court for a hearing on a motion for a new trial. The motion claimed that his trial defense attorney had provided ineffective assistance of counsel by confusing dates when questioning Butts, Currington, and Jones-Whitaker. The confusing testimony had effectively deprived Jones-Whitaker of his alibi defense, the motion said.
Although Butts and Currington were in the courtroom, they were not called to testify. On November 14, 2014, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Craig Strong denied the motion.
On October 15, 2015, the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Jones-Whitaker’s conviction and sentence. The court noted that at the hearing, despite being given the opportunity to elicit testimony, the defense had not obtained or attempted to obtain evidence from Butts, Currington, or Jones-Whitaker, showing that they would have testified in support of an alibi for Jones-Whitaker at the time of the crime had they been properly questioned during the trial in regard to the pertinent timeframe.
In 2020, the Michigan Innocence Clinic (MIC) began investigating Jones-Whitaker’s case and uncovered evidence pointing to the true perpetrators. MIC then referred the case to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) for further review.
The MIC and CIU investigations discovered that in a 2014 phone call recorded by Currington after trial, Deandre Bradley admitted that he was present during the carjacking and that Jones-Whitaker was not involved. Bradley identified the perpetrators as himself, Duane Wilson, and Wilson’s cousin, whose name he did not know. According to Bradley, Wilson organized the robbery, and Wilson and his cousin each took $200 or $250.
In addition, Jamilah Watt and Ashlee Norman, neither of whom testified at trial, came forward to say that, between 2015 and 2019, Bradley and Wilson confessed to the crime to them on separate occasions and said that Jones-Whitaker was not involved. Watt also listened to the 2014 recording and identified the voice of Bradley on the call.
The CIU also found a latent fingerprint from the carjacked vehicle that initially had been determined to be unusable for testing at the time of trial. This fingerprint was run through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) at the request of the CIU on August 4, 2025. The fingerprint was associated with a man named Dimitri Jackson.
The investigation revealed that Jackson was the cousin of Wilson, which was consistent with Bradley’s confession.
On February 18, 2026, the CIU interviewed Jackson who confirmed that Duane Wilson was his cousin. Jackson offered no explanation for why his fingerprint was on the stolen vehicle.
On May 12, 2026, Jones-Whitaker was released from prison on parole.
On June 23, 2026, the CIU and the MIC filed a proposed order agreeing to vacate Jones-Whitaker’s convictions and to dismiss the case. Judge Keifer Cox signed the order, and the case was dismissed.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 07-02-2026
