Annapolis police arrest 3rd suspect in 2021 shooting death

A 31-year-old Annapolis man faces murder charges after Annapolis police say he admitted to being present during an October 2021 robbery that ended with 22-year-old Cornell Young being shot dead in broad daylight.

Investigators charged Jaonte Edward Coates on Monday with two homicide counts after he was interviewed by homicide detectives, who connected him to the Oct. 14 robbery in a Pleasant Street parking lot. Police say he and two other men robbed Young, a Baltimore resident, who had arrived with a fellow 22-year-old from Baltimore.

Police found Young suffering from multiple bullet wounds at about 1 p.m. that day. He was transported to a hospital, where he was declared dead.

In November police arrested Kenon Jamal Jackson Jr., 22, and Shammond Vonzell Taylor, 23, both of Annapolis, and charged them with first-degree murder and armed robbery.

Coates was located on Clay Street and arrested Monday on a warrant unrelated to the shooting, police wrote in charging papers, which say he was seen on surveillance footage communicating with Taylor and Jackson as Taylor pointed a gun at Young.

Police said the footage showed Coates entering the car in which the two Baltimore men had arrived. When interviewed by homicide detectives Monday, Coates confessed to getting into the car while the robbery was in progress, police wrote.

The charging papers say Jackson took a backpack from one of the Baltimore men before Young fought with Taylor, who in return fired several rounds at him.

Coates also told investigators that after the shooting, he fled to the Obery Court community, where police said Taylor and Jackson also fled. .

Taylor and Jackson were both indicted last year on murder and armed robbery charges and are scheduled for an eight-day jury trial starting at the end of January. Coates is charged with first- and second-degree murder, assault and armed robbery, and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in July.

The three men are being held without bail at the Jennifer Road Detention Center.