In the cold of a December evening in 2010, a young man's life was abruptly ended by gunfire. Twenty-five-year-old James Campbell, a male resident of Bladensburg, Maryland, was in the 2900 block of Southern Avenue, Southeast, on Sunday, December 10th, when the shooting occurred. Shortly before 8 p.m., police responded to a report of the incident and found Campbell suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a nearby hospital by D.C.
fire and rescue units, but his injuries proved fatal, and he was pronounced dead.
For more than a decade, the case of James Campbell's death remained unsolved, a cold case that offered no immediate answers or justice for his family. He was the beloved son of Artonga Campbell and James Boyd and was survived by a twin brother and a sister. His family and friends mourned their loss, holding a funeral service for him the following weekend at Trinity Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
The passage of time did not erase the dedication of law enforcement to find who was responsible for Campbell's death. In a significant breakthrough, on Wednesday, September 1, 2021, the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, in conjunction with the Prince George's County Police Department, arrested 53-year-old John Carrington of Clinton, Maryland. Carrington's arrest was initially for a murder that occurred in Prince George's County. However, an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide Branch connected him to Campbell's cold case homicide. Carrington was subsequently charged with first-degree murder while armed in relation to the death of James Campbell, finally bringing a suspect before the courts nearly eleven years after the fatal shooting.
