Former Laurel police chief ’s trial underway
Authorities say he set a dozen fires across six counties
The former Laurel police chief demanded to be in charge and plotted revenge against anybody who challenged his authority, Howard County prosecutors say.
David Crawford, 71, kept a coded “target” list on his phone of people he perceived to have slighted him or his wife. Then, “under the cover of darkness,” Crawford went to the homes of his “would-be victims” and set their cars or houses ablaze, Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Hammond told jurors at the outset of Crawford’s trial Wednesday.
Authorities say Crawford set a dozen fires across six Maryland counties from 2011 to 2020. Four of those blazes happened in Howard County in 2017 and 2018.
To convince the jury that Crawford intentionally set fires in Ellicott City and Elkridge, and tried to kill the families inside two of the houses set ablaze, Hammond said the prosecution would present evidence from Crawford’s decade-long crusade to exact revenge against people on his list.
“This list is the reason you’re here today,” Hammond told jurors. “This list is the reason you’re going to find the defendant, David Crawford, guilty of setting four fires in Howard County.”
Investigators only began to recognize a nexus between the suspected arsons in 2019. Charges in Frederick, Howard, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties followed. He is not formally accused of crimes in Anne Arundel or Charles counties, where he’s also alleged to have set fires.
Last March, Crawford entered an Alford plea — maintaining his innocence, but conceding there was enough evidence to convict him — to one count of first-degree arson in Frederick County Circuit Court.
With cases in Montgomery and Prince George’s pending, Crawford’s trial in Howard on arson, attempted murder and malicious burning charges represents the first time prosecutors are testing the multi-jurisdictional investigation that led to his arrest.
Retired Howard Circuit Judge Richard S. Bernhardt is presiding over the trial, which is scheduled for three weeks.
Sheriff ’s deputies rolled Crawford into the courtroom in a wheelchair. The judge ordered deputies to tell Crawford to get out of the wheelchair.
“We’re not using the wheelchair anymore
unless there are medical purposes documented,”
Bernhardt said.
A crime scene technician and arson investigator from
Prince George’s County testified Wednesday along with a Montgomery County
Police computer expert who examined Crawford’s electronic devices. They were among the first of dozens of witnesses expected to testify for the prosecution about the fires set across Maryland, including investigators and people whose homes or cars were burned.
While prosecutors typically aren’t allowed to present evidence of other crimes committed by a person standing trial — juries are only supposed to consider evidence of the charges at issue, not the defendant’s character — state law carves out several exceptions to that principle, and Howard County prosecutors convinced a Circuit Court judge this case qualifies.
Unable to provide direct evidence of Crawford’s identity in the Howard fires, the state plans to prove he is responsible by demonstrating his “modus operandi,” county prosecutors wrote in a December 2021 filing.
The arsonist wore gloves and a dark sweatshirt with the hood drawn tight. He carried cannisters of gasoline to each crime scene. With one exception, the fires began in the victims’ driveways, and all featured gas as the accelerant.
“The commonalities are obvious,” Hammond told the jury.
Defense attorney Robert Bonsib isn’t challenging many of the fundamental facts, including that all the fires were set intentionally.
“What is in dispute is who set the fires,” Bonsib said in his opening statement.
He said the prosecution’s theory about Crawford’s motive didn’t add up, questioning whether Crawford harbored any grudges or had any disputes with the people whose homes and cars were set ablaze.
“When somebody does something, they usually do it for a reason,” Bonsib told jurors. “When somebody does something big, they usually do it for a big reason.”
Crawford is charged with setting fire to his chiropractors’ home in Elkridge while the doctors, their children and a relative were home — making up five counts of attempted murder.
Three more attempted murder charges come from a 2017 blaze at an Ellicott City house, according to court papers. Inside were a woman Crawford allegedly clashed with while serving on a redistricting committee for Howard County Public Schools, her husband and child.
The same house was set on fire again about a year later, with nobody present, about two weeks before the family planned to move back in. Hammond said Wednesday it was a total loss.
Convicting someone of attempted first-degree murder requires proving that they intended to kill and thought about it beforehand, however briefly.
“There’s going to be no evidence that Mr. Crawford intended to kill anybody,” Bonsib told jurors Wednesday.
According to court papers, Crawford’s wife, Mary, a former Prince George’s County prosecutor, once took exception to a judge’s use of the term “white privilege” during a court program for children. The program’s director asked her not to come back.
Investigators found an entry on Crawford’s target list labeled “white privilege,” along with the director’s Ellicott City address. The director’s mother’s car was burned in March 2017.
Police raided Crawford’s Ellicott City home in January 2021, seizing a bag with a lighter, gloves and a hat. Prosecutors said the gloves and hat tested positive for gasoline.
In his car, a Toyota sedan similar to one seen on surveillance footage from fire scenes, police found several gloves and two lighters.
Bonsib said no DNA, fingerprint or trace hair analysis connects Crawford to any of the fires.
Police and prosecutors were able to use phone data and internet history as circumstantial evidence of his involvement.
The 12 blazes occurred between 1:45 and 4:30 a.m., Hammond said, and Crawford’s iPhone’s Apple health app showed he was active during several of the fires.
Bonsib suggested his client regularly awoke throughout the night to use the bathroom — nothing sinister.
But Crawford’s internet history showed he researched his target’s addresses, and once posted on a forum seeking advice for a burn.
Hammond said Crawford reached out to victims on Facebook after setting fire to their property, or went to the scene himself to take pictures of the aftermath.
Unable to provide direct evidence of Crawford’s identity in the Howard fires, the state plans to prove he is responsible by demonstrating his “modus operandi,” county prosecutors wrote in a December 2021 filing.