Brea White was 26 years old when she was found dead inside a vacant building in the 2600 block of East Monument Street in Baltimore on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020. The Baltimore Sun reported that she was found at around 4:47 p.m. She had suffered blunt force injuries. The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists her death as a homicide.
Her funeral home obituary gives her full name as Brea M. White, born Feb.
21, 1994, and lists a memorial service held on Monday, Nov. 30, 2020. Her family told the Sun that she left behind a 5-year-old daughter. Her aunt, Latoya White, who took on the task of caring for the girl, said she was devastated and waiting for an arrest to be made. "All she wanted to do was succeed and achieve, and now she's 26 and she is gone," Latoya White said. "I just really pray that they have justice for her, because she really did not deserve that."
Later that month, as the city reached 300 homicides for the year, Fox45 spoke with Diane Wyatt, who knew her through her own daughter. "Brea White was one of them," Wyatt said. "She was my daughter's friend." Wyatt described her as "a young mother with 1 child and she had just lost her brother last year," and added: "Then she's gone and her mother just buried two children." Her name also appeared in the Catholic Review's weekly list praying by name for Baltimore's victims of violence.
The record does not say how she came to be inside the vacant building, how long she had been there before she was found, or who found her. A crime blog that tracks Baltimore killings described the case only as a victim found in a vacant home with trauma, and named no suspect. Police have not publicly said whether she knew the person who hurt her, and no detail about a motive has been released.
East Monument Street is one of the main corridors of East Baltimore, a long road of rowhouses, corner stores and small businesses. The 2600 block lies east of the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus, in a part of the city where occupied homes stand next to vacant ones. A building that sits empty can still be watched by neighbors, and people living nearby may have noticed someone going in or out on that Sunday afternoon.
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 Brea White could be found in news archives or public records. More than five years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on or near the 2600 block of East Monument Street in early November 2020, or who saw Brea White in the days before she was found, may know something that could help her family get the justice her aunt asked for. 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).
