Man guilty of killing woman in front of kids at deli
Brooks faces life in prison stemming from 2019 robbery days before Christmas
Just three days before Christmas 2019, it seemed like a typical day at Kim’s Deli in Southeast Baltimore.
Carmen Rodriguez operated the cash register that day. One of her employees stocked shelves. A woman bought a candy bar. Rodriguez’s small children played, her 5-month-old resting in a baby carrier on the counter behind her, as customers came and went.
But around 5:25 p.m., a tall man wearing a black mask, gloves and clothing burst into the store and rushed the counter, security camera footage showed. Pointing a handgun, the man leaned through the small window by the register. Rodriguez handed over cash and put her hands up.
The man shot Rodriguez in the head in front of her children, ages 3, 7 and 8, while they were playing nearby. Video showed him shuffling cash as Rodriguez, 36, collapsed. In seconds, the gunman was gone.
“He already had the money — why would he kill her?” Assistant State’s Attorney Rita Wisthoff-Ito told jurors in closing arguments at the trial of Martin Brooks last week.
A jury found Brooks, 42, guilty Monday of felony first-degree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon, second-degree murder and related firearms offenses. Jurors deliberated for more than two days.
Brooks faces life in prison at sentencing July 3.
His attorney, Leslie Stein, declined to comment on the verdict.
Over five days of trial, Wisthoff-Ito laid out the complicated investigation that led police to Brooks and an accomplice. It all started with the video footage.
Cameras from the blocks around the store showed a man dressed in all black, just like the shooter, get into a black Honda Accord. Detectives also noticed he was wearing New Balance sneakers. Baltimore Police and the ATF put out a flier with a screenshot of the video asking for information about the driver, who wore a gray sweat suit.
ATF Special Agent Brendan Plasha testified subsequent tips led them to an Instagram account belonging to Terrance Peterson. From insurance databases, Plasha said, they learned Peterson had been in a car accident in Anne Arundel County and rented a Honda Accord.
Peterson turned himself in to police Jan. 10, 2020. He was charged with murder but found incompetent to stand trial on Oct. 20, 2021. Peterson is due back in court in April.
Investigators got a subpoena for Peterson’s phone records, Plasha said. The resulting data showed he had called or text messaged a number police linked to Brooks 143 times in the month leading up Rodriguez’s killing, including communications 20 minutes before and 30 minutes after the fatal shooting.
Soon, detectives got a warrant for Brooks’ phone, too.
FBI Special Agent Matthew Wild examined the phone records, and plotted a map of the device’s movements on Dec. 22, 2019.
Brooks’ phone was an Android registered with a Google email address, which records more precise information about a phone’s whereabouts than Apple devices do, Wilds testified. Most Android phones are recording GPS data constantly, while Apple phones provide rough location information based on the phone’s use of cell towers at the time of calls and texts.
Data from the Android phones, Wilds testified, “can pretty much tell me what corner, what intersection” the phone is on at a certain time.
For Brooks’ phone minutes before the fatal shooting, Wilds said, the data provided a 22-meter radius. He said it showed the phone approximately one block away from Kim’s Deli. Investigators corroborated that information by examining the CitiWatch camera footage from around the store, which showed the Honda Accord park on North Streeper Street, about one block away.
Wilds said the phone traveled to an address in the Rosemont East neighborhood of Northeast Baltimore after the shooting. Brooks was living at that house with his girlfriend and her family.
Detectives learned Brooks’ girlfriend was in jail at the time of the fatal shooting. All calls from inmates and detainees are recorded, and investigators found one the morning of Rodriguez’s killing. Prosecutors played the tape in court.
Brooks’ girlfriend told him she needed him to pay a bail bondsman so that she could avoid another day in jail. She sounded anxious, saying she had a bail review hearing at 9 a.m. the next day.
“It needs to be paid tonight,” the woman said.
“I got it, babe,” Brooks responded. “Don’t trip about that s—-.”
Wisthoff-Ito told jurors that Brooks went to East Coast Bail Bonds and paid the bond a little over an hour after he shot and killed Rodriguez.
Investigators surveilled the girlfriend’s home, saw Brooks there several times and applied for a search warrant. They arrested Brooks on Feb. 17, 2020, searched the house and towed his car to a police station. At the house they found New Balance sneakers, black gloves, sweatpants and a receipt for East Coast Bail Bonds.
He was brought in to police headquarters for an interview. He quickly asked for a lawyer, ending the interrogation. Detectives allowed his girlfriend to talk to him in the interview room, which is recorded by video. Jurors were shown the footage and given a transcript of the conversation.
Brooks’ girlfriend told him police had seized his
and her phones and towed his car. He cursed and banged his head against the wall in response.
“Damn, yo. Damn. They got the car,” Brooks said.
Armed with a warrant for Brooks’ car, police searched it at the station. They found a .45 caliber handgun in a backpack in the trunk.
A city firearms examiner testified that the handgun fired the single .45 caliber casing recovered from Kim’s Deli. Stein, the defense attorney, did not contest that evidence.
In closing arguments, Stein said police illegally searched the car and suggested officers planted the gun on his client, but offered little to support his claim.
Wisthoff-Ito asked the jury to find Brooks guilty on all counts. She described the killing as senseless and callous.
“He could’ve just taken the money and left,” the prosecutor said of Brooks.
FBI Special Agent Matthew Wild examined Martin Brooks’s phone records, and plotted a map of the device’s movements on Dec. 22, 2019.