Opening statements and testimonies were heard March 3 in the trial of 38-year-old Sherrice Parker, 38, who is charged with fatally stabbing her long-term boyfriend and father of her children following years of alleged abuse.
Parker is charged with first-degree murder and intentional use of a deadly weapon for the stabbing, which occurred on June 30, 2025. The attack reportedly stemmed from a domestic dispute at a home on the 700 block of N. Kenwood Avenue.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jeannie J. Hong presided over the trial, which hinges on whether the killing demonstrates sufficient premeditation to prove first-degree murder, or if it constituted an act of self-defense against the victim, 46-year-old Donte Chase.
Parker, who had initially agreed to accept a plea offer from the state, said prior to trial proceedings that she changed her mind and wished instead to proceed with trial.
During opening arguments, the state’s attorney described how the “toxic relationship” between Parker and Chase “ended in murder,” and how Parker later told detectives a “fantastical story” that Chase stabbed himself in the heart. The state’s attorney denied claims of self-defense, noting a CT scan of Parker’s body showed “no bruise or nothing.”
Parker’s attorney, Roya Hanna, told a different story. According to Hanna, Chase, who stood “10 inches taller” and weighed “80 or 90 pounds more” than Parker, initiated the altercation when he threatened to kill the defendant. Hanna directed jurors’ focus to Chase’s reported history of domestic abuse, including an incident where he allegedly choked Parker “in front of their children, and urged jurors to find that the defendant “acted in complete self-defense.”
Hanna emphasized that self-defense constitutes a “complete defense in Maryland.”
On the stand, Parker detailed years of physical abuse dating back to 2010, including incidents where Chase would get “real drunk, possessive, beat me up.” Once, she said, she lived at a local domestic violence shelter for 30 days. Later, Chase convinced her to remove a warrant she had filed against him.
When asked why she stayed with Chase, she stated, “I felt like I was stuck.”
On the night of the stabbing, she said, an argument over a food order led Chase to choke her until she fell unconscious. She insisted she grabbed the knife because, “if I didn’t, he was gonna hurt me, he would not stop.” Parker claimed Chase also beat her, and that his “slaps felt like bangs.”
The state’s attorney instructed Parker to physically reenact the murder in the courtroom with a prop knife, a request the defendant refused as “too traumatizing.” In response, the prosecutor demonstrated for jurors how Parker might have stabbed Chase, noting it would not have been difficult for the defendant to reach the victim’s chest despite her short stature.
Medical examiners confirmed that Chase’s cause of death was a single stab wound to his heart.
Detectives responding to the residence found “a significant amount of blood on the floor, walls [and] living room,” where furniture appeared to have been displaced in a struggle.
The trial is set to conclude with closing arguments on March 4.
