Baltimore man charged in 2022 retaliatory killing of carjacking suspect

Kenneth Lawson was 20 when his body was found on the southbound Route 295 entrance ramp from Westport, a death that was first treated as suspicious and later ruled a homicide. Now Baltimore prosecutors say the killing was not random at all, but a retaliatory hit tied to a carjacking that happened one day earlier and set off a chain of surveillance, digital tracking and identification work.

Detectives say Dontaye Montez Carter, 44, was carjacked at gunpoint on Jan. 21, 2022, and lost his car, phone, shoes, clothing and watch. Carter told investigators he could not identify the robbers because they were masked, but security video from the carjacking scene allegedly showed Lawson lowering his mask and exposing his face. Prosecutors say Carter then used the Find My iPhone app to track the stolen phone, which pinged near Bakbury Court, close to Lawson’s home.

From there, investigators say the case turned into a revenge killing investigation. Detectives believe Carter identified Lawson through social media and circulated screenshots and photos to associates before Lawson was kidnapped or lured to the Westport area and killed the next day. The charges now filed against Carter include first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder resulting in death, kidnapping and use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence.

Ivan Bates said the case reflected “the retaliatory violence that plagued our city in 2022,” and described the delay as painful for Lawson’s loved ones. Prosecutors said the case took years in part because Baltimore did not have a cold case unit until two years ago and because homicide workloads were overwhelming, leaving too many open cases to move quickly through the system.

The Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office says its Cold Case Unit reviews unsolved homicides with “fresh eyes” and works alongside the Baltimore Police Department Cold Case Unit under Chief Kurt Bjorklund. Baltimore’s lower homicide total in 2024, 201 killings, the city’s lowest since 2011, also gave prosecutors more room to revisit cases like Lawson’s. What began as a body found on a Westport ramp is now being built as a retaliation case, with the mask slip, the phone ping and the social media trail all pointing back to Kenneth Lawson.