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By
Sage Cho
- December 20, 2024
Court
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Daily Stories
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Homicides
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Victims
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Gordon Zacharie Staron, 25, faces two life sentences after being found guilty of murdering 63-year-old Keith Bell with an axe and fatally strangling 34-year-old deaf cellmate Javarick Gantt.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Althea M. Handy presided over the high-profile hearing, which took place on Dec. 19.
“We know that strangulation doesn’t take one, two seconds,” said the prosecution. “We know that Mr. Gantt’s final breath was in the arms of the defendant.”
Staron, of Harford County, previously pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for strangling Gantt in their shared cell at the Central Booking and Intake Facility on the 300 block of East Madison Street. In the trial, questions arose over why Gantt, who required sign language to communicate and had been booked for relatively minor crimes, was placed in the same cell as Staron, a murder convict.
On Sept. 6, 2022, Staron brutally attacked Bell with a hatchet at a bus stop on the 1400 block of East Monument Street, leaving Bell with six cutting wounds, 13 stab wounds and a fractured skull. Bell, who had been sitting at the bus stop with little more than “a bag of gummy bears,” was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. After fleeing the scene in his mother’s silver Toyota Tacoma, Staron was charged with first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon with intent to murder and taken to the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center.
Defense attorney Jason Silverstein asked Judge Handy to offer Staron the possibility of parole.
“Giving people a reason to hope … parole for many people is that,” said Silverstein, adding that he does not believe life without parole “is ever an appropriate response.”
Silverstein submitted psychiatric evaluation documents as evidence and told the court that Staron suffered from mental health issues from the age of six that became exacerbated when he fell into substance abuse as a teenager.
He alleged that Staron endured poor living conditions while being housed at Central Booking, including getting “jumped” the same month he was booked for Bell’s murder and being prescribed and subsequently deprived of several medications that could have improved his mental health.
Judge Handy rejected the request for possibility of parole despite admitting that the letters she received from the defendant’s family and friends were “beautiful.”
“They don’t describe the person that strangled Mr. Gantt,” said Judge Handy. “The facts speak for themselves.”
The prosecution pointed to inconsistencies in Staron’s mental health evaluation history, saying “he made things up” and that Staron displays a high risk of both recidivism and future violence.
Gantt’s father was given an opportunity to speak before the court. “At this moment, our family is torn,” he said. “Torn to pieces.”
Before sentencing Staron to life in prison without possibility of parole, Judge Handy offered sympathy to the victims’ families.
“To Mr. Gantt’s families, there’s nothing a court can say or do today that can bring you comfort,” she said. “And I’m sure the family of Mr. Bell, they’re devastated as well.”
The prosecution told the court that the public can rest easier knowing that Staron will remain behind bars.
“This young man will never, ever see the light of day again or harm anyone outside the prison walls,” said the prosecution.