Ryan Cambridge was an 18-year-old male from Brooklyn whose life ended in a burst of gunfire on May 1, 1993. He was killed alongside 21-year-old Dodson Sparman near St. Paul’s Court and Ocean Avenue in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Two other people were wounded in the same attack, turning the neighborhood street into the scene of a double homicide and leaving investigators searching for a gunman already associated with escalating violence across the borough.
Police alleged that Richard Jameswhite, a young Parkside Gang member known as “Babyface,” carried out the shooting in an especially brazen manner. According to investigators, Jameswhite sat on the handlebars of a bicycle being pedaled by an associate as they traveled along Ocean Avenue. Armed with a gun in each hand, he allegedly opened fire toward Cambridge, Sparman and the others. The available accounts do not identify the bicycle rider or establish whether that person was arrested or charged in connection with the killings.
Cambridge’s death became one of several Brooklyn homicides attributed by police to Jameswhite during a violent period beginning in the early 1990s. Authorities described Jameswhite as unpredictable and willing to shoot over revenge, gang disagreements and drug-related disputes. He was associated with the Parkside Gang, which operated around the southern end of Prospect Park and was said to specialize in robbing drug dealers. Investigators publicly linked him to the earlier killings of Javier Avila, Omark Dee and Fitzroy Reid, as well as the deaths of Cambridge and Sparman. By September 1993, New York City police were seeking assistance from law-enforcement agencies in several other cities because Jameswhite was known to leave New York when officers closed in on him.
Jameswhite had already been arrested in 1991 for allegedly trying to kill a man he blamed for his brother’s death, but he jumped bail and remained at large. Police said he later boasted that supernatural protection obtained in Jamaica made him invisible to his enemies and the authorities. Detectives warned that he was extremely dangerous and likely to fire with little provocation. The growing manhunt stretched beyond New York, with information distributed to officials in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Rochester, Washington and Toronto.
The search ended on April 28, 1994, after a minor vehicle collision near Atlanta, Georgia. Jameswhite and an associate, Devon Brown, became involved in an argument with motorist Anthony Maclin over damage to their vehicles. Because Jameswhite and Brown were fugitives, they reportedly tried to prevent Maclin and his fiancée from calling police. Maclin was then shot repeatedly and later died. Jameswhite and Brown fled in a car, abandoned it and attempted to escape on foot. Jameswhite surrendered after a police chase, and officers recovered two handguns and a switchblade knife. Brown was arrested several hours later.
Georgia prosecutors indicted both men for malice murder and felony murder in Maclin’s death. Their joint trial was held in December 1994, and eyewitness testimony and ballistics evidence connected a handgun carried by Jameswhite at the time of his arrest to the Georgia shooting. Both defendants were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Georgia Supreme Court later upheld their convictions after reviewing challenges involving the joint trial, juror selection, forensic testimony and other evidentiary issues.
Although Jameswhite was the publicly identified suspect in the murders of Ryan Cambridge and Dodson Sparman, the available online records do not show that he was separately tried or convicted in New York for the May 1, 1993 double homicide. His documented life sentence resulted from the Georgia murder of Anthony Maclin. Cambridge’s case therefore appears to have remained an attributed or suspected killing rather than one resolved through a publicly documented conviction specifically for his death.
