Rusty Mark Edwards, a 49-year-old male from Williamsport, Maryland, was remembered in his obituary for touching countless lives with warmth and kindness. His own life was cut short just two days before his 50th birthday in a burst of gunfire on a summer afternoon in Hagerstown, Maryland.
On July 18, 2024, shortly before 1 p.m., Edwards was sitting with three other people in a parked Kia Optima in the 200 block of East Washington Street.
According to police, two men on electric scooters approached the car. One of the men began arguing with the occupants before pulling out a handgun and firing into the vehicle. The second man, who had stopped nearby, then also pulled a gun and shot at the car. Edwards, who was in a passenger seat, got out and fired back at one of the shooters before getting back into the Kia. He succumbed to his injuries at the scene. Another man in the car, 20-year-old Tiheen Justice Nathan Matthews, was wounded by a gunshot to the ear but was treated at a local hospital and released.
The Hagerstown Police Department used city surveillance footage and witness interviews to identify the two shooters. Within a week of the incident, on July 23, 2024, police arrested 24-year-old Brandon Lamont Hinton Jr. of Hagerstown. The search for the second man continued for months. On January 23, 2025, the U.S. Marshals Service located and apprehended the second suspect, Manuel Ernesto Gordon-Watson Jr., 33, in Yonkers, New York. He was extradited to Maryland to face charges.
Both men were held accountable for their roles in the shooting. On February 24, 2025, Brandon Lamont Hinton Jr. pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and first-degree assault. A judge sentenced him to life in prison with all but 40 years suspended. His co-defendant, Manuel Ernesto Gordon-Watson Jr., was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to serve 40 years in prison.
The case is now considered closed with the convictions and sentencings of both perpetrators as of April 2025.
