A Baltimore County teenager was convicted Monday of killing a 23-year-old man in Middle River last summer.
A Circuit Court jury found Avar Cornell Tunstall, 18, of the 4200 block of Maple Path Circle near White Marsh guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Terrell Scott in the first block of Maple Drive. Tunstall was also convicted of two handgun charges.
Donald Daneman, Tunstall's attorney, said he would file a motion for a new trial, which must be done within 10 days.
Sentencing is scheduled Oct. 6. Prosecutors said they plan to seek life without parole.
The trial began about a week ago and focused on an incident that occurred last August, when Tunstall and Scott appeared to have had some kind of argument, according to court documents. Police found Scott about 11:48 p.m. Aug. 25, suffering from gunshot wounds, according to court records. He died at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
Tunstall was charged a few months later, after police interviews with witnesses and others.
While prosecutors described Tunstall as a crack dealer protecting "his turf," Daneman said Scott was a "drunk" who approached and ultimately came at Tunstall with a knife.
Monday, members of both families were present when the jury issued its verdict. As jurors said they found self-defense and partial self-defense did not apply to the case, one of the women sitting with Tunstall's family left the room, crying. Others held hands in silence.
Matthew Darnbrough, one of the assistant state's attorneys on the case, said the verdict "shows that the jury paid very close attention to the judge's instructions" on the law and were not thrown off by the several witnesses who came forward in recent days and indicated Scott "might have pulled a knife."
"Whether that's the truth, we'll probably never know," Darnbrough said. But, he added, referring to one of the gunshot wounds Scott suffered, "you can't shoot somebody in the back and claim it's either self-defense or partial self-defense."
