Jury Finds Defendant Guilty After Defense Claims Investigation Was ‘Not How Police Work Should Be Done’

By Racquel Bazos - September 19, 2023
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

On Sept. 13, the jury found 30-year-old defendant guilty of all charges in a 2020 murder case.  

On Sept. 13, counsel gave their closing arguments in a case involving a defendant accused of the 2020  murders of sisters Kamira and Leah Jeter.  The case was heard before Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jennifer B. Schiffer.

Deamonte Spencer was charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, firearm use in a felony violent crime and illegal possession of a regulated firearm in connection to the Dec. 20, 2020, incident that occurred on the 100 block of S. Kossuth Street. 

The assistant state’s attorney assigned to the case began by playing audio of 21-year-old Leah screaming after her sister was killed in front of her. The prosecutor claimed she screamed, “Why, Scony, why?!” 

Scony, the prosecutor said, was defendant ’s alias, substantiated by detectives’ seeing a Youtube video of Spencer rapping on an account called Scony G. 

Spencer’s attorney, Donald C. Wright, said the head detective in the case was overworked, with 60 to 100 other open cases during this investigation, and did not fully consider other suspects whose evidence linked them to the scene. 

“The minute Deamonte Spencer was arrested, [the] case was closed,” Wright told jurors. “This is not how police work should be done.”

Wright went on to say that a mask with DNA linked to Spencer found in 28-year-old Kamira’s car was simply there because the incident took place at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and Spencer and Kamira were intimate partners. Similarly, he said that a mark on Kamira’s face the prosecution claimed was a bite was instead a “mark of passion.”

As for the audio where Leah screamed out the name of her and her sister’s killer, Wright pointed out that jurors did not hear the version of the audio detectives sent to the FBI for enhancement, but the original audio. Beyond the audio Wright said was ambiguous, there was no evidence that his client was Scony G.

Spencer is scheduled for a sentencing on Jan. 12, 2024, before Judge Schiffer.