The Metropolitan Police Department is currently investigating a fatal traffic crash that occurred on May 25 at the intersection of H Street and New York Avenue, NW.
According to police documents, Anthony Eugene Johnson’s car, a Dodge Challenger, was traveling at a high speed and hit a median. The car struck a traffic light and flipped.
Johnson, 33, died at a local hospital on June 4.
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact the police at 202-727-9099.
Defense counsel challenged the prosecution’s intent to try a murder defendant nearly 25 years after the crime, calling it a violation of due process.
Therion Bryant is charged with first-degree murder while armed for allegedly stabbing Charlene Johnson. Johnson, 25, died in the basement landing of a residence on the 3600 block of New Hampshire Avenue, NW in 1993.
Bryant was not a person of interest in the case until 2014 after DNA from the crime scene was uploaded to a FBI database. Bryant’s DNA, which was already in the system, matched DNA recovered from the murder scene. However, the FBI lost several samples of DNA related to the case and potential witnesses died.
“If the government has been reckless… Then under the due process of law the case should be dismissed,” defense attorney Jacqueline Cadman told Superior Court Judge Craig Iscoe on May 29. She said the more than two decades delay crippled her client’s ability to mount a defense.
A research biologist from the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Va., who was assigned to the case in 2007, said the sample was not uploaded because a killer was allegedly caught. According to the witness, an agent told her Daryl Turner, who was a serial murderer, was suspected in Johnson’s case. At the time, Turner was being prosecuted for an unrelated crime.
DNA collected from the scene excluded Turner as a possible suspect. The other suspects included Johnson’s boyfriend and a man who confessed to the killing while confined at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, DC’s psychiatric hospital. The man later retracted his confession.
Bryant’s motion hearing is scheduled to continue on June 13.
A murder defendant charged with shooting a married couple in the parking lot of their apartment complex was denied bond on June 1.
Alonzo Lewis is charged with two counts of first-degree murder while armed and assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill. He allegedly shot Jaquon Helm and his wife Venius Badgett on May 16 on the 50th block of Galveston Street, SW.
Lewis “has a history of assaultive behavior,” DC Superior Court Judge Sherry Trafford said June 1. “And he is a danger to the community.”
According to the DC Medical Examiner, Helm, 40, and Badgett, 35, were shot multiple times. Helm was pronounced dead on the scene and Badgett died at a local hospital early the next morning.
The shooting came after an alleged altercation between Lewis, 33, and the couple.
Badgett and Helm had five children and were married for six years. None of the children were harmed during the homicide.
Lewis is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on June 15.
During his arraignment May 31, a juvenile pleaded not guilty to fatally shooting a fellow classmate from Ballou Senior High School.
Sixteen-year-old Daquan Gray was charged as an adult after allegedly shooting Jaylyn Wheeler on the 600 block of Alabama Ave., SE on May 16. The homicide stemmed from an earlier dispute at Ballou Senior High School when another student allegedly threatened Wheeler, 15, according to court documents.
The homicide marks the fourth juvenile murder this year.
Defense counsel requested Gray be released to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS). Gray’s attorney argued he wasn’t a flight risk because he turned himself in on May 30.
DC Superior Court Judge Errol R. Arthur refused to release him.
“He is a flight risk and a danger to the community,” Arthur said. “His mother has a warrant for failure to appear in court, what would stop him from doing the same?”
Gray is being held without bond and will go before DC Superior Court Judge Craig Iscoe on June 11 for a preliminary hearing.
In light of contaminated evidence, defense counsel requested to try two murder defendants, separately .
Joseph Brown and Rondell Mcleod are charged with first-degree murder while armed for allegedly shooting Antwan Baker on November 12, 2015, on the 5300 Block of Clay Terrace, NE. According to court documents, the two confronted Baker and his brother, who were selling PCP, an hallucinatory drug, when a shootout began. The brother survived.
According to ballistics evidence, the homicides were committed with the same gun — a .10 mm pistol. The defense said they will retest ballistics and present the results at a status hearing on June 15.
According to the prosecution, DNA on one of the casings matched McLeod. But, the casing was contaminated during the extraction process.
DC Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff said May 30 that trying these two suspects together for first-degree murder wouldn’t make sense due to the tainted evidence. Bartnoff said there was a possibility that the jury could become biased towards both defendants.
“I don’t see the need to try these two together,” Bartnoff said. “The only thing that connects these two individuals is a gun casing. I’m leaning towards granting severance and holding the Brown trial first.”
The judge said she will make her ruling on whether to separate the defendants at a status hearing scheduled for June 27.
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating a fatal shooting that occurred on June 2 on the 1700 block of Lincoln Road, NE.
The victim has been identified as Deandre Marshman. The victim, who was 18 years old, died at a local hospital.
Up to a $25,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in this homicide or any other homicide in DC.
Check in with D.C. Witness for updates on the case.
A DC Superior Court judge delayed a murder trial for a second time so experts could review the defendant’s medical records. The trial was moved from June 1 to June 4.
The defense claimed May 31 that Antonio Brown allegedly shot Charles Welch, 25, in 2015 because he was taking medications that caused him to have hallucinations. The prosecution said it would like to bring in an expert to review Brown’s medical records to refute the claim.
Brown, 29,is charged with first-degree murder while armed. Apparently, the shooting, which occurred on the 1800 block of Harvard Street, NW, resulted from a dispute Brown’s girlfriend, Amanda Turner, had with Welch.
As Washington, DC gets warmer and nears the summer season, homicides in the city have increased by more than 100 percent, according to D.C. Witness data.
D.C. Witness documents that 19 of the city’s 61 homicides occurred in May, an 111 percent increase from April. There were nine homicides in April. The city experienced a 22 percent increase in homicides from the same time last year, according to the data.
One of the May homicides was a police-involved shooting by an off-duty officer in Ward 5. The May 9 shooting allegedly stemmed from a dispute between the officer and the decedent, D’Quan Young.
Accounts of the incident vary. A witness told NBC4 that the officer shot up the neighborhood, spraying it with bullets.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham told reporters, during a press conference following the shooting, that the decedent had a gun and the officer did not reload his weapon. The chief also said the two were firing at each other simultaneously, and it was not clear who shot first. MPD is currently investigating the shooting.
A majority of the homicides in May have resulted from gun violence, including a deadly Memorial Day weekend that left Venius Badgett, 35; Jaquon Helm, 40; Alexander Mosby, 39; and Anthony Clark, 24, dead.
According to the MPD website, the department documents 63 homicides as of June 1. Three of those homicides are from skeletal remains found in Southeast DC earlier this year. The DC Medical Examiner has not determined an exact date of death for the remains.
The MPD does not incorporate police-involved shooting deaths into the DC homicide count.
The map is an infographic of D.C. Witness data that shows homicides in May by ward.
After requesting the public’s assistance in locating murder suspect Alonzo Lewis, the Metropolitan Police Department arrested him on May 31; two days after the public request.
Lewis, 33, allegedly shot Jaquon Helm, 40, and Venius Badgett, 35, on the unit block of Galveston Street, SW inside the Gardens Apartments’ parking lot on May 26. Lewis is charged with two counts of first-degree murder while armed.
According to the Washington Post, the couple had been married for six years. They had five children who were not hurt during the incident.
The shooting apparently stemmed from a dispute.
Even after being convicted of first-degree murder for shooting three people in 1991,
Benito Valdez continued to claim his innocence during his sentencing hearing on May 25.
Valdez, who is classified as being Hispanic, was sentenced to 94 years to life in prison for
shooting Samantha Gillard, Curtis Pixley and Keith Simmons on the 1800 block of Franklin Street, NE in Langdon Park. According to a witness, the three victims were shot “execution-style”. Valdez was also found guilty of kidnapping and sodomy.
“I didn’t do it,” Valdez, 47, said, ignoring advice from his lawyer to keep quiet. “There’s a lot of things you didn’t get to hear… During trial, I actually wanted to take the stand… They said no one would believe that I wasn’t that kind of person.”
During the sentencing, Valdez’s mother cried out in agony. However, the pain she felt was not the only pain present in the courtroom.
The families of Gillard, 23; Pixley, 29; and Simmons, 24 told DC Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff about how the homicides changed their lives.
“My mother ate, slept and breathed Sam,” Gillard’s sister said. She “grieved herself to death because she thought it was something she did or didn’t do.”
Sandra Pixley, Curtis’ older sister, told the judge that she did not want to see
Valdez spend the rest of his life in prison, but she also said he did not seem remorseful.
“I think he’s a sociopath,” Sandra told D.C. Witness after the sentencing. “I watched him during trial… Justice did prevail.”
Valdez’s sentence was imposed but due to errors with the pre-sentence report, another sentencing is scheduled for June 22 to correct them.
The Metropolitan Police Department arrested May 30 a juvenile suspect connected to the homicide of Jaylyn Wheeler.
Daquan Gray is charged with first-degree murder while armed for allegedly shooting Wheeler, 15, on the 600 Block of Alabama Avenue, SE on May 16.
Gray, 16, was apprehended one day after the police released a notice requesting the public’s assistance to locate him.
According to D.C. Witness data, there have been 10 juvenile homicides so far this year in the District.
On May 24, a defense attorney requested the grand jury transcript from a 2014 homicide that could be related to his client’s murder case. The request was denied.
Paul Swann, and Traveous Lamont Brown are charged with allegedly shooting Adam Edwin Barker in 2016. Swann is charged with second-degree murder while armed and Brown is charged with first-degree murder while armed.
Mani Golzari, Swann’s defense attorney, said he requested grand jury transcripts for Denzel Grandson, who is charged with allegedly shooting Barker’s uncle, Simwone K. Milstead, because the prosecution did not give him information on whether Barker was violent and had access to firearms. Both Barker and Milstead died on the 2700 block of Langston Place, SE.
“It’s a word of mouth system… We can’t operate Brady on a system where you just pass people in the halls,” Golzari said. “You have to have a system in place to share this information.” Brady requires the prosecution to disclose all information that could be favorable to the defense, according to the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia.
The prosecutor said he could not turn over the entire grand jury transcript, but he would be willing to share portions of it.
“I can’t agree to turn over an entire case file in another case,” said the prosecutor. “If Mr. Golzari is right, we’d have to turn in anything related to any homicide in this city.” The prosecutor said the defense already received materials that could be favorable to the defendants, such as cell phone tower information and fingerprint evidence.
Even though DC Superior Court Judge Ronna L. Beck said she would not order the release of the transcript, she said judges were concerned about defense attorneys not receiving information from the prosecution.
“In our view, some of the government aren’t on the right page as to what the obligation is here,” Judge Beck said.
Swann and Brown are scheduled for a trial readiness hearing on June 13.
During a motions hearing, the prosecution said it would offer a murder defendant another opportunity to accept a plea deal.
Leon Stewart, 26, is charged with first-degree murder while armed for allegedly shooting Darnell Lee Richardson, 29, in March of 2016 on Interstate 295. According to court documents, the shooting occurred on the 3400 block of Benning Road, NE near the Pepco Benning Road Plant.
The defendant decided May 29 to reject the prosecution’s initial plea offer. However, the prosecutor said he would have another plea deal ready for an evidentiary hearing scheduled on June 22.
In preparation for the evidentiary hearing, DC Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff said she would listen to and watch audio recordings and videos from a visitation Stewart had while in jail.
In September of 2016, Stewart received a call in jail that supposedly connected him to the death of a witness in the homicide case.
The Metropolitan Police Department is requesting the public’s assistance in locating 16-year-old Daquan Gray.
Gray is currently wanted on a DC Superior Court arrest warrant for first-degree murder while armed. He allegedly shot 15-year-old Jaylyn Wheeler on the 600 block of Alabama Avenue, SE on May 16.
Gray is described as being a 16-year-old black male, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall, 120 pounds, with dark brown eyes and black hair.
A reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
The Metropolitan Police Department is requesting the public’s assistance in locating 33-year-old Alonzo Lewis.
Lewis is wanted on a DC Superior Court arrest warrant for first-degree murder while armed for allegedly shooting Jaquon Helm, 40, and Venius Badgett, 35, on the unit block of Galveston Street, SW on May 26.
Lewis is described as being a black man, who is 5 feet 7 inches tall, 180 pounds, with dark brown eyes and twists in his hair. Police said Lewis is considered armed and dangerous.
A reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in this homicide or any other homicide in DC.
