Baltimore jury finds man guilty of murder in killings of Officer Keona Holley, second victim

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday convicted a man in the fatal shootings of Baltimore Police officer Keona Holley and 27-year-old Justin Johnson more than three years ago.

The jury found Elliot Knox guilty of eight of nine counts charged in the Dec. 16, 2021, shootings, including two counts each of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, but acquitted him of using a firearm in the commission of Holley’s death.

Knox, 34, faces life in prison at sentencing in June, with prosecutors previously having given notice of their intent to pursue a penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

His trial on the charges, which began last week, spanned almost four days. After closing arguments, the jury received the case Monday afternoon.

Members of Holley’s family filled several rows of benches in the courtroom throughout the trial, at times accompanied by a police department chaplain. Some relatives waited outside the courtroom as the jury deliberated for almost two days.

“We go home tonight in peace. We have a forgiving heart, but we know that it’s not up to us to forgive,” said Lawanda Sykes, Holley’s sister. “That rests with God. We have no ill feeling or no ill will. We don’t wish them any harm. That’s not for us to decide.”

While Knox’s trial aired details about Holley’s death not previously disclosed publicly, none of the testimony or evidence shed light on a motive for her killing, failing to answer the case’s great mystery.

“No matter what happened, it wasn’t going to bring my son back, but it is some consolation that they came back with the guilty verdict,” said Justina Lawrence, Johnson’s mother.

Holley was ambushed and gunned down around 1:30 a.m. while sitting in her patrol car during an overtime shift in Baltimore’s Curtis Bay neighborhood. After Holley was shot, her cruiser rolled across the 4400 block of Pennington Avenue, through a fence, down an embankment and into a park, where it came to rest.

At trial, the prosecution played video from the body camera of the first officer to find her injured, showing his and a civilian’s harrowing effort to keep her alive. Holley had been shot in the head twice, with bullets damaging her brain and neck. The 39-year-old mother of four died in the hospital about a week after the shooting.

Scores of police personnel attended her public viewing, with family, friends and colleagues remembering her joining law enforcement late in life with a desire to help improve her community.

Around 3 a.m. the same day, Johnson was gunned down while sitting in his 1997 Lincoln Town Car in the 600 block of Lucia Avenue in the city’s Yale Heights neighborhood. Six bullets tore into his back, damaging his spine, lungs and heart. He died at the scene.

At the beginning of Knox’s trial, Assistant State’s Attorney Kurt Bjorklund told jurors the killings amounted to “two executions, 90 minutes apart, [in] two different neighborhoods.”

Scores of detectives helped investigate her shooting from early on, quickly finding that a license plate reader in the area had picked up the tag of a silver Hyundai registered to Knox.

Cameras showed that vehicle arrive and park around the block from where Holley’s patrol car was. Two men got out. The footage, played at trial, showed them walking in the direction of Holley’s cruiser and then running back toward their car. Within hours, police located, stopped and detained Knox.

In a small interview room in the homicide unit at Baltimore police headquarters, Knox waived his Miranda rights. Then, he misled detectives for about two hours, denying any involvement in the violence and claiming someone else took his car.

“If I cooperate on the level y’all are looking for,” Knox said, “it’s like this, the possibility of jail time is there. The possibility of beef with affiliated people in jail is there. … Most of the time, this stuff is like death penalty, life type stuff.”

Eventually, he confessed to being present at both shootings but maintained that an accomplice was responsible for pulling the trigger in both crimes.

Travon Shaw, 34, also was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and firearms offenses in both killings. A jury in October convicted him of all counts related to Johnson’s death. Shaw faces life in prison at sentencing later this month, when he is also due to stand trial on the charges stemming from Holley’s killing.

Knox’s attorney, Natalie Finegar, told jurors the prosecution couldn’t disprove her client’s story, and thus it was possible that he was telling the truth. She responded to Bjorklund’s assertion during closing arguments that Holley was killed in a “hit.”

“He’s not a hitman,” Finegar said. “He’s a person who got caught up in a very bad situation and made some very bad decisions.”

Reached by phone, Finegar declined to comment after the jury’s verdict.

During his interrogation, Knox directed detectives to a house where he hid the guns used in the shootings: a Glock 22 handgun and an AR-style pistol. Detectives found the firearms in two backpacks tucked away in a bedroom closet, where Knox said they would be. Gloves, masks and extra magazines also were located in the bags.

Having possession of the guns bolstered the state’s case, allowing police firearms examiners to analyze the guns and ballistics evidence from the crime scenes.

An examiner testified that .40 caliber casings picked up at the scene of both shootings “were consistent” with having been fired by the Glock 22. The one .223 caliber casing from the scene of Johnson’s killing, the examiner said, was “consistent” with having been fired by the AR-style pistol, which had a makeshift “brass catcher” to collect casings ejected with each trigger pull.

A police DNA analyst also testified that Knox and Shaw matched a profile of genetic material collected from the pistol. The analyst could not identify anyone’s DNA from the Glock 22.

Throughout the trial, Bjorklund maintained that Knox shot both Holley and Johnson. To support that claim, he highlighted footage showing Knox being the closest to Holley before the shooting and being behind Shaw as they ran away. As for Johnson’s death, Bjorklund noted that his car was pockmarked with bullet holes on the left and right sides.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates lauded Bjorklund’s performance at trial and detectives’ investigative work in a statement following the guilty verdict.

“Baltimore and the women and men of the Baltimore Police Department have waited a long time for this verdict. The heartless murders of Officer Keona Holley and Justin Johnson shook Baltimore to its core,” Bates said. “There is still more work to be done as we approach the trial date for the co-defendant in this case.”

Police Commissioner Richard Worley and the city police officers’ union, which had members present during the trial, also applauded the verdict in separate statements.

“This cowardly act against one of our own was chilling and we ask for nothing but the harshest sentence possible, which will still not be enough,” said Mike Mancuso, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3.

Proclaiming that “justice was served,” Worley thanked jurors for their service and for finding Knox guilty.

“He committed a senseless and heinous act against a Baltimore Police Department Officer,” Worley said, “and it is my hope that this verdict brings a sense of closure and peace to Officer Keona Holley’s family, friends, co-workers and loved ones.”