In the April 9, 1996 edition of the Baltimore Sun we are told that a body of an unidentifed man was found about 11AM floating in the Gwynns Falls off the 4500 block of
Wetheredsville Road in Leakin Park on April 7, 1996. POlice said the decomposed body appeared to be that of a black man who had been dead for several days and no obvious signs of foul play were found. The body was taken to the state medical examiners office for an autopsy and identification. He was identified as Courtney Williams.
May 1, 1996 - A former Baltimore police officer was charged the night before with malfeasance, bribery and filing a false public document in connection with the death of an Ellicott City man said police.
The police say that charges against Mr. Terrence Johnson, 22, who resigned from the Baltimore City Police Force on a Monday after serving one year was being held at Central District, grew out of an investigation into the death of Courtney A. Williams.
Mr. Williams and his girlfriend, Tomeka Jefferson, 24, of Randallstown were reported missing in mid-February.
The dirty cop
A former Baltimore police officer was suspected of being an "enforcer" for a drug dealer and admitted listening to a murder plot that he did nothing to stop or report, a prosecutor said in court yesterday. The allegations against Andre Johnson, a former Eastern District patrolman who was found guilty yesterday of misconduct in office, are among the most serious in a string of charges against city police. Johnson, 23, told police "he did nothing to report this murder was going to take place, did nothing to stop it, did nothing to report it after it took place," said Assistant State's Attorney Elizabeth A. Ritter. Johnson also falsified a police report to help a drug dealer with whom he'd grown up, Ritter said, assigning it a fake number and a fake officer's name in return for a payment of $ 200.
Why was Officer Johnson a dirty cop?
Assistant States Attorney Elizabeth Ritter told a judge that police began to suspect Johnson was corrupt two months before Williams' body was found, when Johnson, in plainclothes, walked into a Northwest Baltimore apartment police were searching. That apartment, Ritter said, was the home of
Christopher Black, Courtney Williams' brother. Johnson, who was carrying handcuffs and a gun, was accompanied by Thomas "Archie" Smith, whom Ritter described as a lieutenant for Williams' drug business. When Johnson saw the police at the apartment, he tried to back away. But a police sergeant searching the apartment asked Johnson to stay and learned he was a police officer, the prosecutor said.
That sergeant then wrote a memo to the Police Department's internal investigations division, saying that based on the encounter, he suspected Officer Johnson was an "enforcer of some kind" for Thomas Smith, Ritter said. A few days later, police found Courtney Williams' 1995 Nissan Quest van abandoned in the 4500 block of Old Frederick Road in West Baltimore. The car was sent to Howard County police for processing, because Courtney Williams had been reported missing to that department. In the glove compartment, police found a police report and statement of charges, indicating that Thomas Smith had been arrested for drug possession. But States Attorney Ritter said Officer Johnson later told investigators that neither the sequence number for the report nor the name of the officer was real. In fact, Thomas Smith had paid Officer Johnson to falsify the documents to make it appear that Thomas Smith had been arrested with the drugs, so that a supplier would think police had confiscated them.
Detectives found Thomas Smith's and Officer Johnson's fingerprints on the documents. Court records show that Thomas Smith, of the 3800 block of Reisterstown Road, was arrested in May on a charge of illegally possessing a pistol, but the charge was dropped.
Okay, now what about what happened to Courtney Williams, the homicide victim?
After Courtney Williams' body was found, detectives interviewed Officer Johnson, who told them he had overheard Thomas Smith and Christopher Black, Courtney William's brother, plan the slaying, Ritter said. "Courtney Williams was making $ 30,000 a week, and they were tired of it," Ritter said Officer Johnson told police. After the killing, Officer Johnson told detectives, Thomas Smith paged Officer Johnson "and told him Christopher Black had done it," States Attorney Ritter said.
A check of the Judiciary Case Search shows us that the charges against Christopher Black for first degree murder and various other crimes hang around until 2003 where he was acquitted on all charges. We also learn that Christopher Samuel Black also goes by the name of Allen Samuel Gill and has several addresses. The case search yields nothing for Courtney A. Williams.
https://sites.google.com/site/chamgreensite/home/leakin-park-bodies/courtney-willi
