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The iPhone notes file was labeled “Expedition Unknown,” and in it, prosecutors say, former Laurel Police Chief David Crawford kept a target list.
Nine of the 11 people on the list, who were associates or relatives of Crawford, have been the victims of intentionally set fires at their homes. One person with a “3″ next to their name had been hit three times; another with a “2″ was the victim of two fires.
In his first response to the charges, which include multiple counts of attempted first-degree murder and arson, defense attorney Robert C. Bonsib told jurors in opening statements on Wednesday that most of the victims had no known beef with Crawford. That, he said, meant that there was no such pattern or explanation behind the crimes.
“The state can’t just say ‘maybe’ or ‘could be’ or ‘might be,’ but have to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt,” Bonsib said.
Bonsib argued prosecutors can’t connect Crawford to the fires — but even if they could, they can’t prove that he intended to kill anyone.
Sitting in the courtroom gallery, Crawford’s estranged daughter, Carrie Turner, said afterward that her dad needed no egregious slight to hold grudges. Turner recalled advice he gave her when she was having a dispute with someone in grade school: “If somebody hits you, you hit them harder.”
Crawford, now 71, was arrested in March 2021 and is accused of setting a string of fires spanning six Maryland counties — stretching from Waldorf to Ellicott City to Frederick — between 2011 and late 2020.
Crawford was indicted in four of those jurisdictions, and Howard County prosecutors are laying out the entire case, including uncharged crimes, in order to establish a pattern.
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Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Hammond told jurors that the evidence includes computer search histories as well as data from his phone’s Apple Fitness app that allegedly shows Crawford active during early morning hours when fires were set.
The targets of the fires included his chiropractor, his successor as Laurel police chief, Laurel’s city administrator, and former colleagues in the Prince George’s County Police Department, as well as a woman prosecutors say Crawford had a disagreement with about school redistricting.
One woman, a director of a court program for children, is listed as “white privilege,” a reference to a disagreement she had with Crawford’s wife. After Crawford’s wife took offense at a judge’s use of the term “white privilege,” the woman asked her not to participate in the program, according to charging documents.
“The commonalities are obvious,” Hammond told jurors.
Bonsib, however, said that most of the victims couldn’t fathom any reason why Crawford would target them.
“By all accounts, they had an amicable relationship,” Bonsib said of Crawford’s former chiropractor, Russell Antico. He said Crawford and the woman who was said to have clashed with Crawford over Howard County school redistricting were actually on the same page.
But prosecutors in earlier court filings said there were minor provocations — like not being invited to a pool party, in one instance — that the victims say could have been the spark. Bonsib said the victims were reaching in hindsight to offer possible explanations.
There’s no DNA, fingerprint or other physical evidence tying Crawford to the cases.
Jurors were shown evidence extracted from Crawford’s phone, iPad and desktop computers, which included web searches for addresses of people on the list and then searches on Google Maps for those addresses. The searches occurred around the times of the fires.
He also had calendar reminders, such as “McLaughlin fire,” in his phone that correspond to several of the fires.
His phone fitness app showed him taking a few hundred steps in the early morning hours. Bonsib suggested that could be explained by Crawford getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or to watch television.
And he asked Det. Michael Zito, of the Montgomery County electronic crimes unit, about how many other occasions the phone had also captured early morning movements. Zito said the fitness app captured 39,000 entries from 2016 to 2021, 5,000 of which occurred between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
There does not appear to be other GPS data placing Crawford in the areas of the fires, Bonsib noted.
Crawford has been detained since his arrest, and was brought into court in a wheelchair and holding a cane. He was later ordered to sit in a courtroom chair.
The trial is expected to last 20 days.
justin.fenton@thebaltimorebanner.com
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Justin Fenton is an investigative reporter for the Baltimore Banner. He previously spent 17 years at the Baltimore Sun, covering the criminal justice system. His book, "We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption," was released by Random House in 2021 and became an HBO miniseries.
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