Original subtitles

Police knew that there was a violent incident in the car.

There were no witnesses. They had a young man who was at death's door.

Brian was flashing a lot of money.

He was making that money by selling crack in DC.

I had no idea until after my son got stabbed.

Could have been a robber or an unsatisfied customer.

Everybody in the area is a suspect.

Investigators get a message from a former informant.

Police want to follow up with more questions.

He's running. We need to track him down.

I will find out who did this to you and bring them to justice.

Brian got into his car unharmed.

Who did Brian open the door to?

Laurel, Maryland, is kind of a unique area.

It sits between Washington, DC and Baltimore.

Laurel is right in the middle of where these counties intersect.

It's a working community. The population is, I believe,

around 22, 23,000.

Well, Laurel, to me, was a welcoming community.

I moved from DC

because DC, at that time, was unsafe just walking home.

So, I decided to move to Laurel so that my kids could play freely.

They could go out and enjoy life.

It's not known as a high-crime area.

So, when there is a serious crime,

it catches the attention of the people in the area.

On September 15th, 2005, at approximately 11:30pm,

Laurel Police received a 911 call

in reference to a singular vehicle accident at the top of West Street

near the intersection of Sandy Spring Road.

The caller described the vehicle as a black Cadillac sedan

and it had hit a wooden sign and the driver was motionless in the car.

As the police arrived on scene,

they believed at that moment it was just a car accident.

They saw that the victim was bleeding from the chest.

They were unable to get into the car because the doors were locked.

Eventually the driver was able to unlock the door

so they could gain access.

Once the paramedics started to work on him,

they were able to find that he had been stabbed in the chest.

It was obviously a very grizzly and very dangerous situation.

There was a lot of bleeding in the car, on the clothing of the victim,

and the police needed to get him to the hospital quickly.

It was critical enough he needed to be rushed to the trauma centre.

At this point, the police knew that there was

a violent incident in the car.

There were no witnesses to what had happened,

and the police, when they searched the car, found no weapons.

And they had a young man who was literally at death's door.

The victim was identified through his Maryland driver's licence

as 20-year-old Brian Moses.

Brian was born on June 12th, 1985.

He was a joyful kid.

Always clowning, always performing.

Always laughing, joking, making people laugh.

He was just a good spirit.

Brian was still in high school because he was a IEP student -

that's an individual education student.

He had a reading deficit

and I was very adamant about him not dropping out of school.

When the police officer knocked on the door

and he told me that my son had been stabbed,

I dropped to my knees. I prayed.

I prayed to my God that my son would be OK.

He told me he was already in surgery,

but he had no idea that it was as severe as it was.

Once Brian Moses arrives at the hospital,

they determine he'd lost a significant amount of blood.

X-rays revealed that one of his lungs are collapsed

and he has a 50-50 chance of survival.

The victim was eventually put on life support,

so he was unconscious,

and the family nor investigators

could speak to the victim at that time.

I never asked him who did that to him

because my concern was just to let him know

that I was there and I loved him.

He really couldn't talk, but he could squeeze my hand.

He was still smiling at me. "That's my mom, she's here."

I would go to that hospital and stay until, like, ten o'clock at night.

But I knew with all the equipment and all the machines and everything

that he was hooked up to, it was very serious.

At the hospital, police learned from Shirley Bell,

the mother of Brian, that she last saw him that evening at 10:30.

And that she has no knowledge what happened after that.

I had no idea. None.

Shirley Bell informs the police

that her son had been hanging out in The Grove a lot more lately,

and police officers began to canvass the area

to speak to witnesses.

The Grove is a local term known for this community

where there was a lot of drug activity at that time,

and Brian had been selling narcotics to make money.

I was totally shocked.

That was a side of Brian that I knew nothing about.

He was a different person out there in that street.

Cos when he came home, he was just my little Brian.

I had no idea of any of it until after my son got stabbed.

Investigating any violent crime where it's ultimately revealed

that the victim was leading something of a double life

can be very problematic for investigators

because the typical people they would go to

to gather background information,

to get the victim's routine down,

to explain how they ended up in this situation,

they're blind to what is actually going on.

What compounds the problems for investigators in this case

is that the second secret double life being led by the victim

is an illicit life, a life of crime.

The people in that world

aren't going to be forthcoming with police who are seeking information.

So, you really have this collision of two worlds

where investigators are left trying to fill in the blanks.

Brian Moses was flashing a lot of money.

When asked about the money,

Moses had stated he was making that money by selling crack in DC.

It might make you a lot of money at first, but it's very dangerous.

Could have been a robber who thought he had a lot of cash on him.

Or it could have been an unsatisfied customer.

At this time, everybody in The Grove,

in the area of where this incident occurred, is a suspect.

In a case like this,

getting people to come forward is very difficult.

There's, you know, people who don't trust or are afraid of the police

because what they're doing -

not the police, but what they themselves are doing -

might be some sort of criminal activity.

So, it's kind of a natural human impulse

to just not volunteer any information.

That word "snitch" -

people yell, "I'm not gonna snitch, I'm not gonna tell."

They're telling the police nothing.

All indications were that the assault occurred inside the car.

And the question that the police had to solve

was "Who did Brian open the door to?"

Investigators get a break in the case when they find out

that an individual named Mateo Antonio

has been assaulted and taken to Howard County General Hospital.

When investigators interview Mateo Antonio...

...he tells them that he believes he was assaulted

because of what happened to Brian Moses.

But he won't go into reasons why that is.

Laurel Police needed to figure out what Antonio was talking about.

How did it fit in to the assault on Brian?

Police want to follow up with more questions of Mateo Antonio.

They go to his house after he is released from the hospital,

but they can't find him.

Investigators learn that he works at a local steakhouse.

So, they sit there and do surveillance on the steakhouse,

waiting for him to show up.

He never shows up.

And then they learn that he got on a bus and went to North Carolina.

Investigators take this as a major clue.

So, it's clear that Mateo Antonio left the town in a hurry.

Why?

Was he afraid of the police? Was he afraid of retaliation?

Was he afraid of possible involvement

in what happened to Brian?

He's running. We need to track him down.

Seeing the tear roll out of his eye,

I think that was his way to tell me, "Ma, it's time, now.

It's time. I'mma be OK."

As a mother... ...I didn't want to let him go.

I could tell by his eyes that, you know,

he was ready and I had to let him go.

I went downstairs to the chapel

and I said to God, "It's your will."

And when I went back upstairs

and said my goodbyes to Brian,

I knew that he was at peace.

October 9th, 2005...

...investigators learn that Brian Moses has died

and the investigation now has turned into a homicide investigation.

And I said to him,

"I will find out who did this to you

and bring them to justice."

You know, and I made that promise to him.

On November 6th, 2005,

investigators get a message left on the tip line

from a former informant

for their narcotics officers identified as TI.

Investigators learn from TI that he received information

from a friend in The Grove

that Darryll Rodgers, known as DR,

had stabbed somebody in The Grove.

So, they need to chase down Darryll Rodgers immediately

because they believe he could be the prime suspect in this investigation.

Darryll Rodgers is known to police,

not for anything major, but petty crimes.

Brian Moses would hang out

with Darryll Rodgers' cousins or nephews

in The Grove area,

They also learned that Darryll Rodgers

had gone and visited Shirley Bell

shortly after Brian Moses has been stabbed.

Darryll Rodgers came to the house.

I was very suspicious.

I mean, you know, I don't know this guy.

So I opened the door and he said to me, "Miss...

...I didn't do this to your son and I'm sorry it happened."

I did not believe him.

I'm like, "Why come over here to apologise to me?"

In February of 2006,

with the help of North Carolina authorities,

we're finally able to catch up with Mateo Antonio.

Mateo Antonio finally tells the police

that he wants to be questioned about the death of Brian

with a polygraph.

A polygraph is used as a tool.

It kind of directs the police

on if they have a possible suspect or not.

Polygraph instruments can be

a tremendous resource for investigators

in terms of eliminating people of interest.

If someone is willing to take a polygraph,

those results aren't admissible in court,

but it will convince police

whether or not they're barking up the wrong tree.

There's a few reasons why polygraph results

aren't admissible in criminal cases.

They are in some civil cases because there's a different

evidentiary threshold in those cases.

But in criminal cases the polygraph is not admissible,

in part because it is subjective.

A lot of the responses

are interpreted by the polygraphist.

Essentially, the polygraph measures autonomic stress responses

to specific questions, yes or no questions,

and it relies on people having a stress response to lying.

But it is circumstantial really, and it is open to interpretation.

I believe Antonio agreed to take the polygraph...

...to eliminate himself as a possible suspect.

During the polygraph of Antonio, he fails.

There was deception indicated.

It did show that he was being evasive,

but nothing that could actually

implicate him in the murder of Brian.

Investigators believe that Antonio

might not necessarily be the killer,

but he has information that would be useful in the investigation.

Investigators have to let Antonio go. They can't hold him.

Darryll Rodgers, we don't know where he is,

but we need to locate him because of what was learned by the informant.

On September 29th, 2010, investigators are finally able

to locate Darryll Rodgers in North Carolina,

and travel there to do an interview.

During the interview, Darryll Rodgers confirms

that Brian Moses was selling drugs,

but he had no issues with him at all.

During that interview with Darryll Rodgers,

they request that he take a polygraph.

At that point he requested an attorney,

and the polygraph never happened.

So, at this point, investigators hit a dead end

with Darryll Rodgers.

In 2010, investigators have exhausted all their leads.

Talking to witnesses, possible suspects,

they aren't learning anything new in this investigation,

and there's no physical evidence or forensic evidence

that can be pointed to a suspect.

So, at this time, the investigation goes cold.

I was sad because the last thing I said to Brian is,

"I will find out who did this to you and bring them to justice."

I made this promise to him, and I felt like I let my son down.

That's why I could not, over the years,

give up on finding out what happened to my child.

But I also did basketball tournaments

to just keep Brian's name out there.

On the 10th anniversary of Brian's death,

I did do a news interview

and we talked about the case,

and trying to plead to people to come forward to help me

because I've been trying so long to get that closure.

I was constantly in contact with the police department,

always at the police department.

Always calling somebody, always meeting somebody.

But nothing's happening. Nobody is telling them anything.

I was frustrated with them

until Detective Cheek came on.

I joined the criminal investigation division...

...and the Brian Moses homicide investigation is still open.

And I go to my sergeant at the time and I start telling him

it needs to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb.

So, as a new detective,

I volunteered to take on that challenge.

I thought, at that time, that having fresh eyes on it

and looking at it, may yield new information.

Reopening any cold case is an arduous task.

There's no standard playbook,

it's going to vary case by case,

but typically you're going to look at the investigative chronology.

You're going to look at photographs, what evidence was gathered.

You're going to look at who was interviewed, who was screened out

and was that possibly an oversight.

You're really going to reassemble that investigation from scratch

and look for what was missed or what current technologies

can be leveraged that weren't available at the time.

I come to find out the mom, Shirley Bell, is very persistent.

She calls once a month wanting an update.

I had heard Shirley Bell had come to the police department,

so, I approach her and I said, "Let me take you to lunch."

I had never met Detective Cheek before.

From what I remember is we sat down, we had lunch

and he was always smiling, and very pleasant.

And he understood how I felt, and the need that was there

to make sure we got this closure for my family.

And he was dedicated to going above and beyond

and he assured me of that.

If I called him, he would answer right away or call me right back.

It's a lot to carry on cos now you have

the responsibility of this investigation,

you have a mother who wants answers.

Now it's been 11 years since the incident occurred,

and who's still around?

Maybe the person had died. Maybe he's incarcerated.

Because many of the people

in The Grove in 2005 weren't around anymore.

At the time of speaking with Shirley Bell...

...I learned about Darryll Rodgers and him coming by the house,

and saying, "I'm sorry this happened to your son."

And she was really adamant that he had something to do with it,

that I should start there and look into it.

There's a saying in the cold case world among investigators

that more often than not, the name of the killer

is already in the file.

Often the offender was identified and spoken to, but misclassified.

And the quantum of their involvement

was not fully understood at the time.

They were deemed to be a witness, a person of interest,

but never elevated to the level of suspect.

It's very rare in cold-case homicides

for the offender ultimately identified

to come out of the blue,

to have not already been identified by police

and have their name in the file.

I can count on two hands the number of cold cases recently solved,

where it was someone completely unknown to police.

Darryll Rodgers had started a new life in North Carolina,

away from where he has gotten in trouble

throughout the years in Laurel, Maryland.

So, I want to travel down there and interview him.

Darryll Rodgers confirms that Brian Moses was selling drugs,

and rumours had it that it was fake crack.

Fake crack is...

...not real crack, obviously.

It could be everything from soap mixed together

with baby formula or flour.

A variety of different things.

For someone who's selling fake narcotics, it's very risky.

You're dealing with abusers of narcotics,

people who are addicted to drugs that want to get that high.

And if you sell them fake narcotics...

...they're going to get upset.

While we talked to Darryll Rodgers,

I'm thinking about him as not being the suspect,

that he honestly had felt bad for what had happened.

That he was looking out for Brian Moses...

...telling him not to sell crack, not to be involved with these people.

But he was a young kid, and he wanted to do what we wanted to do.

Detective Cheek called me

and told me about the conversation,

but I did not believe him in the beginning.

But, as time went on,

I realised he was sincere. It wasn't him.

I learned that Mateo Antonio is incarcerated in North Carolina

for attempted murder.

During the interview of Antonio...

...I learned that he did associate with people in Laurel,

specifically in The Grove.

He only knew of Brian Moses...

...because he had bought crack cocaine from him.

And he did state that the crack cocaine

that he bought from Brian Moses was, in fact, fake crack.

He had confronted him but it never resulted in a physical altercation.

I felt pretty satisfied with his statements,

especially because he stated this confrontation

happened probably a week before the stabbing of Brian Moses.

At this point in the investigation,

I felt that Antonio and Darryll

had nothing to do with the murder of Brian Moses.

We really needed to rely on the public's help.

If they still lived in the area or had moved on,

but we needed to rely on their help.

It wasn't until maybe ten years later after my son passed,

when I started probably working at Food Lion,

it's a grocery store in the city of Laurel.

The Grove maybe two blocks down from it.

People started talking to me and saying,

"Just keep... keep... keep going, Shirley.

Keep going because it's gonna come out eventually."

Finally, I receive a tip from an individual

that was there in The Grove

shortly before Brian Moses was stabbed,

saying that Brian Moses was last seen down in The Grove

with a woman named Sonja Schroeter.

So, I do research, use investigative tools,

and find that Sonja Schroeter

is working at a restaurant in a neighbouring city,

and I need to go locate her.

Once I get to the restaurant where she works,

Sonja is very surprised that the investigation is still ongoing,

and she explains that she doesn't live that lifestyle anymore -

she's cleaned up, she's gotten a new job,

she's the manager of this restaurant -

and agreed to come back to Laurel Police Department for an interview.

During the interview, Sonja was being very helpful and informative,

and providing new information that we hadn't known at the time.

She states she was doing Brian's hair down in The Grove,

and he had stated to her

that he needed to go get money from his house so he could pay her.

She walks him to his car and goes to see her cousin...

and explains that she didn't know

Brian had been stabbed until later that evening.

So, from Sonja Schroeter, we know that

Brian got into his car unharmed.

He was fine.

He had to open the door to someone.

During the interview of Sonja,

she confirms that Mateo Antonio is there in The Grove

with another person identified as Michael Duvall.

Sonja informs me that Brian Moses...

...got into a verbal altercation with Michael Duvall

in regards to being sold fake crack.

Nothing physical happens, it's all verbal.

And then Brian Moses leaves

and is walked to his car by Sonja

before he drives up the street.

After the interview, I went back and looked through the case files again,

and find that Michael Duvall's name had popped up,

but just been overlooked.

Three months after Brian Moses was stabbed,

Michael Duvall was arrested for the murder of another individual.

In that incident, Michael Duvall used a knife.

Michael Duvall had been convicted of a first-degree assault

and he received an eight-year prison sentence back in 2008.

He was now out in 2016.

During the investigation, I located the knife that Duvall used.

I contacted the Maryland State Police laboratory...

...and had it tested against Brian Moses' blood

to see if there was any of his blood still on the knife.

Those results were negative.

But that doesn't mean that Michael Duvall didn't do it.

On May 30th, 2016,

a 911 call to the Laurel City Police

from a woman identified as Shannyn Hodges

indicates that she has information about the death of Brian Moses.

During that interview, she revealed

that she had a domestic disturbance with Michael Duvall.

And during that disturbance...

...he pulled a knife on her and said, "I'm going to kill you,

just like I did to that kid in Laurel."

This is a substantial break in the case

because this is...

...information from the mouth

of who we believe to have been the perpetrator.

This interview is huge.

I want to get going. I want to find Michael Duvall.

At this point in the investigation,

I don't interview Michael Duvall right away.

I set up a grand jury for Shannyn Hodges to go testify in front of

so we can indict Michael Duvall.

And she testified about what Michael Duvall did and said

regarding the death of Brian.

We needed corroboration. We just couldn't rely on one witness.

We wanted more.

So, the case was really reopened and expanded.

On September the 16th of 2016,

Detective Cheek and I decided to go down and visit Shari Baily.

Her attention to detail, her understanding

of the importance of this case, impressed me.

During the interview with Shari, she reveals

that she let Michael Duvall

use her car three nights prior to the murder of Brian Moses.

In the early mornings of September 16th, 2005,

a couple hours after the stabbing of Brian Moses,

Michael Duvall returned the car belonging to Shari

and, at that time, he was covered in mud and dirt,

and he had blood on his hands.

And Shari asked what had happened.

At first he told Shari that he was jumped

and had an altercation with others.

But he came off of that and basically indicated

that he took care of someone

who had provided him with fake crack.

When he saw a funeral a few weeks later in Laurel,

he indicated that he was responsible for killing the kid.

Now with this information,

it solidifies Michael Duvall's involvement.

It's putting him there at the scene of the crime.

And now, with his statements that he has made,

I'm confident that Michael Duvall is now my prime suspect.

Sonja - she made it clear that on that night,

she was braiding Brian Moses's hair.

In The Grove, she also saw Michael Duvall.

She was very clear about that.

Sonja revealed that she observed Michael Duvall

walk up the hill with a few other individuals

at the same time that Brian Moses was leaving.

And, a short time later,

saw Michael Duvall running down the street.

She then later heard

that Brian Moses had been stabbed.

Although she did not see any assaultive conduct,

what she saw

certainly supported the idea

that there was an encounter, a deadly encounter, up on West Street.

During the investigation, in interview with Sonja,

I informed her that I would like her

to testify in front of the grand jury,

and she said she would co-operate with anything that I needed.

I'm very relieved at this point with having now three individuals

who are going to testify,

but I needed something more, like a confession,

because I lacked any physical or forensic evidence.

I need Michael Duvall to confess to me.

Maryland law allows us to do

a one-party consent recording of a conversation.

We wanted to get incriminating statements from Michael Duvall

during the course of a conversation with his former girlfriend.

One-party consent recordings, the law varies by state,

but when it is permissible, it means

that calls or conversations or communications

can be surreptitiously audio recorded,

so long as one member of that conversation,

whether it's two people or 22 people, consents.

Typically, it's the person naturally doing the recording.

The caveat for one-party consent recordings is that the state,

the police, cannot provide that consent.

It needs to be a citizen either acting of their own volition

or, in some cases, acting as an agent for police

and taking direction to make the call and record it.

But police using an intermediary or an agent

to conduct a one-party consent recording is fraught with risk.

This is not a professional investigator

who knows how to nuance the questions,

and they may end up tipping off the suspect.

We asked Shari Baily if she would feel comfortable

letting us record a phone call...

...where she could get Michael Duvall

to talk about what happened back in 2005.

On December 7th, Detective Cheek and Shari Baily

came to the Prince George's County Police homicide division,

where there was equipment that could be utilised to record a phone call.

During the one-party consent call...

...Michael Duvall answers,

and she has the ruse of saying

that she needs to have her record clean

so she can get work at the nearby stadium.

She says she's afraid they're going to question her again

in regards to Brian Moses' murder and what she knows.

During that call, Michael Duvall tells Shari

not to say anything to police, don't co-operate.

He's admitting to at once having the knife,

but now he's gotten rid of it,

and also not to co-operate with police.

We believe this is enough to go in front of the jury with,

and I'm excited and knew that, all right, we've got him.

Based upon everything that we had gathered,

we went to the grand jury and got an indictment.

We got an arrest warrant based on the indictment,

and police were able to take him into custody...

...in January of 2017.

Detective Cheek called me

and told me about Michael Duvall.

That he had stabbed somebody else in DC.

And the first thing that went through my mind is

if we had gotten him years ago,

then he would have not been on the street stabbing somebody else.

Then I was relieved that finally, after all this time,

I'm getting some kind of closure

to what happened to my son and who did it.

Once Michael Duvall was arrested

and transported to the Maryland jail, I visit him.

As soon as I opened the door, he says, "I'm not talking to you."

I said, "I'm just here because I want you to know

I'm the one that caught you." And then I walked out.

And it was a sense of relief that I have taken this case

that had gone cold and now I have a suspect who's been incarcerated

that's going to face a judge and jury.

The first trial was a hung jury.

They did a mistrial, which upset me more than anything.

Hung juries are, fortunately, relatively rare in murder cases.

The judge will typically work with the jury foreperson

and the jury as a group,

in order to get them to find some kind of middle ground

that they can agree on and have them keep going back and deliberating.

Hung juries are not only stressful on the investigators

but also, naturally, on the family of the victim.

They know full well that, number one,

they haven't had a resolution, there hasn't been justice in their mind,

and they know they're probably going to have to do this again

and be revictimised once more.

Based upon the testimony of the witnesses

and the telephone calls, we were able to...

...come up with the truth

as to what happened to Brian Moses that evening.

This whole episode begins with Brian Moses

deciding he wants to make some quick money.

Brian Moses decided

to sell fake crack to individuals,

one of which was Michael Duvall.

The night of his stabbing, he was in The Grove in Laurel.

He was with Sonja Schroeter, with her for a while,

got into his car to drive away.

Once Brian leaves The Grove, he drives up West Street,

out of the sight of the other people hanging out.

He's flagged over by Michael Duvall.

Brian Moses opened the car door

for Michael Duvall.

Michael then produces a knife

and stabs Brian Moses in the left side of his chest,

and flees the vehicle.

Brian Moses then attempts to drive away but is severely injured,

which causes him to crash his car, prompting the 911 call.

He's rushed to the hospital...

...but ultimately succumbs to his injuries three weeks later.

It's the worst nightmare for any mother.

I lost my child over $10

and to a person that was old enough to be his father.

Michael Duvall received 30 years for this murder,

and I was ecstatic.

I was happy for the family, I was happy for the city,

the police department,

that this crime that shook our community in 2005

was now closed.

Shirley Bell was great in this investigation.

She was relentless.

She even helped form a Crime Stoppers with the city of Laurel

to help other victims.

We stayed in constant contact and, even to this day, we'll talk.

I did feel like that my son's case

should not have taken 16 years

to get... to start getting closure,

but I was satisfied with the verdict.

It was a relief for me to know that I have finally got closure

and I was able to keep my promise to my child.

I want people to remember the Brian I know,

who always was making people smile,

laughing, acting silly,

and had a heart of gold.

He was a sweetheart. Brian was a sweetheart.

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