South Baltimore — Darnell Worrell was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the death of Jamal Washington in January of 2017.
On January 2, 2017, the victim, thirty-eight-year-old Jamal Washington, was shot in the head and killed as he stood in the 100 block of Patapsco Avenue. During the police investigation, a detective discovered surveillance cameras operated by several commercial properties in the immediate area of the shooting. Video footage showed the victim standing at the bus stop when a four-door Acura–with temporary tags and a large rectangular paper in its driver’s side dash area–circled the block two times, slowing by the victim each time it passed. After circling the block, the driver then turns off the car’s headlights and pulls into an alley adjacent to where the victim stood. Additional video footage showed that the vehicle stood idle and waited while the shooter exited from the passenger side. The passenger then walked out of the alley, fired several shots in the direction of the victim, and retreated to the Acura before the car drove away.
“The victim, in this case, was simply waiting for a bus when he got caught in the cross-hairs of Baltimore’s violence,” said ASA Elizabeth Stock. “Without a motive to establish any connection to the shooter, Detective Bryan Kershaw and the Baltimore Police Department did an excellent job of gathering everything they could from a witness-less crime scene.”
During a canvas of the area the day after the shooting, officers noticed a vehicle parked in the 400 block of E. Patapsco Avenue with temporary tags and a funeral program in the driver’s side dash. The car was identical to the vehicle in surveillance footage from the scene of the shooting. Officers ran the temporary tags which came back registered to Darnell Worrell. As the officers surveyed the vehicle in question, Worrell approached them and advised that his name was “Shawn” although the name listed on his identification was Darnell Worrell. In further investigation of the shooting, police confiscated two cells phone from Worrell. When police submitted the two confiscated cell phones for analysis, data indicated that both phones were in the vicinity of the homicide placing the defendant in the vehicle the night of the murder.
“I want to commend the private businesses that cooperated throughout this investigation, sharing their surveillance footage from the evening of the shooting,” said Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. “The video evidence was essential to this investigation and ultimately led to a conviction that permanently removed this defendant from their community.”
