Kenneth Davis denies killing Morgan State alum who was witness in 2018 murder case
Kenneth Davis told jurors Thursday that he did not kill Tracey Carrington, a 25-year-old Morgan State University graduate preparing to testify as state’s witness in a 2018 murder trial when she was fatally shot.
Davis, 33, faces charges of first-degree murder, witness tampering and firearms offenses in the Sept. 6, 2018, shooting of Carrington, the former captain of the Morgan State basketball team. His trial began Tuesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court.
With no fingerprints, no DNA and no murder weapon, the state’s case against Davis depends largely on witness Darrel Mason. Mason testified Wednesday that Davis arrived at the house where he was staying on the night of Carrington’s murder, burned his clothes on a backyard grill and buried two guns outside. Carrington was shot at least 12 times as she was leaving a music venue in Overlea.
Carrington was scheduled to testify in the trial of brothers Norwood and Nyghee Johnson, who were convicted of second-degree felony murder in a marijuana sale turned deadly. She was inside the Towson apartment complex where the transaction took place in April 2018 — “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fuller said Thursday. Davis knew the brothers and attended every day of their trial.
After Mason agreed to cooperate with county police more than three years later, he and Davis talked for more than an hour in a recorded conversation inside a wired holding cell in the Baltimore County courthouse in June 2022.
In their testimony to jurors this week, the two men interpreted that wide-ranging conversation in vastly different ways. Mason said the tape showed Davis confessing to Carrington’s murder as they discussed the two guns — referred to as “joints — that Mason said Davis had buried in his backyard.
However, Davis testified Thursday that the men were instead discussing two guns he believed Mason stole from his truck in the summer of 2017.
On the recording of their conversation played in court again Thursday, Davis said phrases like “immediate death penalty” and “I knew my life was on the line.” He told jurors he was talking about the missing guns Mason allegedly took from him in 2017 while Mason, who owned a crab truck, was experiencing conflict with a nearby snowball stand owner.
Missing those guns, which belonged to someone else, put Davis’ life at risk, he said Thursday.
“You steal drugs, you steal money, you don’t steal guns,” Davis told jurors.
Davis testified openly about his involvement in a marijuana enterprise, which including transporting weed from California to Maryland. Of the missing guns, he said he was a “full-time father” and “ain’t nobody gonna tell you they’re going to come blow your head off.”
During cross-examination, Fuller asked Davis about a point in the jail cell conversation when he mentioned “that backyard shit,” apparently referencing the guns Mason said Davis buried the night of Carrington’s murder. Davis responded that he hadn’t understood what Mason was talking about and believed he was continuing to lie about the two stolen guns.
In exchange for his cooperation in the investigation of Carrington’s murder, Mason received a plea agreement in a Baltimore County case, the state and defense acknowledged in a stipulation read to jurors Thursday.
Mason pleaded guilty in November 2022 to a firearm possession charge while prosecutors dismissed the remaining charges in his county case. Mason received a sentence of three years of probation and the state did not oppose a finding of probation before judgment. The state also paid for travel and lodging expenses so Mason could relocate out of Maryland for his safety.
Davis is currently serving a sentence for first-degree assault and felony gun possession in an unrelated case.
The defense called two other witnesses Thursday: Davis’ mother and the owner of Mason’s house in 2018, who said he didn’t have a grill at the time and would have seen a fire in his backyard.
The case will continue Friday.
