Davon Bridgeford was 30 years old when he was stabbed on the night of Wednesday, September 21, 2016, in an attack that police tied to the 2300 block of Reisterstown Road in West Baltimore. He died at a hospital. The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists his death as a homicide.
He was one of two men stabbed that night. According to the Baltimore Sun, police were called around 9 p.m.
to the 2300 block of Reisterstown Road and "found a 31-year-old bleeding from his neck." Fox45 reported that Western District officers were approached by that man near Reisterstown Road and Ruskin Avenue, and that he "initially told officers he hurt himself in a fall." The Sun's Murder Ink column said police had first been called for a "sick case." After further questioning, the man said he had been stabbed, but, in the words police used, he "did not give a name as to who stabbed him."
While officers were still at that scene, they were directed to a second victim. Police found Bridgeford "with stab wounds to the torso on the corner of Gwynns Falls and Woodbrook Avenue," a few blocks from Mondawmin Mall, according to Fox45. An ambulance took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The other man survived. Police did not say publicly whether the two men knew each other, whether they were attacked by the same person, or what led to the violence. The fact that the surviving victim would not name his attacker suggests that investigators began the case with little help from the one person known to have been there.
The Sun described Bridgeford as "the Columbia man," and a Baltimore police statement gave his address as the 4800 block of High Hawk Court. Beyond that, almost nothing about his life has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or fundraiser could be found, and no news story described his family, his work or the people who mourned him. A volunteer-run list of the city's 2016 homicides records his death in two words: "Double stabbing."
The Sun placed the attack in the Mondawmin neighborhood of West Baltimore. Mondawmin takes its name from the large shopping mall at its center, which opened in the 1950s and remains a busy hub for buses and the Metro subway. Reisterstown Road, a major commercial corridor, runs past the mall, and the side streets around Gwynns Falls Parkway and Woodbrook Avenue are lined with rowhouses and older detached homes.
After the unrest of 2015, Baltimore recorded more than 300 homicides a year for eight straight years, and the share of killings that ended in an arrest fell sharply.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Davon Bridgeford could be found in news archives or public records. More than ten years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Someone who was near Reisterstown Road, Ruskin Avenue, Gwynns Falls Parkway or Woodbrook Avenue around 9 p.m. on September 21, 2016, or who later heard talk in Mondawmin about the double stabbing that night, may hold the piece of information detectives still need. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
