Jury Deliberations Underway for Teen Charged With Rape and Murder of Elderly Woman

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Closing arguments came to an end in the trial of a homicide defendant charged with the rape and murder of an elderly woman before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Schiffer.

Tyrone Harvin, 17, is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree sex offense, perverted practice, and use of a deadly weapon with the intent to injure in connection to an incident on Aug. 29, 2018.

During closing arguments on June 28, the prosecutor told the jury how Dorthy Mae Neal was found by police days after the incident occurred. The prosecutor went into detail about the evidence from the crime scene and how the DNA that was collected was a strong match to Harvin.

The prosecutor also expressed to the jury that Harvin’s DNA was the only DNA found on a condom wrapper at the scene of the crime suggesting that he was the one that opened and used the condom.

There were condoms of the same brand found in Harvin’s home, which suggests that Harvin killed and raped the victim, the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor also discredited the defense’s expert witness who testified that the DNA testing was not sufficient evidence to suggest Harvin was the assailant.

The prosecutor said the expert witness was a person who only reviews DNA reports and does not work with the software used to run the DNA evidence at crime scenes. However, the prosecutor said her expert witness actively works with the software that was used to match Harvin’s DNA to the crime.

Harvin’s defense attorney said there was not enough reliable evidence obtained from the crime scene.

He focused the jurors’ attention on how one fingerprint was found on the condom wrapper with no other fingerprints found at the scene, expressing concerns about how the fingerprints and the DNA were processed. The reliability of the samples were also challenged due to the unknown date of the deposit for testing.

The defense attorney continued to say there was no sperm DNA in the condom that was found. In addition, the victim’s DNA was not on the defendant’s clothes. The defense attorney said someone else could have broken into Neal’s apartment and used gloves to frame Harvin.

Furthermore, the defense attorney questioned how Neal’s front door was locked from the inside and that the only way to get in and out of the apartment was through the front door. He said Harvin would need a key to get into the apartment as there were no keys found at the scene.

In rebuttal, the prosecutor suggested that the crime scene would only have a limited amount of DNA because an assailant would not have been placing DNA all over the scene of the crime. Harvin would have had enough time to wash his clothes and destroy any evidence linking him to the crime, the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor also suggested that DNA evidence was processed properly and was accurate enough to prove that Harvin was the perpetrator.

Furthermore, the prosecutor suggested that if someone had gone into the scene of the crime with gloves to tamper with the evidence, Harvin’s fingerprints would not have been identifiable and linked to the scene of the crime.

The prosecutor refuted the defense’s argument that Harvin would have needed a key to get into Neal’s house by stating that Harvin could have knocked on Neal’s door the day she was attacked or Neal could have locked the door after her assailant had left to ensure they did not come back again.

Jury deliberation began around 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The jury is slated to resume deliberation on June 29.

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