Jury begins deliberating in trial of man charged with killing Baltimore Officer Holley, second victim

A jury began deliberating Monday afternoon in the trial of a man charged in the 2021 fatal shootings of Baltimore Police officer Keona Holley and 27-year-old Justin Johnson.

Deliberations came after closing arguments in the case, which followed about three days of testimony and evidence, with a prosecutor and defense attorney offering different views about the case and the verdict jurors should return.

Assistant State’s Attorney Kurt Bjorklund told jurors Holley was gunned down in “a hit” around 1:30 a.m. Dec. 16, 2021. She had been sitting in her patrol car while working an overtime shift when she was ambushed and shot, with two bullets striking her head. After she was shot, Bjorklund said, her cruiser lurched across a street, down an embankment and came to rest in a park in the 4400 of block Pennington Ave.

“This was targeted,” Bjorklund told the jury. “Somehow, they knew where she was.”

Holley, a 39-year-old mother of four, died at the hospital about a week later. Even after the trial of the first man charged in her death, no motive behind her shooting has emerged publicly.

Less than two hours after Holley was attacked, Johnson was shot to death in his car around 3 a.m. in the city’s Yale Heights neighborhood.

“They were both executed, 90 minutes apart in two different parts of Baltimore. … Neither one of them deserved this. This was more than brutal,” Bjorklund said.

The prosecution and defense rested Monday. The defense did not present any evidence, with Knox choosing Monday not to testify.

Knox, 34, is charged with two counts each of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and several firearms offenses stemming from the fatal shootings of Holley and Johnson. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Defense attorney Natalie Finegar told jurors that her client was guilty of being an accessory after the fact of murder because he admitted to hiding the guns used in the shootings and of being a felon in possession of a handgun illegally, but said the jury should find her client not guilty of murder.

“He’s not a hitman,” Finegar said. “He’s a person who got caught up in a very bad situation and made some very bad decisions.”

Knox is not charged with being an accessory to murder.

A jury in October convicted the other man charged in the killings, Travon Shaw, with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and firearms offenses in Johnson’s death. Shaw, 34, is set to be sentenced for that verdict and stand trial on charges in Holley’s killing later this month. His public defender previously declined to comment.

During his closing argument Monday, Bjorklund recounted for the jury the various testimony and evidence in the case, saying he believed it would lead jurors to find Knox guilty on all charges.

There were license plate reader pictures of Knox’s car near the place where Holley was shot in the 4400 block of Pennington Ave. There was security video of two people walking towards the place Holley was shot and then running back in the direction of Knox’s car. There was evidence taken from both men’s cell phone records showing they were in close proximity to both shooting scenes around the times of both killings.

Then, there was Knox’s confession.

Detectives closed in on Knox’s car several hours after the shootings, stopped him and detained him. After waiving his Miranda rights, Knox spoke to homicide detectives for about four hours in a small interview room at Baltimore Police headquarters. Bjorklund played video of the interrogation at trial, with Knox at first denying any involvement in the shootings.

Bjorklund said during closing that Knox lied to investigators for the first two hours, noting that originally he said he wasn’t at the shooting scenes and claimed someone else had taken possession of his car.

“You know why he won’t get to the truth? Because they just murdered two people and he’s caught,” Bjorklund told jurors, adding that Knox abided by the maxim, “Admit what you must. Deny what you can.”

Knox eventually admitted to being present at both scenes and hiding the guns used that night: A Glock 22 handgun and an AR-style pistol. He directed detectives to the house where they found both weapons. However, he maintained that Shaw shot both Holley and Johnson, saying he only took possession of the guns after the shootings.

“It went from 100% not present to ‘Got me. I was there,'” Bjorklund said.

Finegar said the prosecution couldn’t disprove her client’s story and thus it was possible it was true. She emphasized that Knox ultimately cooperated with police.

“The cascade of evidence in the case comes from my client. … He gave them the guns. He gave them Mr. Shaw. He gave them the passcode to his phone,” Finegar said.

Bjorklund, during closing, said the idea that Shaw was the only shooter in both killings was “illogical.”

He highlighted video footage of both men before Holley’s shooting that showed Knox turning the corner onto Pennington Avenue while Shaw acted as a “lookout.” Knox, who identified himself in the video during the interrogation, was the second person running back to the car. Bjorklund postulated that he was behind Knox because he needed time to shoot at Holley six times.

“The defendant is the closest to Holley and there are only a couple seconds we’re talking about,” Bjorklund said of the short video clips.

Finegar called that was a “reckless conclusion” by Bjorklund.

“Being the last one up there doesn’t make you the shooter by any way, shape or means,” she told the jury.

The .40 caliber casings picked up at the scene of Holley’s shooting were “consistent” with having been fired by the same gun that fired the two casings of the identical caliber picked up from around Johnson’s car, a firearms examiner previously testified. The examiner said both casings were “consistent” with having been fired by the Glock 22 handgun police found when they searched the home Knox directed them to.

Crime scene technicians also collected one .223 caliber casing from the scene of Johnson’s killing. The examiner testified that casing was “consistent” with having been fired by the AR-style pistol police recovered. The gun had a makeshift “brass catcher” attached to it to collect casings ejected with each pull of the trigger.

Johnson was shot six times, all in the back. Bjorklund said his car was pockmarked with bullet defects on both sides, and that Johnson’s gunshot wounds were clustered.

“There’s three on the left side of his back and three on the right side of his back. They both shot,” Bjorklund declared.

Even if jurors didn’t believe Knox opened fire in either shooting, Bjorklund urged them to find him guilty.

Maryland law says a someone can be convicted of a crime as an accomplice, even if the defendant did not commit the acts. In order to win a conviction that way, the prosecution has to prove the crime happened, that the accomplice “aided, counseled, commanded or encouraged” the commission of the crime with the intent to make it happen or that they communicated they were “ready, willing and able to lend support.”

“If one or two of you are unsure, ‘Oh, I don’t know… but he’s definitely an accomplice,’ then he’s guilty,” Bjorklund said.

This article may be updated.