Baltimore County prosecutors dropped their case Thursday against a 22-year-old Baltimore woman accused in the death of a man whose body was discovered on the Eastern Shore last year.
At a brief hearing in Baltimore County Circuit Court, prosecutors did not go into detail about the case against Jazzmine Morton, who was one of three people arrested in the death of Damon Jennings. Morton was accused of helping move Jennings' body and was charged with being an accessory after the fact.
Jennings, a fashion stylist who also worked at Horseshoe Casino Baltimore, went missing in mid-October; he was last seen with Morton and two others charged in his death, Elijah Carroll and Kevin Nixon.
When Jennings was found fatally stabbed in a ditch south of Salisbury on Oct. 29, police found a receipt for a wire transfer with Nixon's name near the body.
Nixon then implicated Carroll and Morton, according to charging documents. He told Maryland State Police investigators he saw Carroll stab Jennings after they pulled over in the vicinity of Warren and Poplar Hill roads in northern Baltimore County. Nixon said Morton helped him move the body days later, the documents state.
But since the arrests, questions have arisen over where Jennings was killed, according to attorneys involved in the case.
After Morton's hearing Thursday, defense attorney Jack Rubin said he was happy for his client to have the charge dropped — and said the state did not have evidence to prove its case against her. She has been under house arrest since December.
"The state's attorney apparently looked at the evidence as I did and determined there was no evidence to support the indictment," Rubin said.
At one point, Morton faced a charge of first-degree murder but in the end was indicted on a single count of being an accessory.
Morton can now seek an expungement of the charge, Rubin said.
Carroll, 23, and Nixon, 22, still face charges in Somerset County, where Jennings' body was found. A grand jury there has indicted them on multiple charges in connection with Jennings' death, including first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Because of those charges, Baltimore County prosecutors dropped their charges against Nixon and Carroll on Thursday.
"Since the body was found in Somerset County, it's appropriate for a prosecution to occur there," said Baltimore County Assistant State's Attorney Adam Lippe.
Lippe said an investigation "cast doubt as to the location of the murder."
Somerset County State's Attorney Daniel Powell said that under Maryland law, "if it's not definitive where the murder happened, the jurisdiction lies with where the body was found, which is Somerset County."
But Brandon Mead, an attorney for Carroll, said the jurisdictional questions will be "a significant hurdle for Somerset County to move forward."
"It's a real question mark where [Jennings] met his untimely demise," Mead said.
Carroll "maintains his innocence in any wrongdoing," Mead added.
Powell said no trial dates have been scheduled for Carroll or Nixon.
At the time of the arrests, state police said all three suspects worked with Jennings in an event promotions business. Charging documents do not shed light on a possible motive for the killing.
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