Sitting outside a Baltimore City courtroom where a jury had just convicted a young man of murdering her police officer son, Joyce Chesley was overcome with emotion.
Chesley, who had cried throughout the two-week trial, thought back on the life of her son, Detective Troy Chesley: How he worked tirelessly for the Baltimore Police Department; how his life was cut short on his front door steps as he returned home at 1 a.m. from a shift; how, in his final moments on Earth, he returned fire at his assailant, leaving a trail of blood for his fellow cops to track.
“He solved his own murder,” Joyce Chesley said between tears. “He did it himself. … I’m very proud of my son. He’s one of the best detectives out there.”
Troy Chesley’s older brother, Leroy Pinder, 37, said the family was “overwhelmed” after jurors found Brandon Grimes, 23, guilty of first-degree murder in the Jan. 9, 2007, shooting.
“I’m just shouting for joy right now,” Pinder said.
Grimes, who police say has a long arrest record, insisted on his innocence throughout the trial.
“I never had no gun,” he testified on Thursday.
But Joyce Chesley said Grimes’ changing stories never made any sense: First, he claimed to be a robbery victim; then he said he was shot on Carey Street; and finally he told jurors he was the victim of a random shooting on Fairfax Road, where Chesley was killed.
“They were all lies,” Joyce Chesley said. “He can’t be in two places at the same time.”
During closing arguments on Thursday, prosecutor Kevin Wiggins told jurors to pay attention to the blood Grimes left at the crime scene; how his girlfriend at the time saw him with the murder weapon moments before the shooting; and how Grimes admitted he left his hat in the blood trail.
The bullet Chesley shot marked Grimes, Wiggins said, letting investigators know: “This is the man who killed me in cold blood.”
Grimes’ attorney, Roland Walker, had argued the state’s case relies solely on circumstantial evidence, pointing to a lack of conclusive DNA, gunshot residue and fingerprint evidence against Grimes.
On Friday, Baltimore homicide Detective Marvin Sydnor said he had worried about the trial’s outcome when, during pretrial motions, Judge Timothy Doory disallowed prosecutors from introducing evidence from a nearby carjacking Grimes is alleged to have committed.
But those concerns were relieved as soon as jurors brought back their verdict after less than four hours of deliberating, the detective added.
“Justice was truly served,” Sydnor said.
Grimes faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 21.
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