Thank you for reading Baltimore Witness.
Help us continue our mission into 2025 by donating to our end of year campaign.
By
Racquel Bazos [former]
- September 11, 2024
Court
|
Daily Stories
|
Homicides
|
Shooting
|
Suspects
|
Victims
|
Defense counsel for a 19-year-old Baltimore County resident will argue a case of mistaken identity in his Baltimore City Circuit Court murder case despite eyewitness testimony.
Kharod O’Neill, of Owings Mills, Md., is charged with first-degree murder, firearm use in a felony violent crime, having a loaded handgun in a vehicle and having a loaded handgun on his person for the death of 20-year-old Jriley Downs last summer.
Before Judge Anthony F. Vittoria Sept. 11, defense attorney James Sweeting III told jurors, “The issue in this case is identification.”
He advised them to look at the evidence presented as clinically as possible, while maintaining O’Neill’s presumption of evidence until the very end of the trial.
The prosecutor argued that O’Neill “executed” Downs in an alley on the 2200 block of West Baltimore Street after Downs arranged a meeting to buy marijuana on the 2600 block of Saint Benedict Street, about a mile away from the crime scene.
She said Downs’ girlfriend, who was eight months pregnant at the time of the incident, will testify that O’Neill got in the backseat of a car on July 3, 2023, put on a ski mask and directed Downs to drive to the Baltimore Street location to get more cannabis. Witnesses for the prosecution will explain the ShotSpotter alert for gunfire that went out to Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officers, who found Downs with five gunshot wounds to the head shortly after the shooting.
When O’Neill was arrested nine days later, police allegedly found a loaded 9mm handgun in the car. The prosecution plans to elicit testimony from a forensic firearms expert, as well use evidence from Instagram and the photo array Downs’ girlfriend used to identify O’Neill to prove her case.
Charging documents state that the gun found in O’Neill’s car was suspected of use in an armed carjacking July 10, 2023. According to counsel during a preliminary motion Wednesday, O’Neill pleaded guilty to involvement in that carjacking, but not to any charge involving a firearm.