On a pleasant spring evening in Boyds, Maryland, the life of 23-year-old Javon Jamal Gordon was tragically cut short. On Tuesday, April 13, 2021, at approximately 6:52 p.m., emergency services received a call reporting a shooting on Ethel Rose Way. When Montgomery County Police officers arrived at the 12900 block of the residential street, they found Gordon lying in the road with a gunshot wound to his upper body. Despite the immediate efforts of residents who had started CPR and the continued life-saving measures by the responding officers and fire and rescue personnel, Javon Jamal Gordon was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation into the homicide, led by the Major Crimes Division, quickly determined that the shooting was not a random act. Detectives learned that Gordon, who was on foot, had a brief interaction with the suspect, or suspects, who were inside a vehicle. This verbal dispute escalated, leading to the fatal shooting. The vehicle then fled the area, leaving a neighborhood in shock and a family to grapple with a sudden and violent loss. The Office of the Medical Examiner later officially ruled Gordon's death a homicide.
Within days, the investigation led to a significant development. On Friday, April 16, 2021, detectives from the Montgomery County Department of Police arrested 19-year-old Rodjaun Orlando Neal-Williams of Clarksburg. He was taken into custody at the Public Safety Headquarters in Gaithersburg and charged with second-degree murder for his role in Javon Gordon's death. The investigation determined that during the verbal altercation, Neal-Williams, who was a passenger in the vehicle, produced a handgun and shot Gordon.
The legal proceedings that followed brought some measure of closure to the case. In March 2023, a jury found Rodjaun Neal-Williams, then 21, guilty of voluntary manslaughter and the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence. The evidence presented during the trial included details of the dispute and the use of a 'ghost gun' in the crime. On May 31, 2023, a Montgomery County Circuit Judge sentenced Neal-Williams to 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence for the charges.
