Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the case of a Baltimore man accused of bludgeoning a woman to death in Oldtown last July before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry G. Williams on Nov. 10. During the proceeding the prosecution lambasted the defense’s attempts to undermine the eyewitness testimonies of “an addict” and “a thief.”
Bryan Cherry, 37, is charged with first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon with the intent to injure in connection to what the prosecution called the “brutal, violent killing” of Sierra Johnson, 38, on the 800 block of Abbott Court.
The morning of July 14, 2024, Cherry’s neighbor reportedly entered the residence on the 800 block of Abbott Court and met with Cherry, who told her Johnson was upstairs and that he “wore her out.” The neighbor testified she took this statement to mean the two had sex.
“When she got upstairs, she saw what she never imagined seeing,” the prosecution said during their closing statement. Johnson was found deceased, severely “beaten and bludgeoned” with her pants apparently pulled halfway down her legs. Her injuries included obvious lacerations, abrasions, and fractures to her head. She had been “soaking in her own blood for at least an hour — probably closer to three hours,” the prosecution told jurors.
The prosecutors called it “a horrific death,” noting both sides of Johnson’s jaw were fractured, her teeth displaced, her skull broken in half, and her brain macerated, or softened and broken down. Splatters of brain matter were located around her body, the prosecution said. The murder weapon, a bright yellow crowbar with dual prongs on one end and a curved edge on the other, was found to with Johnson’s blood on both ends.
After witnessing the scene upstairs, the witness reportedly told Cherry she was leaving the residence to purchase drugs. Defense attorney Gregory J. Fischer later questioned the credibility of this statement, finding it contradictory that Cherry would let the witness leave after observing such a gruesome sight.
Baltimore police received an anonymous 911 call at approximately 8:36 a.m. that morning, about an hour after the witness left Cherry’s house. They later learned the call came from the witness, who claimed the delay in reporting the death was a result of her cellphone dying. She said she called 911 immediately after she was able to charge her device.
“It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous,” Fischer said. “It’s not true.”
He pointed to apparent lies in her statement, noting she initially told dispatchers she heard a woman scream. On the stand, the witness clarified she lied in order to prompt a faster response from law enforcement.
Fischer called her account a “fantastical story” and chalked her alleged lies up to her history of drug abuse and a prior conviction for delivering false statements to law enforcement, claiming that “instead of conducting a thorough investigation, detectives believed the shifting, changing stories of an addict.” He also noted the witness is currently facing 20 years behind bars in another case, and suggested she testified with the aim of obtaining favor from “the same office that’s prosecuting her.”
“The state is asking you to trust somebody, ladies and gentlemen, that has been found guilty of lying,” Fischer insisted.
The prosecution argued against the fairness of Fischer’s claims, asking if one lie should invalidate someone’s entire credibility. Fischer responded that “word had already spread all over the neighborhood” by the time she spoke to police, and that she was likely “regurgitating and embellishing rumors” she heard from her neighbors in the hours following the murder.
A second eyewitness advised officers she saw Cherry jump out the window of the residence and flee down Eager Street, though she later refuted this account on the stand. Fischer emphasized the witness’ status as a “three-time convicted thief” with two prior violations in Howard County and one in Baltimore City, questioning how the prosecution could expect jurors to believe the testimony of a convict.
“Just because someone is a thief doesn’t mean that they’re a liar,” the prosecutor exclaimed.
Fischer went on to indicate “gaping holes” in the state’s investigation, criticizing their failure to conduct thorough forensic analysis on the evidence recovered. Though investigators swabbed both ends of the crowbar and confirmed the blood belonged to Johnson, Fischer noted they failed to collect samples from the weapon’s midsection, where the assailant’s prints would most likely have been located.
Investigators also neglected to extract data from a recovered cellphone that Fischer believed could have contained “reams of information” concerning a motive for the murder. He claimed the untapped cellphone data and the potential existence of other people’s prints on the crowbar could have exonerated his client, and criticized the state’s supposed failure to conduct a thorough investigation.
The prosecution proclaimed Fischer’s argument rested on “speculation and guesswork” alone.
Cherry was arrested in the yard of his residence on the 1300 block of Homewood Avenue, just hours after the first witness left the crime scene. He was wearing a face mask at the time of his arrest, and the prosecution noted he pulled it down when officers approached him. Later, when officers brought a witness to Homewood Avenue to identify Cherry, he reportedly asked officers to “pull his skully down” to conceal his features. Officers refused.
The prosecution also noted Cherry tried to keep his hands in his pockets as much as possible while speaking with police.
“My hands are cold,” he told officers. The incident occurred mid-summer, in July.
Fischer rested his case after urging jurors to consider the lack of forensic and video evidence against his client, the state’s poor investigative methods, the lack of discernible motive in the case, and the prior convictions of two of the state’s witnesses.
“Something does not add up,” Fischer told jurors. “The pieces of the puzzle do not fit together.”
The prosecution continued to emphasize the brutal circumstances of Johnson’s death and the strong match between witness testimonies, and implored jurors to find Cherry guilty of his two charges.
Jurors are currently deliberating.
