Do you know who murdered 16 year old Christopher Donald Smith in 2012? Christopher Donald Smith, a 16-year-old Black male from the Landover area, was found late on the night of February 6, 2012, in New Carrollton, Maryland. A passerby noticed a body along a wooded edge near the 5300 block of 85th Avenue and called 911 around 10:45 p.m.; responding officers located him near a sediment pond with an apparent gunshot wound, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The killing landed in a neighborhood already on edge.
Within roughly an hour of the discovery, an ambulance crew leaving the area came upon another shooting victim just blocks away in West Lanham Hills, and detectives began trying to determine whether the deaths were connected. Residents described hearing arguing and then a gunshot nearby that same night, while investigators kept their focus on building a timeline and sorting out whether the violence was part of a single chain of events or two separate attacks that collided in the same small stretch of streets.
Days later, grief turned into fear at a candlelight vigil held for Smith at a basketball court in the 5200 block of 85th Avenue. Witnesses told reporters that a man wearing a ski mask walked up during the gathering and fired, sending people scattering in panic; some on the scene believed the victim of that shooting was targeted, while police cautioned it was too early to draw conclusions about motive.
In the wake of that vigil shooting, New Carrollton police arrested Antione Freeman of Landover Hills and charged him with attempted first-degree murder. As for Smith’s homicide itself, Prince George’s County homicide detectives publicly said they were still working to identify the suspect or suspects and establish a motive, and the contemporaneous reports did not name an arrested suspect for the killing.
