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Inside Room 5 of the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit on March 6, 2019, Eshyna Young recounted the events that led up to the fatal fire inside her home on South Morley Street earlier that day.
Young said she was inside her room the entire day with the door closed, running a machine that controlled humidity levels and watching videos on YouTube. She said she later heard the smoke detector going off, went to investigate and saw her mother — who she suspected had been drinking — standing and burning alive.
That’s when Young said she picked up water from the machine, emptied it onto her mother, called 911 and left the home. She acknowledged there had been some tension — her mother, she said, smoked, lived with an alcohol use disorder and stopped paying the mortgage on the home — but emphasized that the two never got into a physical fight.
Her mother, Tinestta, did not survive. She was 50.
“Everything happens for a reason,” said Young, who occasionally broke down during the interrogation. “But that way to go?”
But Baltimore Police Detective Aaron Cruz later brought up information that the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had provided him: Young’s mother, he said, died before the fire began.
A forensic pathologist, Dr. Patricia Aronica, determined the cause of death was asphyxiation. Young, police alleged, killed her mother and then set her on fire.
But the defense presented several witnesses, including their own forensic pathologist, Dr. Amy Hawes, who testified that the cause of death was smoke inhalation and thermal injuries from the fire. Lawyers asserted that Young’s mother was drunk and set herself on fire while smoking in bed.
Circuit Judge John S. Nugent on Monday acquitted Young, 26, of Southwest Baltimore, of charges of second-degree murder, arson and malicious burning of personal property. He issued his decision at the conclusion of a bench trial.
“Obviously, the burden was on the state to establish Ms. Young’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Nugent said. “This case exudes reasonable doubt.”
Law enforcement, he said, initially believed the fire was accidental. That only changed after the state’s forensic pathologist reported that the cause of death had been asphyxiation and that the manner of death was homicide, Nugent said.
The judge said he found the defense experts to be more persuasive. He also noted that an insurance investigator took pictures several days later of a matchbox and cigarette butt in the bedroom.
But the case, he said, came down to the credibility of one person: Young.
“I found Ms. Young to be credible, honest and that her statements were persuasive,” said Nugent, who noted that she willingly sat for an interrogation with two experienced detectives, voluntarily turned over her cellphone and showed law enforcement her arms and clothing. “Everything Ms. Young said in her statements was consistent.”
Though the state does not have to prove motive, Nugent said, “there was absolutely nothing to suggest motive in this case whatsoever.”
In her closing argument, Assistant State’s Attorney Rita Wisthoff-Ito said that people decide to kill for many reasons.
Young, she said, told detectives that life wasn’t going her way. She withdrew from Notre Dame of Maryland University and returned home, which was unkept. Her mother spent money on lottery tickets, alcohol and cigarettes.
“When you push people to a limit, there will come a time when that last little thing pushes them over the edge,” Wisthoff-Ito said.
She questioned why Young did not run back to the home to her mother. “If someone you love is dying in a fire,” Wisthoff-Ito said, “what would you do?”
Wisthoff-Ito said investigators did not find any bottles of alcohol in the bedroom or smoking materials. She tried the case with Assistant State’s Attorney Shaundria Hanna.
But Assistant Public Defender Julie Shapiro, one of Young’s attorneys, disputed that assertion, displaying a picture of a charred matchbox and cigarette butt in the bedroom.
Shapiro evoked the principle of Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is likely the correct one.
“Ms. Young’s story is the simplest explanation,” said Shapiro, who added that her client was consistent and cooperated throughout the investigation. “And Ms. Young’s story is the correct explanation.”
Shapiro said her client’s mother was “extremely intoxicated,” noting that toxicological testing revealed that she had a blood alcohol content of 0.39%. Asphyxiation is a broad term that could encompass deaths from natural causes and fires, Shapiro said.
The state, she said, presented no evidence of strangulation or suffocation.
Outside the courtroom, Shapiro said of her client, “She’s innocent.”
Her co-counsel, Assistant Public Defender Shomari Taylor, added that both of them knew that from the beginning. “This was the only just outcome,” he said.
Young embraced family members and friends who filled the gallery of the courtroom. They cheered for her when she walked out.
Tyonne Bartee, Young’s cousin, said she was pleased that the judge was able to see the facts of the case.
Family members, she said, have stuck with her cousin throughout the court proceedings.
“This has caused immeasurable grief to Eshyna and the family,” said Bartee, 38, of Reisterstown. “Especially for her, given the fact that she lost her mom and was unable to grieve based on the charges placed on her.”
Bartee said she’s glad that family members will be able to properly grieve and move on with their lives — particularly her cousin.
dylan.segelbaum@thebalimorebanner.com
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Dylan Segelbaum is the courts reporter at The Baltimore Banner.
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