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By Darcy Costello
Baltimore Solar
BALTIMORE — A Baltimore County man is accused of murdering an off-duty D.C. police officer discovered shot in Baltimore Metropolis in November 2017, in what metropolis prosecutors say would be the first case dealt with by a newly established chilly case unit.
Dion Thompson, 24, who’s at the moment being held in federal jail in Auckland, faces costs in Baltimore Metropolis District Court for the killing of Tony Mason Jr., 40, a Metropolitan Police Division officer in Auckland. Baltimore Police say in charging paperwork that he’s believed to be “one of many two shooters” in Mason’s slaying. A feminine passenger within the automotive with Mason additionally was wounded by gunfire.
Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith stated at a information convention Wednesday that Mason’s demise in West Baltimore had been a “painful thriller” for years, however, due to a “courageous individual” who referred to as in a tip and detectives who “by no means stopped” working, there now might be some closure.
“Whereas we can not ease the ache and the loss, or the recollections of that day, we are able to take solace within the truth the individual accountable is being delivered to justice,” Smith stated.
Officers stated Wednesday they consider “different folks” who haven’t been apprehended additionally had been “concerned,” and inspired extra ideas.
“You might assume that you simply’ve gotten away with homicide,” Baltimore Metropolis State’s Legal professional Ivan Bates stated. “However [with] advances in know-how and us working collectively, we’re going to verify we give attention to holding you accountable.”
The break in Mason’s murder case got here in early 2023 when an individual referred to as in a tip, based on court paperwork. The tipster was not an eyewitness to the killing however stated they had been near somebody who confessed that he and two others had killed a D.C. police officer.
Data the tipster offered was corroborated and led investigators to a possible suspect, stated Assistant State’s Legal professional Kurt Bjorkland, who would be the metropolis prosecutor assigned to Bates’ new chilly case unit.
Bjorkland stated Wednesday he couldn’t touch upon a motive, any hyperlink between Thompson and Mason, or whether or not this was a case of mistaken identification. He additionally stated he wasn’t in a position to say whether or not any reward cash had been awarded. Charging paperwork within the case say the tipster is “conscious” of rewards being supplied however “has by no means requested to obtain the profit.”
Thompson faces practically two dozen costs in district court together with first- and second-degree homicide, first- and second-degree assault and handgun offenses, based on charging paperwork offered by the State’s Legal professional’s Workplace.
The case didn’t seem in on-line court information, as of Wednesday afternoon. An lawyer for Thompson in a federal legal case stated he was not at the moment representing him. Makes an attempt to succeed in family members of Thompson had been unsuccessful.
Based on the tipster’s account, laid out by police in court information, Thompson was leaving a Baltimore residence in 2017 when he noticed a darkish automobile parked outdoors and have become paranoid. He advised two folks he was with, “Man-Man” and “Chub,” to not come outdoors as a result of he suspected the folks within the automotive had been there to rob him or to retaliate towards him for robberies he’d dedicated. He then advised “Man-Man” and “Chub” to get weapons, based on the charging paperwork.
When Thompson returned to the residence, he picked up the opposite two in a automobile they usually circled the block. Charging paperwork state that “the intention was to shoot up the parked automobile.”
As quickly as the person within the parked automotive seemed up, they fired weapons. Thompson advised the tipster he “emptied his clip” into the automotive. The three males then fled the scene and Thompson dropped off the opposite two elsewhere, based on charging paperwork.
Later that evening, he reportedly advised his brother that he wanted extra bullets and that he’d “acquired one tonight,” referring to killing somebody.
“I acquired one tonight, dummy,” Thompson reportedly advised his brother. “Watch the information.”
He later realized from information stories that he’d killed an off-duty police officer and that there was a girl passenger within the automobile, based on charging paperwork.
Mason was discovered within the 2800 block of Elgin Avenue in West Baltimore’s Panway/Braddish Avenue neighborhood alongside Gwynns Falls Parkway.
The tipster additionally stated Thompson had given them details about the identities of “Man-Man” and “Chub.” Police used these particulars to determine “Man-Man” as Jerard Walker, who died in a automobile crash in 2018. “Chub,” in the meantime, was stated to be “on the road.” His identification is redacted.
Police wrote that the tipster gave two interviews to police, and that his second “persistently retold the confession of Mr. Mason’s homicide because it was advised to him by Thompson.”
In a separate legal case, proof collected by investigators steered Thompson was “making an attempt to distance himself” from the realm the place Mason was discovered killed, police added.
“It seems in a number of of the digital gadgets” analyzed within the separate case “{that a} portion of time was deleted from the SMS messages, name log, and timeline from across the time of Mr. Mason’s homicide,” the charging paperwork stated.
“Moreover, a federal investigation was performed and quite a few arrestees had been requested if they’d any info on the homicide of the DC Police Officer, however nobody was in a position to present a single element,” wrote police, including that the non-public particulars and digital proof “strongly helps Thompson’s confession that he murdered Mr. Mason.”
Thompson is recognized within the charging paperwork because the chief of a drug group referred to as “The Slickest Ones,” or TSO, with a territory centered round Elgin Avenue.
Bates stated Wednesday that chilly instances are at the moment assigned to members of the murder unit, who’ve heavy caseloads. He expects to increase the brand new chilly case unit regularly, and hopes to safe federal funding for DNA testing and different evaluation.
Bjorklund, who will assist with chilly instances from inside the State’s Legal professional’s Workplace, was employed in 2004 and is counted among the many workplace’s most skilled prosecutors. Former State’s Legal professional Marilyn Mosby tapped him to function the deputy state’s lawyer for main crimes in a 2021 management shakeup. Beneath Bates, Bjorklund has dealt with a number of the metropolis’s most high-profile instances.
In July, Bjorklund secured homicide convictions towards a person for killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend Akia Eggleston and her unborn child. Eggleston went lacking in 2017, however authorities by no means discovered her physique. Bates praised Bjorklund’s lawyering in that case and, extra just lately, applauded his dealing with of the instances of two males convicted of homicide within the ambush killings of Baltimore Police Officer Keona Holley and one other man in December 2021.
Lt. Terry McLarney, one of many Baltimore Police investigators behind the Mason investigation, which additionally concerned the FBI and ATF, stated at Wednesday’s information convention that the brand new partnership on chilly instances with the Baltimore State’s Legal professional’s Workplace could be “actually good.”
“We now have the FBI. We now have Kurt. Issues are getting higher,” McLarney stated.
Baltimore Solar reporter Alex Mann contributed to this text.
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from Cramer Law https://lawyers-auckland1.co.nz/baltimore-pds-new-cold-case-unit-receives-tip-leading-to-new-evidence-in-7-year-old-murder/
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