Suitland man convicted in 2024 apartment hallway murder case

Francis Xavier Holmes Jr. was convicted Tuesday in the November 2024 killing of Brian Michael Speaks, a verdict that turns one of Suitland’s most closely watched homicide cases toward sentencing and closes a painful chapter for the victim’s family and neighbors on Parkway Terrace Drive.

Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Tara Jackson announced that Holmes, 31, was found guilty of first-degree murder, use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence and illegal possession after a disqualifying conviction. Holmes faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. The conviction came after a second trial, following a mistrial in the first proceeding.

Speaks, 30, was shot and killed in the hallway of his apartment building in Suitland. Police said officers responded about 5:45 p.m. on Nov. 15, 2024, to the 3500 block of Parkway Terrace Drive, where they found Speaks with gunshot wounds inside the building. He was pronounced dead at the scene. From the beginning, detectives said they did not believe the shooting was random, and county police offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and indictment.

By February 2025, police said Holmes, of Temple Hills, had been charged in the killing. Investigators also charged 28-year-old Marquis Anbaz as an accessory after the fact. Police said Holmes was in Department of Corrections custody on no-bond status at the time of the arrest announcement.

The case has also pointed to the kind of violence residents often try to understand in the aftermath of a hallway shooting: whether it was tied to a dispute, a familiar relationship or a wider pattern of danger in the neighborhood. A local report said detectives believed Holmes shot Speaks because of an argument Speaks had with another person Holmes knew, reinforcing the view that investigators treated the killing as a targeted dispute rather than a random attack.

Speaks’s family remembered him as a “genuine family man” after his death, and funeral services were scheduled for Dec. 2, 2024. For his relatives and for people living near the apartment building, the verdict brings the case out of the uncertainty that followed the shooting and into the final phase of the criminal process.

Jackson, who is the county’s interim state’s attorney after succeeding Aisha Braveboy, framed the conviction as part of the office’s responsibility to protect victims and hold violent offenders accountable. It comes against the backdrop of a county that finished 2024 with 114 homicides, marking a third straight year above 100, even as police later said homicides fell 41% in 2025 compared with 2024.