Murders of Keona Holley and Justin Johnson

"KeKe" redirects here. For other uses, see Keke (disambiguation).

Murders of Keona Holley and Justin Johnson
The park where Holley was murdered in 2024. A thin blue line U.S. flag and flowers commemorate her. A 1997 Lincoln Town Car, similar to the one Johnson was murdered in.
5km 3miles 2 1    Key: 1 Murder of Holley 2 Murder of Johnson
Location	Pennington Avenue, Curtis Bay, Baltimore Lucia Avenue, Yale Heights, Baltimore
Coordinates	39.225671°N 76.588499°W / 39.225671; -76.588499 39.273342°N 76.692141°W / 39.273342; -76.692141
Date	December 16, 2021 (2021-12-16) 1:35 a.m. – 3:07 a.m. (EST)
Attack type	Shooting
Weapons	Glock 22 AR-style pistol
Deaths	2
Perpetrators	Elliot Knox Travon Shaw
Verdict	Knox: Guilty on eight of nine counts Shaw: Guilty on all counts

In the early morning of December 16, 2021, Keona Holley, a 39-year-old officer with the Baltimore Police Department, and Justin Johnson, a 38-year-old, were fatally shot in two shootings one and a half hours apart in the Curtis Bay and Yale Heights neighborhoods of Baltimore, respectively. Holley had served the department since 2019, previously being employed at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Maryland. The perpetrators were identified as Elliot Knox and Travon Shaw, two 34-year-olds. Both perpetrators had previously been imprisoned for armed robbery, the latter being set to go on trial for a firearms charge four months after the shooting.

Johnson was declared dead at the scene, while Holley was sent to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, remaining on life support for a week, being removed on December 23 and declared dead soon after. After the shooting, license plate readers identified Knox's car, and he was questioned. While he initially claimed his car was stolen, he later admitted he was at the scenes of the murders, but was not involved in either. He led detectives to a backpack in his house which contained the guns used, a Glock 22 and an AR-style pistol, and several accessories; DNA evidence on the pistol matched with both Knox and Shaw. Knox was found guilty on eight of nine counts in March 2024, with Shaw being found guilty on all counts in Johnson and Holley's killings in October 2023 and March 2024, respectively. Holley was the first Baltimore police officer to be killed on duty since Sean Suiter, a detective implicated in the Gun Trace Task Force scandal, who died in 2017.

Background

Keona Holley

Keona Holley (1981 or 1982 – December 23, 2021), also known as "KeKe" and the "Mom from the West Side", worked her first job at a McDonald's in Baltimore County at the age of 16, before pursuing a healthcare career. She had been employed at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Maryland, before leaving in 2019 and joining the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) academy, claiming her motive for joining the department was bringing change to an embattled department, serving her second year as an officer at the time of the shooting. She attended Edmondson High School in southwestern Baltimore and had four children as well as one grandchild.

I didn’t want to be a Baltimore police officer before. I feel like Baltimore city police officers have a bad name about themselves. We have to change that, and change it together. The community needs Baltimore city police officers that’s [sic] not just here for a paycheck. They’re here because they care.

— Holley, 2020

Justin Johnson was born in 1993 or 1994, the fourth of seven children. Johnson had five children, who were aged one to 18, at the time of his death.

Elliot M. Knox and Travon Shaw, the two perpetrators, were both born in 1989 or 1990. At the time of the murder, Shaw was set to go on trial, in March 2022, on a March 2020 firearms charge in Baltimore County, being convicted of assault and armed robbery in 2006. In the same year, Knox, who was then 16 years old, was convicted of three armed robberies and sentenced to 15 years in prison. While serving his sentence at the North Branch Correctional Institution, Knox sued the state of Maryland as well as corrections officers, claiming he was assaulted in prison. According to records, the case was settled outside of court, although the terms of the settlement are unknown.

Shootings

Around 1:35 a.m. EST on December 16, 2021, Holley, who was working overtime in the Curtis Bay neighborhood of Baltimore, was ambushed and shot while in her patrol car. After being shot, her car rolled across the 4400 block of Pennington Avenue, going through a fence before going over an embankment into a park. She was shot twice in the back of the head, damaging her brain and neck. Holley was sent to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she was put on life support and described by a doctor as "critically ill".

Around 3 a.m. the same day, in the neighborhood of Yale Heights, Johnson, who was sitting in his 1997 Lincoln Town Car in the 600 block of Lucia Avenue, was shot six times in the back, damaging his spine, lungs, and heart. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Aftermath

Following Holley's shooting, detectives found that a nearby license plate reader had detected the tag of a silver 2012 Hyundai which was registered to Knox. Nearby security cameras showed Knox's car park around the block from Holley's patrol car. Two men walked out of the car towards Holley's car before running back to Knox's car.

In a Baltimore Police Department interview room, Knox waived his Miranda rights, initially maintaining that his car was stolen and that he was not involved in either of the murders. After two hours, he walked back these claims, admitting that he was at the scene of the shootings, but continuing that Shaw shot Holley and Johnson. He said that Shaw killed Johnson because he owed him US$100 and that Shaw said he was going to "holler" at Johnson, however, he had no idea why Shaw killed Holley, bursting into tears in the interview room.

Knox led investigators to a house in the Windsor Hills community, where a Glock 22 and an AR-style pistol, the guns used in the shooting, were stored in two backpacks in a bedroom closet, alongside gloves, masks, magazines, boxes of bullets, and a gun cleaning kit. The .40 caliber casings at both scenes and a .223 caliber casing at the scene of Johnson's shooting matched up with the Glock 22 and AR-style pistol, respectively. DNA evidence on the pistol also matched to Knox and Shaw.

Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan speaking at Holley's funeral.

A vigil for Holley, who was at the time on life support, was held by community members on December 22, where they prayed that Holley would recover from her injuries. According to a BPD press release, Holley was taken off life support on the next day, a week after being shot, being pronounced dead soon after. Several city and state officials, including then-commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department Michael S. Harrison, Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, then-State's Attorney for Baltimore Marilyn Mosby, and Mayor of Baltimore Brandon Scott, offered their condolences, with Hogan saying that "our hearts are broken" over the loss of Holley, while Scott said that "Baltimore will never forget Officer Holley’s sacrifice and commitment to making a difference in her beloved city". She was the first BPD officer to be killed in the line of duty since Sean Suiter, a detective implicated in the Gun Trace Task Force scandal, who was shot in 2017, a day before he was set to go on trial.

A judge ordered Knox to be held without bail on December 20. Rumors spread on social media that Knox had been related to a man that Holley had previously helped arrest; an investigation by The Baltimore Sun found that while Holley had been listed as a witness during the arrest of attempted murder suspect Eddie Knox, he was going through Baltimore on a Greyhound bus, was from upstate New York, and had no known ties to Elliot.

Trials

Shaw was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and firearm offenses in both murders. He was convicted on all counts in Johnson's killing in October 2023, pleading guilty on all counts in Holley's killing on March 28, 2024. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years without the possibility of parole on the same day.

Kurt Bjorklund, an assistant State's Attorney, claimed that Holley was killed in a hit and that Knox initially lied because he knew he had been caught. He also cited the fact that three of Johnson's gunshot wounds were on each side of his back as supporting both Knox and Shaw's involvement. He also cited a clause in Maryland law, in which a person can be convicted for a crime even if they did not commit it if it could be proven that they "aided, counseled, commanded or encouraged" a crime to make it happen or if they voiced their intent to give support to the criminal. Natalie Finegar, Knox's attorney, said to jurors that Knox's story that Shaw performed the murders could not be disproven by the prosecution and that he may be telling the truth, however, he was still guilty of illegal possession of a firearm and being an accessory to murder, a crime he was not charged with. She countered Bjorklund's claim that the murder was a hit, saying that Knox was not a hitman, but "a person who got caught up in a very bad situation and made some very bad decisions".

[Knox] committed a senseless and heinous act against a Baltimore Police Department officer, and it is my hope that this verdict brings a sense of closure and peace to Officer Keona Holley’s family, friends, co-workers and loved ones.

Richard Worley, commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department

On March 6, 2024, following almost two days of deliberation, Knox was found guilty on eight of nine counts, including two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. However, he was acquitted of using a firearm to kill Holley. The verdict was celebrated by Ivan Bates, Mosby's replacement as State's Attorney for Baltimore, as well as police officials, such as Richard Worley, Harrison's replacement as commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department, and Mike Mancuso, the president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police.

Knox faces sentencing in June. Prosecutors intend to pursue life in prison without the possibility of parole.