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By
Shiloh Eschbach [former]
- October 12, 2023
Court
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Daily Stories
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Homicides
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Shooting
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Suspects
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Victims
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In an emotional plea, the prosecutor of a Baltimore man accused of his close friend’s murder told the court the suspect and his co-defendant planned the murder and that the victim “didn’t deserve to be executed in his car.”
Travon Shaw is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, firearm use in a felony violent crime, firearm possession with a felony conviction, having a loaded handgun on his person and having a loaded handgun in a vehicle. Shaw, 34, is charged alongside Elliot Marcus Knox in connection to the murder of Justin Johnson in December 2021.
Shaw’s lengthy trial concluded on Oct. 10 before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Althea M. Handy.
Shaw was found guilty of all six counts on Tuesday and his sentencing was scheduled for March 28, 2024.
The prosecution argued that their cell phone tracking and license plate reader evidence showed the location of the defendant on the night of the shooting aligned with that of the victim’s.
Matthew Connell, Shaw’s defense attorney, countered by emphasizing the FBI witness told the court that T-Mobile has a disclaimer indicating, “You can’t testify these are accurate.”
However, the prosecution explained that the license plate reader data corroborated the phone tracking data.
The prosecution also used TrueAllele DNA evidence and the testimony of a firearms expert in an effort to link two guns recovered from Knox to the murder.
Connell questioned the TrueAllele DNA tests which he said were different from the widely used and accepted DNA evidence used in trials. After the regular tests were unsuccessful, police hired TrueAllele, a for-profit firm using a relatively new technique.
According to charging documents from the District Court of Maryland, 38-year-old Johnson was shot on Dec. 16, 2021, while he was in his parked car on the 600 block of Lucia Avenue. Two different types of casings were found near the scene. In an interview with police after his arrest, Knox identified Shaw as a co-conspirator in the killing of Johnson and of 39-year-old Baltimore Police Department Officer Keona Holley the same night on the 4400 block of Pennington Avenue.