Homicide Defendant Found Not Guilty After Less Than 2 Hours of Deliberation

By Gabriella Salas [former] - March 29, 2022
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

A Baltimore man accused of homicide was found not guilty on all charges before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Charles J. Peters on March 25.

Norman Lawson, 25, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon with the intent to injure in connection to the fatal stabbing of 26-year-old Roderick Odom on April 12, 2020. 

During closing statements on Friday, the prosecutor argued that Lawson waited until his trial to finally tell the truth about the events that occurred on an Easter Sunday. However, she said, Lawson’s testimony was not the entire truth.

The prosecutor recalled several pieces of video footage from the Crown gas station showing individuals, including Lawson and Isaiah Eaddy, arriving in a Ford Escape. Odom approached the vehicle shortly after their arrival to purchase drugs.

The prosecutor argued that Lawson took part in a plan to rob and murder Odom, saying that after the murder, Lawson and Eaddy left the crime scene nonchalantly and “went about their day.” 

In a 911 call from a witness who found Odom slumped against his private fence, the witness told the dispatcher that performing life-saving measures would not be necessary.

“I don’t think he’s alive. I don’t see him moving,” the witness said on the 911 call. “To be honest with you, I think he’s gone.”

The prosecutor concluded her argument by reviewing Baltimore City Police Department detectives’ initial interview with Lawson when he admitted he was in the car with Eaddy and Odom but only as a bystander. She said that this statement contradicted Lawson’s prior testimony.

Defense counsel Natalie Finegar countered that detectives continued to interact with Lawson after he had asked for an attorney by taking pictures, drawing Lawson’s DNA, and speaking to him for eight hours.

In the video footage of the interview, Lawson can be heard saying, “I didn’t do nothing wrong. Nothing, nothing. … I just saw someone killed. Someone stabbed to death. … I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Finegar said that Lawson was in the gas station convenience store buying a Mountain Dew to wash down the Xanny bar he purchased from Eaddy and could not have known that a crime was about to occur. She also asked why someone who is about to commit a crime would go into a convenience store where there is clear video surveillance.

In her rebuttal, the prosecutor argued that Finegar did not talk about the evidence of the case in her opening statements because there was strong evidence against her client. 

The jury found Lawson not guilty on all charges less than two hours after deliberating.