Closing arguments were presented on Feb. 27 in the trial of Karin Redfern, a 26-year-old woman accused of fatally stabbing her fiancé’s attacker in Northeast Baltimore last April.
Charging documents state the stabbing followed a fistfight that broke out at 2 a.m. on April 27, outside Redfern’s residence on the 3000 block of Westfield Avenue. The individuals involved included Redfern, her fiancé, 26-year-old victim Demetri Briscoe, and Redfern’s ex-girlfriend.
According to the prosecution, Redfern, Briscoe, and her ex-girlfriend were previously involved in a polyamorous relationship, which Redfern ended on bad terms. Briscoe and Redfern’s ex-girlfriend were still dating at the time of the incident. Prior to the fistfight, the pair had driven to Redfern’s residence after being out at a bar and getting takeout. Briscoe’s blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal alcohol limit, said the prosecution.
On Friday, the prosecution urged jurors to “not leave your common sense at the door,” stating that Redfern carried out stabbing in revenge, rather than in defense of others as the defense claimed.
The defendant shook her head as jurors were shown surveillance footage of the stabbing. Using a laser pointer, the prosecution showed jurors that Briscoe’s back had been slightly turned away from Redfern’s fiancé at the time of the stabbing, and maintained that the attack didn’t occur in self- defense or in defense of others.
The jury was also shown pictures of damage inflicted on Redfern’s ex-girlfriend’s car tires, allegedly caused by Redfern, as well as a photograph from the victim’s autopsy after he was stabbed twice in the jugular. The prosecution urged jurors the attack was premeditated.
In previous statements, Redfern had said she thought her fiancé was dead following the violent fistfight. Even if that were the case, said the state, the stabbing would still comprise a revenge killing, not an attack carried out in defense of others. The prosecution also claimed that Redfern demonstrated guilt when she allgedly fled the scene in her car with the murder weapon.
“She was a victim,” defense attorney Martin Cohen responded. “She was not trying to kill Demetri Briscoe, she was trying to defend her fiancé.”
He denied the prosecution’s claims that Redfern simply fled the scene, adding that she transported her badly wounded fiancé to the hospital.
Pointing to the injuries Redfern’s fiancé sustained, Cohen countered the state’s claim Briscoe was alive after the fight. He also questioned why the state didn’t prosecute Redfern’s ex-girlfriend, whom he accused of instigating the fistfight that led to the stabbing. According to Cohen, she failed to immediately call police after the stabbing.
Cohen also claimed Redfern acted to protect the five-year-old child she had with her fiancé, who was inside the residence while the fight unfolded.
“This was a reaction, not a plan,” Cohen stated, urging jurors to find Redfern not guilty.
The state rebutted with the claim that two wrongs neither make a right nor acquit one of murder, emphasizing that knives have no place in a fistfight.
Jury deliberations were continuing March 2 before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Althea M. Handy.
