Counsel Questions Detectives on Destruction Process and Custody Chain of Murder Weapon

By Natalie Goodman [former] - October 5, 2022
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

During an Oct. 4 motions hearing, two detectives were questioned on the destruction of a gun identified as the murder weapon in a 2017 homicide case.

On Aug. 10, 2017, at around 3:30 p.m., Robert Moses and James Mayfield approached the intersection of Montana and Saratoga Avenues, NE while armed with .40 and .45 caliber handguns. Collectively, the defendants fired over ten rounds at people standing on Saratoga Avenue. One of the bullets struck 17-year-old Jamahri Sydnor in the head as she was driving, killing her. Three other bystanders were also struck by bullets.  

During the hearing, DC Superior Court Judge Maribeth Raffinan reviewed a motion to exclude all references to the intentional destruction of a .40 caliber handgun, one of the identified murder weapons, during the upcoming trial. 

The defense called in two detectives, one from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and another from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

The prosecutors asked the first detective a series of questions pertaining to when, how, and by whom the gun was destroyed.

According to the detective, the gun was originally held in Prince George’s County’s custody as evidence for an investigation of an illegal gun purchase. 

Although officials initially suspected the gun was linked to Sydnor’s homicide’s back in August 2017, the connection was confirmed through a federal ballistics database that identified a match between the casings fired by the gun and the bullet which killed Sydnor. 

Through a series of emails, the detective was aware of that gun’s status as a murder weapon, which a forensic examiner soon confirmed. At that time, the gun was transferred to the ATF Task Force’s vault. 

In 2019, the defendant in the Prince George’s County investigation pleaded guilty. After his sentence, the prosecution’s office filed a motion asking the court to forfeit all property related to the case, including the gun. The officer asked the ATF to schedule the gun’s destruction for the “near future” as this would make “much more room in the vault.”

Per the request, the detective switched the gun’s status from “evidence” to “seized judicially” in the ATF database, which prompted officials to formally approve the gun’s destruction. However, MPD was not copied in these emails and not updated when the gun was destroyed in August 2019.

When questioned by prosecutors, the detective said the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) never explicitly asked him to preserve the gun. He claimed that if they had, he would’ve included a note in their weapons database to preserve it as evidence.

The next witness was a MPD detective who had been directly involved in Sydnor’s case since 2017. Once he learned of the database match in February 2018, he notified DC prosecutors immediately. After that, he said he had kept no contact with Prince George’s County regarding the gun for two years.

Then, in February 2020, the detective said he reached out in hopes of retrieving the gun for evidence in Sydnor’s case. He said his contact in Prince George’s County was under the impression they still had custody over the gun, despite it having been transferred over two years earlier. 

The detective soon learned that ATF had destroyed the gun back in 2019, which prevented him from reconfirming the database results or including the gun as evidence in the case.

The detective said it never occurred to him that the gun might have been destroyed because DC standard practice was to retain evidence for 65 years. In his 10 years with the homicide division, he said he’d never encountered a scenario wherein another jurisdiction destroyed a murder weapon that was evidence in a pending murder trial. 

He expected that Prince George’s County officials or the ATF would have alerted him prior to the destruction. If they had, the detective said he would have requested the gun be preserved.

However, in his cross-examination by prosecutors, the detective admitted that he lacks any personal access to the evidence room, database or case files in Prince George’s County. He said he does not have any direct authority over whether a weapon or piece of evidence is held or protected within the ATF.

In order to request the gun’s preservation as evidence, a local prosecutor would’ve needed to sign off on the request. 

The detective said there is not a direct line of communication between the jurisdictions.

Moses, 23, was arrested on Aug. 10, 2017. Mayfield, 22, was arrested on Dec. 28, 2017. 

Moses is charged with 13 counts, including first-degree murder while armed in a drive-by or random shooting offense during release, assault with the intent to kill during release, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence during release, conspiracy while armed during release, and obstruction of justice.

Mayfield is charged with 25 counts, including first-degree murder while armed, assault with the intent to kill while armed, possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, threat to kidnap or injure a person, robbery while armed, assault with a dangerous weapon, aggravated assault knowingly while armed, carrying a pistol without a license outside a home or business, and attempt to commit robbery.

Judge Raffinan continued the motion hearing for Oct. 6.