In the pre-dawn hours of a Monday in Baltimore, 33-year-old Garfield Redd, a Black male, was driving his 2006 black Acura TLX. On May 6, 2024, at approximately 4:09 a.m., he stopped his car at an intersection on Charles Street to let a pedestrian cross, a simple act of courtesy that preceded a moment of shocking violence. As he waited, a man approached his vehicle from behind.
Surveillance footage from the area would later show the man pull a sawed-off shotgun from a backpack and fire a single, devastating shot through the driver's side window.
The blast struck Garfield Redd in the left eye at close range. His car, now without a driver in control, drifted from the road, coming to a stop after colliding with a cable box on the sidewalk in the unit block of East 21st Street. When police officers arrived at the scene, they found Redd inside the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The quiet morning had been shattered by an act that prosecutors would later describe as a deliberate and premeditated execution.
The investigation into Redd's murder moved quickly, thanks to a crucial tip provided to Metro Crime Stoppers. The anonymous informant gave authorities the street name, 'Murder,' as well as a cell phone number and an Instagram profile belonging to the suspect. This information led investigators to 19-year-old Montay Anthony Levon Brown. Just nine days after the shooting, on May 15, 2024, police arrested Brown on the very same street where Redd had lost his life.
During the subsequent legal proceedings, a motive for the killing began to surface. Prosecutors suggested the shooting was an act of retaliation. It was alleged that two weeks before the murder, Redd had robbed Brown. There were also claims that Brown had told multiple people he intended to kill Redd and that the two sold drugs at rival locations only a street apart from each other. Brown was charged with first-degree murder and firearm-related offenses. His initial trial, however, ended in a mistrial in August after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
A new trial was set, and on Halloween of 2025, after reviewing the harrowing surveillance footage, a jury found Montay Brown guilty of first-degree murder and firearm use in a felony violent crime. On January 15, 2026, the now 20-year-old Brown was sentenced for the murder of Garfield Redd. A judge handed down a sentence of life in prison plus an additional 20 years, bringing a close to the case of a life cut short in a moment of brutal, calculated violence on a Baltimore street.
