Jury Deliberating in Liberty Towers Murder Case

Update: at 3:56 p.m., jurors sent a note to the judge saying they were a hung jury. Judge Judith Ensor sent the jury back and asked them to continue deliberations.

Gwynn Oak —Tracey Hankins Jr. was gunned down on a muggy summer night in 2024 in front of his apartment building by someone lurking near the complex’s dumpsters.

Almost four months later, police arrested 32-year-old Kevin Martin, someone Hankins had known since childhood, and charged him with first-degree murder.

A Baltimore County jury who heard five days of testimony in Martin’s trial began its deliberations around 11:45 a.m. Friday.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors showed jurors surveillance videos, cell tower data, bullet casings and fragments, seized gun packaging and accessories, and other evidence to bolster their case.

“The only person who shot Tracey Hankins in the back, the only person who had a motive to do so because he was related to his sister who had a beef with him… the only person who disguised himself, who had a gun that could have fired those bullets is Kevin Martin,”  Assistant State’s Attorney Gavin Patashnick told jurors Friday.

Defense attorney Isabel Lipman told jurors in closing arguments that the prosecution was grasping at straws trying to prove a weak case. No DNA matching Martin was found at the scene. No murder weapon was ever found. And no firm motive was ever established, she said. Lipman also pointed to an unidentified man seen near the shooting who was never located. 

“What they’ve done is try to bury you under a mountain of  evidence  — videos, screenshots, pictures, drawings, phone records, phone extractions…because they realize they can’t prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Lipman said.

Hankins, 29, lived with his family at the Liberty Towers apartments on the 6800 block of Liberty Road at the time of his death. Just before 10 p.m. Aug. 3, 2024, three shots rang out from an unlit area near the dumpsters as Hankins was getting into his car in front of the building.

One 9 mm bullet hit the roof of his car. Another pierced his arm. A third struck his back on the left side and traveled to his heart. He was pronounced dead at Sinai Hospital less than an hour later.

Martin first caught detectives’ attention because he was seen on video on the warm summer night wearing sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt with the hood over his head, drawstrings pulled tight around his face. 

“The fact that the state wants you to convict him of first-degree murder because he’s wearing a sweatsuit is just absurd,” said Lipman, reminding jurors of testimony that Martin had not been feeling well that day.

A detective also thought he spotted a suspicious bulge in the waistband of Martin’s pants — perhaps a gun. Martin was a registered gun owner who frequently carried his weapon with him, according to testimony.

Video from earlier that night showed Martin walking into the building with family members, but later coming out alone and never re-entering the building. Martin can be seen in the video taking a damaged chair to the dumpster. A few minutes later, he is seen wearing a black medical-type mask and leaning against the wall of the building in a dark area. Then he’s seen walking back toward the dumpsters minutes before the shooting.

Martin didn’t live in the building, but his sister did. She told police during an interview that she suspected the tenant in apartment 415 had taken a piece of her mail containing a check. She also thought he might have had something to do with her car being stolen. Hankins lived in apartment 415.

Prosecutors said that might have been the motive for Martin to kill Hankins, as Martin’s sister was facing eviction and likely needed the money to remain in her apartment.

“I submit to you that the check stealing and the fact that she accused him of stealing the car, is evidence of a possibly a larger beef between the two,” Patashnick said. 

Defense attorney Lipman said that theory was nonsensical because the sister was able to stop payment on the check and have the funds deposited electronically.

A week after the shooting, Martin called police to his home on Stonemark Court and told the responding officer he’d just noticed his legally licensed gun was missing from the trunk of his car. He thought someone had probably taken it a few days after the Fourth of July and said his wife had told him someone rummaged through the car while he was away working as an over-the-road truck driver. 

Almost two weeks after the shooting, service to Martin’s phone was turned off. Police found this suspicious since Martin had only activated that phone in February of that year.  That phone was found during a search of Martin’s home, but it contained little of evidentiary value.

Patashnick said nothing was on the phone because Kevin Martin had “wiped” it. 

Lipman explained that Martin’s phone had and cracked screen and his employer had issued him a company phone, which he began using instead. 

Police searching Martin’s home also found a box for a 9 mm Springfield XD handgun and a holster, gun prosecutors contend were consistent with shell casing found at the scene. Lipman pointed on that not only were the shell casings compatible with the gun Martin owned, but so were dozens other makes of gun. 

This story will be updated once a verdict is is reached.