Man Gets Life Without Parole for Killing Grandmother, Granddaughter in Middle River Home

MIDDLE RIVER — Senseless. Brutal. Unprovoked.

Those were the words used repeatedly Friday to describe the murders of a 75-year-old widowed grandmother and her adult granddaughter, who were beaten and stabbed after Bryan Cherry broke into their Middle River home in 2024.

Cherry, 38, was sentenced in Baltimore County Circuit Court to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the July 6, 2024, murders of 29-year-old Autumn Sky Harvey and her grandmother, Iona Elizabeth Sellers.

He pleaded guilty in March to two counts of first-degree murder during jury selection for his scheduled trial. His Baltimore County sentencing came a week after he was sentenced to life without parole in Baltimore City for a separate murder.

“This is every person’s worst nightmare,” Assistant State’s Attorney Lauren Stone said. “This is not domestic. This is not a robbery gone sideways. This is not a drug rip. This is not any of those things. This is two women in their home, and for whatever reason, this defendant picked their residence.”

Investigators found no connection between Cherry and the two women.

Family members asked the judge to remember the women beyond the brutality of their deaths.

Sellers’ sister, Heather Grainger, described her in a written statement as a woman who radiated faith, kindness and compassion.

“She didn’t just talk about compassion,” Grainger said. “She lived it every day.”

Grainger said her sister had one of the kindest hearts of anyone she had ever known and cared deeply for others.

“The world is less kind without her in it.”

Autumn’s aunt, Shannon Mclaughlin, told the judge that her niece should not be defined by the violence that ended her life.

“Autumn was not simply a victim in this case. She was a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin, a friend, and so much more,” Mclaughlin said. “She had a beautiful life ahead of her. And that was stolen. We will never get to see the woman Autumn would have become.”

Baltimore County police believe the murders happened in the early morning hours of July 6, 2024. Police found Harvey and Sellers dead inside their home in the unit block of Taos Circle the following day. Sellers had been beaten. Harvey had been beaten and stabbed.

Stone said some of Harvey’s wounds were defensive, evidence that she had fought her attacker.

Police found a partially open side window with a plastic lawn chair positioned beneath it. Beside the chair was a partially smoked cigarette that appeared fresh.

DNA from that cigarette would eventually help link Cherry to the murders.

The killings came during a violent stretch in which Cherry attacked four people in Baltimore City and Baltimore County in a matter of weeks, killing three of them.

Days before Harvey and Sellers were killed, Cherry stabbed and seriously wounded a man who was handing out free medical supplies as part of an outreach program outside the East Baltimore Medical Center, Stone said. The attack was random and unprovoked.

A week after the Middle River killings, Cherry killed Sierra Johnson, who was sleeping on a couch at his girlfriend’s Abbott Court home in Baltimore. Stone said Cherry beat Johnson to death with a crowbar. Police arrested him shortly afterward, after he jumped from a window and fled through the neighborhood.

“The only thing that exceeded the brutality of these crimes is the utter lack of an explanation for them,” Baltimore County Circuit Judge Marc DeSimone said Friday. “Senseless. Inexplicable.”

Cherry’s attorneys asked DeSimone to impose a sentence that would leave open the possibility of parole, arguing that without it Cherry would have little incentive to change or improve himself in prison.

Attorneys Gayle Robison and Cal Stafilatos described a childhood marked by neglect, parental drug use and instability. Cherry was removed from his parents’ custody at age 7, they said, and his mother died from medical problems related to drug abuse when he was 15. As an adult, they said, Cherry struggled with drug addiction and homelessness.

Cherry did not address the court before he was sentenced.

Stone urged the judge to impose a sentence that would ensure Cherry could never again endanger the public.

“He has shown over and over again that he is a threat to the community, and there is not a single person that is safe from this defendant,” Stone said.

DeSimone imposed two concurrent life sentences for the Middle River murders, one without the possibility of parole and the other with parole eligibility. He ordered the sentences to run consecutively to the sentences Cherry is already serving.

“Human life is threatened by his presence in society,” the judge said.

Cherry already is serving life without parole for Johnson’s murder. A Baltimore City judge imposed that sentence Sept. 10. He also was convicted of attempted murder in the stabbing outside the medical center and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Both Baltimore City cases are being appealed.

Baltimore County detectives linked Cherry to the Middle River killings through surveillance video, Sellers’ stolen credit card and the cigarette found outside the home.

Investigators discovered that Sellers’ credit card had been used at several Baltimore City businesses after her death. Surveillance footage captured Cherry, and when Baltimore City police arrested him following Johnson’s murder, Stone said, he was wearing the same white Adidas shoes seen in surveillance footage connected to the Middle River case.

Forensic testing provided another link. DNA recovered from the cigarette butt outside the Taos Circle home was entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. Investigators were notified that it matched Cherry’s profile in Maryland’s convicted-offender database, according to charging documents.

Family members said the convictions and sentences could do little to repair what Cherry had taken from them.

Mary Harvey, Autumn’s surviving grandmother, described her granddaughter as a happy, loving person who was “a gift from God for sure.”

The last time they spoke, Mary Harvey said, Autumn told her she had decided she wanted to have a baby. Her grandmother was delighted.

That future disappeared with her murder.

“I’ll never hold any of her children,” Mary Harvey told the judge. “My heart is never going to heal. I know I’ll never get over losing my only granddaughter.”