A 33-year-old man who pleaded guilty last September to robbing a transgender sex worker returned to Baltimore City Circuit Court on Jan. 13 to be tried for the murder of Reginald Bernard Harrod, 59.
During opening arguments, the state’s attorney described how the defendant, Reginald Raysor of Baltimore, murdered Harrod “in cold blood” just minutes before midnight on Sept. 14, 2024, leaving the victim lying face down and bleeding out on the 1100 block of Springfield Avenue.
Harrod had reportedly been sitting in his parked vehicle listening to music when two men approached him and ordered, “Just give me your shit.” Charging documents state that a struggle ensued, leading one of the suspects to fatally shoot Harrod in what the state’s attorney called “an armed robbery gone bad.”
The following day, a police lieutenant located Raysor at Bella Roma’s pizza shop on Washington Boulevard in Pigtown and attempted to conduct a stop. Raysor fled, discarding a black shoulder bag that was found to contain a .40-caliber gun. Investigators later said it matched the gun to a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson casing recovered from the crime scene on Springfield Avenue.
Just 17 days prior on Aug. 28, 2024, Raysor had robbed a sex worker of three purses and around $100 of cash on the 2400 block of Guilford Avenue. He was sentenced to five years for the robbery.
Defense attorney Jerry Rodriguez urged jurors to refrain from conflating Harrod’s murder with the events that occurred on Guilford Avenue and later at Bella Roma’s. “He is not on trial for whatever happened on Sept. 15 or Aug. 28, 2024,” Rodriguez said.
At a Sept. 19, 2025 hearing, Rodriguez had opposed a state’s motion to admit video footage, ballistic reports and a photographic array from the Guilford Avenue robbery into Raysor’s murder trial, calling the evidence “severely prejudicial” and claiming that materials pertaining to Raysor’s existing criminal record could influence their verdict while deliberating Harrod’s murder. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Yolanda A. Tanner ultimately sided with the prosecution deeming the material relevant.
Following testimony from an assistant medical examiner who conducted Raysor’s autopsy, as well as a crime lab technician who investigated the scene on Springfield Avenue, Judge Tanner issued a warning to both Raysor’s and Harrod’s families, reminding them that the use of recording devices would result in their permanent expulsion from the courthouse. Courtroom security had suspected two individuals, one from each family, of using devices to illegally record proceedings.
Trial is set to continue through the week with additional witness testimony.
