Apparent Gang Killing Lost Amid The Mayhem

Crime Scenes

First of two parts on the trial of a teen in the shooting death of 16-year-old Deron Hope.

Prosecutors said Kenny Robbins wanted to join a gang. But he didn't want to go through initiation rites that included taking a beatdown.

His sponsor told him there was another way. He could kill somebody.

And so shortly after midnight on Oct. 13, 2007, according to the Baltimore state's attorney's office, Robbins and his Black Guerrilla Family sponsor, William Key, set out to find a victim. Each had a handgun - one a .38-caliber revolver, the other a .22-caliber semiautomatic.

Around the corner from where Key lived with his grandmother on East Lafayette Avenue, they found Deron Hope sitting on the steps of a Latrobe Street rowhouse near Green Mount Cemetery. He was 16 years old, a football player who excelled at tight end and running back, and was being recruited by Mount St. Joseph High School.

Prosecutors said Key walked up to Hope, who had his "head down in his hands," and said something. Hope stood, and Key fired a single shot to his face. Prosecutors said Key then ordered Robbins to shoot, and that bullet tore through the teen's left earlobe.

Hours later, a neighbor found two guns in his yard. The next month, police arrested two suspects - then 15 and 16. This account is taken from court files and statements from prosecutors as part of Robbins' and Key's guilty pleas to second-degree murder - Robbins in May and Key last week.

Deron's death got lost amid the murder and mayhem of two years ago. The shooting earned but two paragraphs and a mention in a weekly Baltimore Sun graphic that tallied the city's death toll. He was listed as the 238th homicide victim that year, but neither account published his name.

Nearly two years after Deron's death, Bethanie Hope was unable to stand in court Sept. 10 and talk about the loss of her son. She sat and sobbed as Assistant State's Attorney Terry Shaffer told the judge about Deron after Key had pleaded guilty. Bethanie Hope did not respond to a request for an interview.

Key had long refused to talk to police after his arrest in November, but Robbins told homicide Detective Marty Young a convoluted tale about how the shooting stemmed from an argument over showing a lack of respect for a girl, that Hope had a gun and that he and Key returned home to get their weapons and shot Deron in self-defense.

A transcript of his interview, with its idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation, is in the court file:

Robbins: "So I'm like man we go back we going to jail for life?"

Young: "Right."

Robbins: "For self-defense? For something yo mean he could've took a life. ... I ain't trying to spend my life in prison because we really didn't, we did something wrong by having the guns on us, but as for the situation, I think we handled the situation really good."

Robbins, who pleaded guilty in May and is to be sentenced in November, recanted his story about the girl and self-defense and told police about the gang initiation. Key's attorney, Dennis Laye, said he believes Robbins told the truth the first time and changed his story to appease prosecutors.

He questioned whether Key, at 16, could have ranked high enough in the gang to initiate new members. And while Robbins had admitted on the witness stand that he was scared of being beaten to join the Black Guerrilla Family and asked if there was an alternative, he answered "no" when asked whether that alternative was to commit murder. Police linked the guns to the suspects through DNA and fingerprints.

Jurors heard five days of testimony and deliberated three days but could not reach a verdict, divided on whether Key should be found guilty of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter. The judge declared a mistrial. Key later agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and serve 40 years in prison rather than face the possibility of life if convicted at a second trial on a charge of first-degree murder. Laye said he doesn't know whether his client shot Deron Hope as part of a gang initiation. The real question, he said, is why so many kids are prone to violence.

"There is no good reason," he said.

Coming Friday: Prosecutors are upset that a state public defender got on Key's jury and helped argue it to a mistrial.