A Baltimore County District Court judge has ordered a man accused of fatally shooting a 25-year-old woman who was set to testify in a murder trial in 2018 held without bail.
Kenneth Davis, 32, faces charges of first-degree murder and witness tampering in the 2018 death of Tracey Carrington, who was shot outside a bar in Baltimore County. Davis is currently serving a sentence for first-degree assault and felony gun possession in an unrelated case at the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown.
District Judge Guido Pocarelli denied Davis bail in a hearing Friday afternoon.
Carrington, who captained the women’s basketball team at Morgan State University and was working as a basketball coach and substitute teacher after graduating, was set to testify as a state’s witness in a murder case at the time of her death.
In that case, two brothers, Norwood and Nyghee Johnson, were ultimately convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting of Stanley Brunson Jr., 29, and Shameek Joyner, 28, in April 2018 at a Towson apartment complex.
Assistant State’s Attorney Lauren Stone said Friday that Carrington was present when the two men were shot in a “drug transaction that went sideways.” When Carrington realized people inside the apartment where she was staying were exchanging 25 pounds of marijuana, she left the room and went into a bedroom.
Before she was later shot, she was cooperating with investigators and had given a recorded interview.
An indictment unsealed last week after a May 8 grand jury does not directly link Carrington’s death to the murder case, but charges Davis with attempting to impede a witness by force in addition to first-degree murder and gun offenses.
Norwood and Nyghee Johnson were charged in April 2018, Stone said.
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On Sept. 6 of that year, at about 8:40 p.m., a suspect fired at Carrington multiple times as she was leaving S&S Lounge in the 6900 of Belair Road in Overlea, police said. Stone said a man approached Carrington and a friend and fired at least 21 rounds. Carrington was pronounced dead at the scene after being shot 12 times in her neck, torso and legs.
Her Morgan State community remembered the basketball star as a “legend” and a force for good.
After Carrington’s shooting, police conducted an investigation into people affiliated with the Johnson brothers, Stone said. A tipster identified Stone as the shooter to the Baltimore County homicide unit in October 2021.
Police then pulled cell phone and Google records and recovered one handgun used in the shooting from an unrelated Baltimore City search warrant, Stone said.
Stone said Davis is a friend of the Johnsons who attended their trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court. She said he represents a “significant threat to public safety,” citing his conviction for assault along with prior convictions for malicious destruction of property, possession with intent to distribute and robbery.
Davis represented himself in the bail review hearing and exercised his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
A preliminary hearing for Davis is set for June 20 in Baltimore County Circuit Court.