On an autumn afternoon in 2015, 22-year-old Garrett Alexander McClees, a male resident of Burtonsville, Maryland, was fatally shot in a local park. The incident, which occurred around 4:43 p.m. on October 8th at the Edgewood Neighborhood Park in the Briggs Chaney area, was initially reported by multiple 911 callers who heard gunshots. Police and emergency services arrived to find McClees suffering from a gunshot wound to the torso; he succumbed to his injuries at the scene.
His backpack had been stolen. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore later ruled his death a homicide.
The investigation into the death of Garrett Alexander McClees led Montgomery County Police Department detectives to identify two suspects: 24-year-old Earl Junius Bennette and 22-year-old Shante Gladden. Investigators determined that the suspects knew McClees and that the homicide was likely drug-related. Evidence suggested that Bennette had been in contact with McClees by phone on the day of the murder. On October 22, 2015, arrest warrants were issued for both men, and they were apprehended the following day. Gladden was arrested in Washington, D.C., while Bennette was taken into custody in Silver Spring. Both were charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery.
Following their arrests, the legal process unfolded for the two men accused in the death of Garrett Alexander McClees. In a turn of events, a Montgomery County jury found Shante Gladden not guilty of all charges in June 2017, after a six-day trial and a day and a half of deliberations. Information regarding the final legal outcome for the second suspect, Earl Junius Bennette, is not readily available in public online sources.
