In the early evening of January 4, 2009, a burst of gunfire shattered the quiet of a Northeast Baltimore apartment building, leaving two teenagers dead. Sixteen-year-old Trevane Cordel Ricks, an African-American male, and 15-year-old Mayresa Craft were both shot inside a building in the 5600 block of Loch Raven Boulevard. The incident marked the second double homicide in Baltimore in the first four days of the new year, contributing to a bloody start to 2009 for the city.
Responding to the call at approximately 8:00 p.m., police discovered the two teens suffering from gunshot wounds. Ricks, who lived in the neighborhood, had been shot in the chest. He was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries three hours later. Craft was shot in the side and died shortly after Ricks.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Baltimore police homicide detectives were on the scene, but details were scarce. Investigators had not identified any suspects and had not determined a motive for the killings. The community was left shaken by the violent loss of two young lives. The case was part of a troubling wave of violence that gripped Baltimore at the beginning of 2009. Despite the initial investigation, publicly available information and news reports in the years that followed did not contain details of any arrests or the identification of any suspects in the murders of Trevane Ricks and Mayresa Craft.
