DNA on bottle helps secure guilty verdict

Detectives watched on security camera footage as a tall man in a blue hat left a store in Southwest Baltimore with a water bottle, walked around the corner and placed it on a ledge outside a pharmacy.

The video from May 17, 2021, then showed the man left the 200 block of Harmison Street, where the pharmacy is located. He returned within minutes, hopping out of a white Honda Accord wielding what police and prosecutors said was a handgun loaded with an extended magazine.

Two seconds later, everyone standing on that street in the city’s Carrollton Ridge neighborhood scattered. Responding to reports of gunfire, officers arrived to find Ronald White shot and bleeding.

White, 40, died at a hospital.

People on the block refused to talk to police, and the shooting happened out of the view of any cameras, according to testimony in court this week. Along with bullet cartridge casings, crime scene technicians picked up a water bottle.

When detectives went back over the footage, they noticed nobody except for the person they suspected was the shooter touched the bottle, the lead homicide detective told jurors earlier this week in the trial of Craig Carter, who was charged with White’s murder.

A Baltimore Police DNA analyst testified she was 99.9% sure that genetic matter swabbed from the water bottle was from Carter.

“If it’s Craig Carter who put the water bottle on the ledge, then it’s Craig Carter who did the shooting,” Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Stock told jurors in her closing argument Wednesday.

The jury deliberated for about four hours between Wednesday and Thursday, finding Carter guilty of first-degree murder and several handgun crimes. Carter, 34, faces the possibility of life in prison at sentencing May 8.

“Craig Carter and his family respect but were disappointed by the decision of the jury,” defense attorney David Walsh-Little told The Baltimore Sun. “Mr. Carter absolutely intends to appeal the decision.”

During trial, Walsh-Little highlighted investigative lapses and brought up concerns about the integrity of the lead investigator, Detective Julian Min. Twenty years ago, Min was reprimanded by the police department for arresting an employee who accidentally tripped the alarm at his workplace for burglary.

In an affidavit for a search warrant related to the investigation into White’s killing, Min attested the fatal shooting was captured on camera.

It was not.

“If the detective is willing to say false things to a judge, why would you believe him?” Walsh-Little asked jurors in closing.

On the witness stand, Min equivocated. He agreed there was no video of the actual shooting, but maintained that he did not include false information in the affidavit.

Several assumptions Min made during the investigation were exposed during cross examination.

For example, Min said he believed, based on his “training and experience,” White was shot in the head with the first bullet, despite there being no video and no witnesses having spoken to police. As the medical examiner testified in Carter’s case, there is no way to determine through an autopsy the order in which the deceased sustained their injuries.

Baltimore police did not respond Friday to questions about Min’s conduct. Min could not be reached for comment.

Walsh-Little also attempted to sow doubts in the minds of jurors about the evidence the state presented. He said the footage wasn’t conclusive as to his client’s identity and as to whether he was holding a gun — “It looks like a black bag to me,” Walsh-Littlesaidoftheobject police and prosecutors said was a gun.

Police never recovered a gun as part of the investigation. They never identified a motive for the killing.

“You can’t convict someone of a crime when you don’t know what happened,” Walsh-Little told jurors. “You can’t convict someone when there is reasonable doubt. That’s what we have in this case because the investigation was faulty.”

But police already were looking at Carter before the results of DNA testing on the water bottle thanks to a clear shot of the license plate of the Honda Accord that the shooter arrived at the scene in. The car was registered to Carter’s girlfriend.

Min testified that police served a search warrant on Carter’s residence, and the car, with the aid of the city’s SWAT team “due to the gravity of the violence shown.”

White was shot five times, including once in the head — an injury a medical examiner testified would have been immediately fatal.

The searches produced clothes consistent with what the shooter wore that day, Min said in court.

In closing, Stock showed still photos from the footage. The footage showed the man in the blue hat leaving the store with a water bottle, walking a few blocks, leaving it on the ledge, returning to the scene with a gun. She pointed out a key fact from Min’s testimony.

“Once the suspect put the water bottle down, nobody else actually touched it,” Min testified.