It was one of those coveted summer days, sunny and warm, but not hot. By sunset, the temperature hovered around 70 degrees in Rosedale, where Carl Lackl had parked his tan 1987 Cadillac in front of the home he shared with his longtime girlfriend and their respective children. A "for sale" sign rested in the front passenger window.
About 8 o'clock that evening on July 2, 2007, a man called to inquire about the car. He called again at 8:39 p.m. and asked Lackl to meet him outside. Optimistic, the 38-year-old laborer sipped iced tea and waited for the buyer, who was offering more money than Lackl had hoped to get. When a green Camaro pulled up, Lackl leaned in.
He was shot three times with a .44-caliber Magnum and pronounced dead 20 minutes later at Franklin Square Medical Center.
Opening statements are scheduled today in the federal death penalty trial of Patrick Albert Byers Jr., who is accused of ordering Lackl's death from the Baltimore City Detention Center using a contraband cell phone. Authorities allege that he arranged the hit to keep Lackl from testifying.
Lackl had told police that while on a work break in 2006, he saw Byers stash a gun and run from a Baltimore murder scene. His statements and willingness to testify made him the key witness in a city trial scheduled to begin the week after he was killed.
The Rosedale man was one of at least three witnesses murdered that year in the Baltimore region, home of the infamous Stop Snitchin' DVDs.
The government alleges that eight people, all younger than 30 and half of them members of a local arm of the West Coast Bloods gang, conspired to kill Lackl. But only one other person, Frank Keith Goodman, 23, is on trial with Byers this week. Two other defendants whose indictment was made public - Michael Jerome Randle, 20, and Steven Thompson, 28 - have reached plea agreements, the details of which are sealed.
Randle and Thompson could face a maximum of life in prison, as could Goodman if he's convicted. Byers is the only defendant who could be sentenced to death.
No other charging information is available at the federal level on the four others accused of conspiracy in Lackl's death - including the alleged teenage shooter - which could mean that they never faced federal indictment or that it was done under seal.
Court records show state murder charges filed in 2007 against those four were not pursued in Baltimore County Circuit Court, with the cases deemed "closed/inactive" last year.
