Background: The neighborhood in Baltimore, Md., where Desmond Gardner was shot on Jan. 26, 2023 (Google Maps). Inset: Desmond Gardner (Facebook).
A Maryland man was found guilty of murdering a young father who was gunned down while using his lunch break to see his little girl.
Anthony Curry, 24, was convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Desmond Gardner. Following a five-day trial, a jury deliberated for three hours before delivering the guilty verdict on Tuesday. Curry was one of two men who faced charges following Gardner's murder on Jan. 26, 2023.
According to a press release from the Maryland Attorney General's Office, Gardner was on a lunch break from his job at the Baltimore City Department of Public Works when he took a walk to visit his young daughter at an apartment on Spelman Rd. in Baltimore, Maryland. When he was just a few steps from the apartment, he was ambushed by three masked men and shot in the back.
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A second man, 20-year-old Parris Harris, was convicted of first-degree murder in July 2024 and sentenced to life in prison plus 15 years in March.
According to the Maryland AG, police and the FBI determined that one of the three suspects had been shot in the leg by another suspect. Law enforcement began looking into area hospitals for patients admitted with gunshot wounds, but were unsuccessful.
Six days after Gardner's murder, Baltimore police were investigating a vehicle they believed to be stolen. Harris just happened to be inside that vehicle, and when he saw the officers, he "locked the glove compartment and fled from police." Police caught up to him, and when they investigated the inside of the vehicle, they found a handgun in the glove compartment. Ballistics matched the gun to shell casings recovered at the Gardner murder scene.
Harris was also seen in Instagram videos showing off the same gun.
Instagram was also part of the evidence presented in Curry's case. The Maryland AG stated that an Instagram photo showed him wearing the same pants that he was seen wearing in surveillance camera footage that captured the deadly ambush on Gardner.
Cellphone evidence also pointed toward Curry's guilt. The Maryland AG stated that on the day of Gardner's murder, police tracked Harris' cellphone to George Washington Hospital Trauma Center in Washington, D.C., where Curry was treated for gunshot wounds to the leg.
Curry was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and a firearms charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 30, 2026.