Trial concluded May 8 for one of three co-defendants accused in two armed robberies from 2019, with counsel delivering closing arguments before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Dana M. Middleton.
Diamante Teal, 29, is charged with first-degree murder and assault, carjacking, conspiracy, armed robbery and multiple gun offenses for allegedly killing a teenager and wounding two women at a Subway restaurant on June 17, 2019. He and his co-defendants, 27-year-old Phillip Morton and 26-year-old William Andre Stewart III, are accused of then robbing Baltimore’s Best Wings near Morgan State University less than one month later, on July 11, 2019.
During closing arguments, one of the two state’s attorneys prosecuting the case maintained that multiple pieces of evidence recovered during the investigation made clear that the three men “together planned to commit this execution” at the Subway restaurant.
The victim of the fatal Subway shooting, Travis Chance, was 16 years old at the time. He and one of the two women who sustained injuries had reportedly fled into the restaurant to avoid the gunfire, but were struck in the spray of at least 18 bullets. The second woman was shot while inside the restaurant attempting to buy food with her daughter.
Evidence emphasized in the state’s closing argument included a DNA report, surveillance footage from both crime scenes, Teal’s interview with a Baltimore Police detective upon his arrest, his public Facebook account and his cellphone records. After obtaining a warrant to search Teal’s phone, investigators allegedly found search history for the 5600 block of The Alameda, where the Subway ris located, and the Baltimore Police Department.
The three suspects captured in the footage from near both scenes reportedly used a Buick Verano to travel to and from the locations. Detectives were able to locate the vehicle on the 4700 block of Fenwick Avenue, and forensic analysts closely matched DNA residue found in the car’s interior to both Morton and Stewart. No DNA was recovered belonging to Teal.
Defense attorney Jason P. Rodriguez pointed to testimony from a forensic analyst who confirmed on the stand that DNA transfer can be affected by the duration of contact between an individual and a surface. Teal had not been inside the vehicle as long as his two co-defendants, Rodriguez argued.
Rodriguez claimed the Buick functioned as “a community car” between a tight-knit group of people, and said that Teal had long exited the car prior to the crimes. He also weighed the possibility that multiple passengers had “switched around,” entering and exiting the car at various points to attend to various errands.
Rodriguez also raised the possibility that a fourth suspect had slipped through the investigation, suggesting Teal had been mistaken for the unnamed man. The owner of Baltimore’s Best Wings reportedly claimed he had been robbed by “a register guy and a gun guy,” whom investigators later allegedly identified as Morton and Teal based on the descriptions given. “The gun guy,” the owner reportedly said, was a 6-foot-tall, dark-skinned man in a black Nike hoodie.
While the storeowner described the armed suspect’s clothing accurately, Rodriguez said the appearance description he gave failed to match Teal. He pointed to his client, noting Teal stands at a significantly shorter height of between 5’7” and 5’8”, and possesses a fairer complexion.
The storeowner’s description, however, seemed to match that of another man seen with Morton and Stewart in one of the co-defendant’s Instagram posts, Rodriguez said. The post, which referenced “three shooters” in the caption, showed a dark-skinned man taller than both co-defendants who matched the description of the “gun guy” at Baltimore’s Best Wings.
Video footage extracted from one of Teal’s co-defendant’s cellphones showed Morton and Stewart inside the suspect vehicle shortly after the Subway shooting. Rodriguez said one of the two co-defendants filmed the footage after the crime in a way that seemed to boast, “Hey look at us after.” Notably, Teal was absent from the footage.
Jurors are currently deliberating.
