A cold-case investigation by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and local prosecutors led to a 55-year prison sentence for 45-year-old Carl Stephan Meade for a murder in Southeast Washington in 2001, reported the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District. D.C. Superior Court Judge Harold Cushenberry Jr. delivered the sentence last week following a jury conviction in May that found Meade guilty of first-degree
murder while armed and three counts of obstruction of justice.
The case was reopened last year as part of the joint law-enforcement effort to solve cold cases. Detectives located additional witnesses who identified Meade as the man who stepped out of the bushes on Birney Place SE and ambushed 18-year-old local resident Ellis Brooks, killing him with two gunshots to the body.
After Meade was arrested last year, he tried to convince at least three different people, including two friends from the neighborhood and a man incarcerated with Meade, to provide a false alibi for him for the night of the shooting. He also suggested that one friend should attempt to silence a witness, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Witness intimidation is a common problem in the District, where witnesses often don't speak up for fear of retaliation.
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