Homicide Defendant Brutally Murdered 63-Year-Old Man With Hatchet, Prosecutor Says

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“The last thing Keith Bell saw was that defendant and this hatchet.”

On Sept. 23, a Baltimore City prosecutor presented jurors with the alleged murder weapon that she said defendant Gordon Staron used in the brutal murder of the 63-year-old victim nearly two years ago. The 35-year-old defendant is on trial for first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon with the intent to injure before Circuit Court Judge Althea M. Handy.

During opening statements, the prosecutor said Bell was at a bus stop on the 1400 block of East Monument Street on Sept. 6, 2022, when Staron attacked him with a hatchet, leaving the victim to die from multiple cutting and stab wounds as well as blunt force trauma injuries. Staron then drove to National Academy Foundation School, where he allegedly threw some items in a dumpster before driving away.

Video surveillance footage shows an individual identified as Staron wearing a ski mask, wiping something off and taking off his sweatshirt near the dumpster, she said. Jurors can expect to see crime scene and autopsy photos and Baltimore Police body camera footage as well as hear testimony from medical examiners.

According to the prosecution, the defendant’s mother told police he was driving a silver Toyota Tacoma truck on the day he traveled from Harford County to Baltimore City prior to the murder. Bell’s blood was reportedly found inside the truck and on the bottom of Staron’s shoes, while a hatchet was recovered from the defendant’s bedroom.

“We have to think about this case with our heads, not our hearts,” defense attorney Jason Silverstein said later in the proceeding. “…[The prosecution] has no clue what happened at two-something in the morning on Sept. 6, 2022.”

Defense counsel told jurors that no witnesses saw the killing nor was there any video evidence from the bus stop, despite the fact that the murder occurred around the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus. A drop of the victim’s blood was allegedly found in Staron’s truck, Silverstein explained, but Bell’s injuries would have resulted in “significant blood loss.”

Silverstein noted that his client’s DNA was not found on the recovered hatchet.