Cowdery jurors yet to
reach verdict
Deliberations to resume Monday in killing of officer By Allison Klein
Sun Staff
Originally published March 30, 2002
After deliberating for 8 1/2 hours over two days, the 12 members of a
Baltimore jury could not agree yesterday on whether Howard
"Wee" Whitworth killed a Baltimore police officer on an East
Baltimore street last March. They have listened to 12 days of testimony
and almost three dozen witnesses who helped re-create and analyze the
night that Officer Michael J. Cowdery Jr. was ambushed and gunned down
with a bullet to his head. Judge Marcella A. Holland asked jurors to
return Monday to continue deliberating. During the trial, prosecutor
Donald Giblin portrayed Whitworth, 27, as a "drug dealer and a
cold-blooded cop killer." Assistant public defenders John P.
Markus, Harun Shabazz and Patrick Kent contended that their client is a
victim of mistaken identity. Dozens of people stood outside Room 227 in
Courthouse East waiting for the verdict all day yesterday, most of them
police officers and relatives of the defendant and the victim. Cowdery's
father, Michael J. Cowdery Sr., sat with his wife, Constance, and
daughter India. "I'm a bundle of nerves, sitting on pins and
needles," said Cowdery, a 28-year veteran of the Philadelphia
police force. "I wonder what can possibly be going through the mind
of the jury? In my mind it's perfectly clear." The defendant's
uncle, Ricky Handy, who was there with Whitworth's mother, Vera Coleman,
said his nephew is innocent. "I think it should go in his favor
because the police have too many holes in their story," Handy said.
Since jurors started deliberating at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, they have come
back to the judge with three questions. The first two were procedural.
The third was a request to see the taped testimony of four witnesses
from the trial:
Rachel Rogers, an admitted addict, drug dealer and prostitute whom
Cowdery fell on when he was shot. Rogers is the only witness to identify
Whitworth as the killer.
Corrections officer Tierre Brownlee, who testified that Whitworth told
him in the hospital that he had shot Cowdery because he thought Cowdery
was a "stick-up boy" trying to rob drug dealers on the street.
Officer Tiffany Walker, who testified that after Cowdery was shot in the
leg, the assailant walked over to him and put a bullet in his head as he
lay on the sidewalk.
Detective Ronald A. Beverly, Cowdery's partner, who was shot in both
legs while chasing a man he thought to be Cowdery's killer. Holland
agreed to let them view the tape Monday. Prosecutors said the incident
started just after 10 p.m. March 12, 2001, when Cowdery and colleagues
Beverly, Robert Jackson and Walker were questioning three people outside
a Chinese food carryout on Harford Road. The plainclothes officers wore
police badges around their necks. A man appeared suddenly and shot
Cowdery in the leg from 10 to 15 feet away, then walked over and shot
him above his left ear. After the first shot rang out, everyone ran for
cover except Cowdery and the shooter. When Beverly looked back in the
direction of the shot, he said, he saw a man in dark clothing lean over
Cowdery, then run away. Beverly gave chase, and the two shot at each
other. The man, later identified as Whitworth, suffered five gunshot
wounds that nearly killed him, according to medical testimony in the
trial. Whitworth testified this week that he did not kill Cowdery. He
said he was on his way to buy beer and sell drugs that night when he
happened into a gunfight. A police officer chased him and shot him,
believing he was the killer, Whitworth testified. Sun staff writers
Kimberly A.C. Wilson, Jamil Roberts and Michael Stroh contributed to
this article.
Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun <http://www.sunspot.net/>
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