On a January afternoon in Waldorf, Maryland, 17-year-old Rajon Lateef Jackson III, a student at Westlake High School, was walking home after getting off his school bus. As he made his way through his neighborhood, in the area of Dorchester Circle and Harvest Fish Place, a car approached, and the occupant called out to him. The driver was 18-year-old Elijah Bernard Barnes, an acquaintance of Jackson's.
As Jackson neared the vehicle, Barnes opened fire, shooting the teenager multiple times in the face and neck before fleeing the scene. First responders arrived to find Jackson critically wounded and transported him to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries early the next morning, January 14, 2023.
The investigation into the shooting quickly identified Elijah Bernard Barnes as the primary suspect. Surveillance footage from a nearby gas station captured Barnes and his older model silver Toyota Corolla, which was missing a hubcap on the front driver's side, just moments before the fatal encounter. Additional surveillance from the neighborhood also placed his vehicle at the scene of the crime. A witness to the shooting later confirmed that Barnes was the individual who had called Jackson over to his car and shot him. Although a motive was not publicly released, investigators determined that the shooting was not a random act, as Barnes and Jackson were known to each other.
Following the murder, Barnes fled the state of Maryland in an attempt to evade capture. However, through their investigation, law enforcement officials were able to track him to an address in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Five days after the shooting, on January 18, 2023, detectives with the Rocky Mount Police Department arrested Barnes without incident. He was subsequently extradited back to Maryland to face charges for the murder of Rajon Lateef Jackson III.
After a five-day trial, a Charles County jury convicted 20-year-old Elijah Bernard Barnes of second-degree murder and other related charges on March 7, 2025. On May 12, 2025, a judge sentenced Barnes to 45 years in prison for his role in the death of Rajon Lateef Jackson III. During the sentencing, it was revealed that just a month before his death, Jackson had learned that he was going to be a father to a baby girl, a child he would never have the chance to meet.
