In the same office at the Baltimore City District Court on Wabash Avenue sit five women who have lost male family members to homicide.
One was struck by a stray bullet while sitting in his basement. Another was killed after he told dealers to stop selling drugs infront of his mother?s house. A third was shot in the back of the head in 2004.
And the whole office mourned recently when co-worker Chontae Waters, 31, was stabbed to death in Woodlawn last year.
But perhaps no survivor knows the pain of homicide quite like supervisor Cathy Pearson, 64, who has suffered the loss of two sons.
“It?s a lot of tragedy,” Pearson says. “I lost two babies. I lose the first and the last. It?s really heartbreaking. Some people just couldn?t do it. Tragically, my supervisor just lost her son to homicide. We had a lot to share. I was there for her.”
IT AFFECTS EVERYBODY
Pearson says the amount of suffering in her 36-person office caused by gunshots doesn?t really surprise her.
Everybody in Baltimore is touched by the violence in some way, she says.
“If it?s not your brother or son, it?s your nephew or cousin,” she says. “It affects somebody. It affects everybody. It touches us all.”
Homicide is the leading cause of death for Baltimore residents between the ages of 15 and 34, according to Baltimore City Health Department statistics.
“It?s all drug- and gang-related,” Pearson says. “Because they didn?t nip it in the bud when they first knew what was going on, it exploded.”
Pearson?s oldest son, Charles Massenburg, was 33 when he was killed outside a nightclub on Nov. 1, 1997. He was shot in the back of the head. His case was never solved.
MURDER SENTENCE SUSPENDED
Her youngest son, Damon Massenburg, was 32 when he was shot on Aug. 12, 2000, during a robbery on the 1900 block of Edmondson Avenue. In that case, police told Pearson they knew who killed her son, but prosecutors said there wasn?t enough evidence to put the suspect behind bars.
Court records show one man, Edward Ravenell, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Damon Massenburg?s death, but received a suspended sentence.
Another suspect, Louis Fortune, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to time served.
“I put a picture up of my sons, but I had to take it down,” Pearson says. “I just couldn?t see them every day all the time. It broke me up.”
She says the homicide rate has run out of control for years, burdening detectives who could dig up more evidence in her sons? cases.
“I?m waiting,” she says. “Just waiting. Maybe before I leave this Earth, I?ll see justice.”
