The night before a respected private school educator was shot and killed during a botched robbery attempt in the parking garage of Towson Town Center, an 18-year-old who would be charged in that shooting was allegedly involved in an armed robbery near Overlea with the same type of gun used in the mall killing, according to court documents.
Two men who told police they were with John Edward Kennedy Jr., 18, of Essex on Thursday evening told detectives that Kennedy approached a man on Belair Road near Taylor Avenue with a shotgun and stole his belongings, court documents in the robbery case show.
Kennedy and his co-defendant in the mall shooting, Javon Clark, 18, of Middle River, were ordered held without bail yesterday on first-degree murder charges in the death of William A. Bassett , 58, a teacher and dean of faculty at St. Paul's School. The longtime educator was shot in the head with a shotgun Friday on the fifth floor of the parking garage near Nordstrom during what is often a busy shopping hour at the Towson mall.
Although Kennedy has not been charged in the Overlea robbery, an official from state pretrial services told a judge yesterday during Kennedy's bail review hearing in the mall shooting that police were in the midst of an "ongoing investigation' and that "there may be other charges filed against him."
The Towson Town shooting has renewed concerns about mall security, prompting a Baltimore County councilman to introduce last night a bill that would require video surveillance in all the county's shopping center parking lots.
The two suspects in the fatal shooting said little during a brief hearing yesterday in Baltimore County District Court in Towson. Appearing in orange jumpsuits and handcuffed to four other inmates, Kennedy and Clark acknowledged that they understood the murder charges filed against them and that the maximum sentence for those charges is the death penalty.
Neither young man has an adult or juvenile criminal record, prosecutor Stephen Bailey told Judge Robert J. Steinberg . He asked that bail be denied for both defendants.
But defense attorney Lawrence B. Rosenberg , who is representing Clark, asked the judge to consider setting "reasonable bail." Of Clark's family, Rosenberg said, "They are extremely, obviously stunned and upset."
Kennedy, the alleged shooter, told the judge that he did not have a lawyer. But by yesterday afternoon, Donald E. Zaremba , Baltimore County's deputy district public defender, said the office had agreed to represent Kennedy. Zaremba declined to comment on the case.
