A jury is about to begin deciding whether a Suburban Hospital maintenance worker killed his boss and tried to cover up the crime, or was doing his job and accused amid an atmosphere of paranoia.
The Montgomery County Circuit Court jury is slated to begin deliberations Wednesday in the first-degree murder trial of Keith D. Little, who is accused of stabbing 40-year-old Roosevelt Brockington Jr. to death in the hospital’s basement boiler room on New Year’s Day.
Little, 50, was arrested on Jan. 5 after a co-worker saw him wash a mask and gloves in hot, chemically treated water, then throw the items away. Little did those things shortly after he spoke with detectives and provided a DNA sample, prosecutor Robert Hill said in his closing argument.
“Imagine what hot water would do to blood,” Hill said. “Destruction of evidence.”
The jury is charged with deciding how strongly the incident links him to the killing. A forensic biologist testified that Little could not be definitively included or excluded as a DNA contributor to the mask, DNA from both Little and Brockington was inside the glove and DNA from Brockington was on a stain on the glove’s exterior.
The biologist was not allowed to testify that the stain was Brockington’s blood. Hill, though, asserted in his closing argument that it was.
“The only person who says there’s blood on that glove is the prosecutor,” defense attorney Adam Harris said. “There is no connection between the glove, the mask and the murder.”
Harris said there was nothing nefarious about washing the items, and that the staff’s fear and paranoia after Brockington’s death spurred Little’s co-worker to call authorities.
“It is just Keith Little doing his job in a certain atmosphere,” he said.
Brockington more stabbed than 70 times. That shows premeditation and indicates the killing was personal, Hill argued.
“Premeditation can be found between any two” of those wounds, he said.
Harris said the prosecution’s theory that Brockington was killed over a schedule change and poor performance review doesn’t link Little to the killing.
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“Employees complain about their bosses,” he said. “That doesn’t provide a motive for murder.”
Little was also charged with killing a co-worker in the District in 2003 but was acquitted.
