Maryland Teenager Pleads In Connection With Murder Of Victim Behind Funeral Home

Funeral homes are supposed to care for murder victims. Not become murder scenes.

Yet a Maryland teenager has pleaded guilty to murdering another teen behind a funeral home in February 2022.

A statement from Anne Arundel County prosecutors says Jaden Crowner, 19, had a struggle with Devin Freeman, 19, behind the Brooklyn, Maryland business. It ended with Freeman shot.

Surveillance video indicates the two met at a 7-Eleven store across the street, then walked across a highway to the funeral home. Police say it was for a marijuana sale.

Detectives say they found Freeman without a shirt and shoes, with his wallet empty. Friends say he had several hundred dollars the night before he died.

Freeman's backpack was found burned in a nearby alley.

Crowner entered an “Alford plea” on murder charges Friday. The Capital Gazette notes that is not an admission of guilt, although the county's news release says he did that.

An Alford plea is an agreement that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict someone in a trial. Crowner was scheduled for trial in less than two weeks.

Crowner lived one block from the Brooklyn funeral home. But he's scheduled for sentencing in late June and faces a life term behind bars.

Crowner also faces a second murder trial in Maryland in August. He's charged with shooting Walters Elangwe in Annapolis in 2020 during a robbery.

Authorities arrested a second suspect in the funeral home case last June. Devin Twigg, 18, also faces murder charges. Anne Arundel County Jail records show he has “no future court date.”