La Plata, MD – A Waldorf man who told his former girlfriend he was going to “shoot up this house” was convicted by a Charles County Circuit Court jury Monday, July 25 in La Plata before Judge H. James West.
Clyde Fitzgerald Jones, 27 of Waldorf, was found guilty on five counts of reckless endangerment, guilty on illegal possession of a firearm and illegal possession of ammunition and faces 41 years in prison.
He will be sentenced in October.
Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney Jeremy Widder told the jury in closing arguments that Jones’ actions April 8, 2015, when he sought to enact revenge on a man he felt was responsible for his sister’s death in the neighborhood two years before, was a “senseless crime. It really, truly was,” Widder explained.
On that evening, Jones picked up his former girlfriend and mother of his child, they went to the liquor store and then had sex in his car.
When he dropped her off, Widder noted, the woman’s mother, who did not allow Jones on her property, began taking photos of him with her cell phone.
“So we know he was in the neighborhood,” Widder said, adding that Jones told his former girlfriend that he was “going to shoot up this house,” just prior to the shooting.
When Jones shot into the apartment complex, he not only placed two shots in the home of the man he was angry with, he also put two bullets in the home of a single mother and her young child.
“When he shot into Dale Garvin’s home, his 2-year-old daughter was in the living room,” he said. “The bullets go over her head.”
He said if the other victim in the shooting, Tanesha Hill, had been in the living room where one bullet was found embedded near the couch, “who knows what might have happened,” Widder stated.
There were no eyewitnesses, he admitted, but added that the defendant’s girlfriend allegedly told the investigating officer that she saw a gun in his hand just before the shooting and he told her about shooting up a house.
Although the woman denied she told that to the officer on the witness stand, Widder maintained that she did not tell the truth because “she didn’t want to see her son grow up without a father.”
Defense Attorney Justin Eisele put forth a compelling argument in his rebuttal, claiming, “police got the wrong person.
“Mr. Jones did not do the crime he is accused of,” Eisele stressed. “He did not shoot at those apartments. There are no eyewitnesses to this crime. No one saw my client do this because he didn’t do it. The prosecutor has not proven his case.”
He said that even though the gun found by Jones’ neighbor, John Steinbach, two months after the shooting, Steinbach buried in the woods under some garbage and old carpet. When it was found, Eisele asserted, there was DNA on the weapon, but it belonged neither to Jones nor Steinbach.
“They didn’t find his DNA because he didn’t do the shooting,” Eisele maintained. “You must find him not guilty. You must,” he said.
“What were the chances that the gun Detective Austin recovered from the woods would match the bullets that were found in the floor and walls of the apartment?” Widder said in rebuttal. “Within five minutes of telling his girlfriend that he was going to shoot up this house, shots were fired.
“What are the odds? Beyond reasonable,” he said.
“The defense wants to talk about a cloak of innocence,” Widder added. “After you’ve heard the evidence, the cloak is off. What stands before you is a guilty man.”
The jury, composed of 12 women and four men, agreed with their verdict.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com