Prince George’s County police are investigating eight homicides in March, marking a deadly start to the month.
Victims include a convenience store owner who died after being beaten in his store, a 4-month-old baby whose death was ruled a homicide from a drug-related overdose and a 70-year-old man who was found stabbed to death inside a home, according to county police.
Early Sunday, police reported a woman was fatally shot in the District Heights area at about 2:15 a.m. An investigation into suspects and a motive is ongoing, police said.
The total number of killings for the year is about on par with 2023. Police are investigating 19 homicides this year, compared with 20 last year through March 15, according to the latest available county police data.
Eight of this year’s homicides have been domestic-related — four involving people in past or current relationships and four involving family members such as the murder-suicide of a stepfather and girl. Family-related homicides are a growing concern for county officials. Last year, there were 26 domestic-related homicides, 17 of which were family-related, according to county police data reporting 118 homicides in 2023.
The homicides this month began on March 3, according to police. Officers responded at about 7:15 a.m. to the 6700 block of New Hampshire Avenue in the Takoma Park area for a reported shooting and found Derek Coleman, 40, of no fixed address in an apartment building stairwell. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. An investigation into suspects and a motive is ongoing, police said.
Days later, on March 5, Yesenia Jaramillo Sosa, 39, of Oxon Hill, was fatally stabbed at a Camp Springs laundromat where she worked, according to police and charging documents.
Her boyfriend, John Marin Morales, 42, of Oxon Hill, was charged with murder in her killing. According to charging documents, surveillance video showed Morales confronted Sosa, who tried to flee into a locked office area. Morales followed her and “overpowered her” as Sosa tried to shut the door. He then put her in a headlock while she “tried to escape his grasp” and stabbed her until she collapsed, according to the charging documents. Morales stabbed himself after killing his girlfriend, police said.
According to online court records, Morales is being represented by a public defender. A spokesperson for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender declined to comment.
That same day, police investigated a homicide in the 300 block of Cedarleaf Avenue in the Capitol Heights area at about 6:25 p.m. Police found Airmus Dillard, 41, of Capitol Heights, with gunshot wounds. He later died at a hospital, police said.
Police arrested and charged Zarkee Bembo-Wilson, 23, with murder in the killing of Dillard. Police said the men knew each other and were involved in a dispute, but did not detail what may have sparked the disagreement. According to charging documents, Dillard gave a “dying declaration that ‘Keezah did it,’” police said in charging documents, a name Bembo-Wilson uses.
An attorney listed in online court records for Bembo-Wilson declined to comment.
On March 6 at about 8:45 p.m., Davon Brooks, 29, of Camp Springs was found fatally shot in the 3700 block of Donnell Drive. A second man was wounded in the shooting, police said. Authorities have not announced an arrest in the case.
On the same day, police arrested and charged Joseph Barrett, 27, of Takoma Park with murder in the overdose death of his daughter, Jaliyah Thompson.
According to the charging documents, Barrett admitted to using the drug “Molly” while caring for his daughter, whom police found unresponsive Jan. 6 at a motel in the 9400 block of Largo Drive West after Barrett called authorities. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found bath salts in Jaliyah’s liver and kidneys, according to the charging documents, and her death was ruled a homicide March 4. An attorney listed in online court records for Barrett declined to comment.
On March 8, police said Mohammad Hanif, 50, of Annandale, Va., died of his injuries after being attacked on March 5 by someone stealing items from his convenience store in the Capitol Heights area. Police responded at about 7:50 a.m. to the 900 block of Larchmont Avenue and found Hanif with head trauma inside the store.
Police released video of a person wanted in connection with the killing, who fled the scene on a bike.
And on March 10, officers found Lucas Pineda Cardona, 70, of Beltsville, with stab wounds inside a home in Beltsville. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they do not believe the crime was random.
Separately, in Laurel, which is in Prince George’s but investigates its own homicides, three men were shot at a recording studio Tuesday. Two of them — Louis B. Rackett, 23, and Quincy P. Green Jr., 21, both of D.C., died from their injuries. According to Laura Guenin, the public information officer for Laurel police, preliminarily, an argument broke out between two groups at the studio. Police responded to the shooting on Lafayette Avenue about 1:30 a.m.
Those homicides marked the first two in Laurel this year, compared with two homicides for all of last year, Guenin said.
Lillie Rackett, the grandmother of Louis Rackett, said her grandson, joined by his friend, was at the recording studio for the first time Tuesday. Louis Rackett was a singer, who loved music since he was a child, Lillie Rackett said. He was taking online college courses and working as a security guard to care for his only daughter.
Lillie Rackett said her grandson felt unsafe at the studio and didn’t like “the way” the other people were acting.
In a statement, the studio, Track House, said, “My deepest condolences for the loved ones of the people that passed away, my prayers go out to the person that is in the hospital. Going forward my business partners have been working relentlessly all morning to see how we can heighten security measures in the studio.”
“It won’t bring them back, but I just hope they would find the person that did it,” Lillie Rackett said. “A lot of people go there to the studio, and I wonder why this happened to him?”