In the early morning hours of February 15, 2019, the day after Valentine's Day, 29-year-old Maryann Wellington, a Black female, was found dead in her Baltimore, Maryland apartment. Police responded to a call at her residence in the 4900 block of Goodnow Road and discovered her on the kitchen floor in a pool of her own blood, having sustained gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
The initial call to emergency services was made by Arnold Johnson, Wellington's ex-boyfriend and the father of her child. He claimed to have arrived at the apartment to find the front door and a window open, and Wellington unresponsive. However, investigators found no signs of forced entry. Suspicion soon fell upon Johnson, and he was arrested later that same day in connection with his ex-girlfriend's death. He was subsequently charged with first and second-degree murder, as well as weapons offenses.
During the investigation, it was revealed that Wellington had been on the phone with a friend at the time of the incident and had recorded the conversation. On the recording, she could be heard telling someone to 'Leave me alone! Get off of me!' The prosecution argued this was evidence of an altercation with Johnson leading up to the shooting. In his defense, Johnson's legal team pointed to his frantic 911 call and his distressed state as captured on police body cameras as signs of his innocence.
In October 2019, a jury found Arnold Johnson guilty of first-degree murder. However, this conviction was later overturned by the Court of Special Appeals. A retrial for Johnson commenced in January 2023. After several days of testimony, the judge declared a mistrial for reasons that were not made public.
