A jewelry store robbery in Howard County may be linked to others in Baltimore and Annapolis, as well as to the fatal shooting of a 25-year-old who was killed a day after his car was identified as the getaway vehicle in a robbery at the Columbia Mall.
Howard County detectives on Monday arrested three Baltimore men and charged them in an armed robbery last week that netted more than $300,000 in high-end watches. Mall security officers saw the license plate of the getaway car, a Mitsubishi Diamante that was traced to Derek Jones, an aspiring rapper seen at right from this picture on his web site.
But the day after the robbery, Jones was fatally shot in the head as he left a barber shop in West Baltimore in the 1200 block of Winchester St. It was just hours after he had been questioned by county detectives, officials confirmed.
County police announced the robbery arrests Tuesday, but there was no mention in charging documents of Jones beyond describing his vehicle. Sherry Llewellyn, a spokeswoman for the Howard County police, said county detectives had been investigating Jones' possible involvement in the robbery but said that police were not prepared to charge him at the time of his death.
City homicide detectives were "not prepared to comment" on how the robbery might play into the murder investigation, Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Jones was a rapper named “Nu-Boy” and “D. Jones,” and had produced an album in late 2008 that was sold at local Best Buy stores. Street life was prominent in his music – album covers are splashed with images of guns and bullets. A song released last fall featured the chorus, “Air ‘em out” with the sounds of guns firing and the clinking of bullet casings hitting the ground.
But a follow-up album, his site promised, was to be called "American Dream," and discussed "his emergence from the bitter realities" of life in Baltimore that comprised his first album. "It was his wish to give the world more of himself as a person, and less of the tragic images he experienced day to day living in Baltimore," it reads.