Victim in Brooklyn homicide was mother of two, bartender at Limoncello

In the hours after Samantha Holston lost her childhood best friend to gun violence in Baltimore last week, snapshots of their shared memories kept popping into her head.

There they were, an inseparable pair through the years: little girls playing pranks on their neighbors in suburban Anne Arundel County, teenagers listening to music and fixing their makeup before school, young women celebrating baby showers, new jobs and 30th birthdays.

Last Friday morning, Holston awoke to devastating news.

Brittany Keyser died around 6:15 a.m. April 15 after gunfire erupted outside a Brooklyn housing complex, according to Baltimore Police. She was pronounced dead in the 800 block of Gretna Court while a second victim was hospitalized with serious injuries.

The shooting added to the ongoing increase in the violence plaguing the South Baltimore neighborhood in recent months. It also began a bloody weekend during which three people were killed and 16 injured by gunfire throughout the city.

On Monday, Baltimore police recorded the city’s 100th homicide of 2022 — a grim milestone that comes less than four months into the year and keeps Baltimore on the grim track to exceed 300 homicides for the eighth year in a row.

Keyser, 30, left behind two young children. Holston described Keyser as a devoted mother who cherished her son and daughter.

“Brittany loved being with her family … and she was an excellent cook,” family wrote in her obituary. “She enjoyed the outdoors — especially camping, going to the beach, family events, and hosting real tea parties with her daughter.”

A longtime bartender, she had been working most recently at Limoncello, an upscale Italian restaurant in Locust Point.

“I want people to know she was special to somebody and she was loved, not just another statistic — not just the latest person killed in the city,” Holston said. “Losing her was like losing my backbone. Anytime I needed her, she was there — always a phone call away, no matter what.”

A few hours after her death, the sprawling Brooklyn housing complex was eerily quiet Friday morning. Police had cleared the scene and only a scrap of yellow crime tape remained tied to a metal railing outside the brick apartment buildings. Nearby, an office chair lay toppled on the sidewalk next to an empty soda bottle and discarded fast food wrappers. Several pairs of sneakers dangled from telephone wires overhead.

Residents who wandered through the courtyard said they knew nothing about the shooting.

In Brooklyn alone, at least six people have been killed and 14 injured in shootings since the start of 2022, according to the latest available crime data. That includes a Feb. 21 double homicide in the 800 block of Glade Court — just around the corner from where Keyser was killed last week.

Neighborhood residents and city officials have acknowledged the rise in violence. The Baltimore Police Department is piloting a new program in Brooklyn and Curtis Bay aimed at improving collaboration between community members and officers. The two groups will work together to develop Neighborhood Policing Plans that “identify priorities and strategies to address crime and disorder in the neighborhood,” according to the department.

Holston said she had been worried about her friend hanging out in that area, but she never imagined an outcome this tragic.

“I couldn’t even believe somebody would do that to her,” she said. “If you knew Brittany, what could she possibly have done? It’s just senseless.”

When she received the news Friday morning, Holston said, she went into her bathroom to avoid breaking down in front of her kids.

“I just cried,” she said. “Then I stared at the wall because it didn’t seem real.”

Keyser grew up in Severn and graduated from Old Mill High School, her friend said. She had worked in restaurants for several years, including Nonna Angela’s Italian Bistro & Wine Bar in Crofton, where Holston also worked.

“I was thinking about how we went from kids to having babies to working together, and it just sucks because I don’t have a lot of people left,” Holston said, describing how she leaned on Keyser after recently losing her mom.

Now, Holston worries the case will go unsolved. She said she hopes witness accounts and surveillance video from the complex might help detectives achieve justice and reveal how the shooting unfolded.

Baltimore Police have not released a potential motive or other details about the circumstances surrounding the shooting, but officials said the investigation is open and active.

Anyone with information about the case is urged to contact Baltimore Police Department homicide detectives at 410-396-2100.