Baltimore: Killed Over $50 The West Lexington Street Murder Case

Reporting and analysis may discuss allegations and online theories. Allegations are not findings of guilt. Verify important details in the cited public record.

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On February 20, 2024, 19-year-old Darcell Mitchell was shot on the 800 block of West Lexington Street in Baltimore. Police said the shooting began outside, but Mitchell was later found inside a nearby home after officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert.

Eight days later, three arrests were made: Davon Butler, Charles Bowen, and a 17-year-old male later identified in court coverage as Randolph Washington.

That was the first version of the case.

The courtroom version went much deeper.

The $50 Theory

Prosecutors later argued that Mitchell’s murder was tied to an alleged dispute over $50. What first looked like a standard homicide arrest became a robbery-murder case built around money, witnesses, digital evidence, and the question of how three suspects were connected to one fatal confrontation.

The full case file does not just repeat the arrest report. It reconstructs how the state tried to turn a small money dispute into a first-degree murder case.

The Scene Reconstruction

The shooting scene sits at the center of the file: West Lexington Street, the ShotSpotter response, the outside location where Mitchell was reportedly wounded, and the home where officers found him.

Inside the full breakdown, we reconstruct the movement from the sidewalk to the house, the recovered .380 shell casings, and the early details investigators used to begin building the case.

The Instagram Trail

One of the strongest parts of the case is the digital trail prosecutors brought into court.

The full file breaks down the alleged Instagram evidence, the group-chat dispute, the nickname connections, the account information, and the voice-message issue tied to the $50 claim.

This is where the case moves from the block to the phone.

The Witness Fight

The case also turned on witness identifications — but those identifications were not left untouched.

The full file separates what witnesses claimed from what the defense challenged, including questions about visibility, intoxication, scene confusion, photo-array IDs, and how officers followed up after the shooting.

The Courtroom Record

The case did not end with arrests.

It moved through court, joinder arguments, trial evidence, verdicts, and life-based sentences. The full case file follows how prosecutors tied the defendants together, how the defense tried to weaken the state’s version, and how the final sentencing record closed the file.

What We Reconstruct Inside

The full case file breaks down the West Lexington Street shooting scene, the alleged $50 dispute, the Instagram evidence, the witness-identification fight, the robbery-murder theory, the co-defendant trial structure, and the sentencing outcome that turned one Baltimore homicide into a life-sentence case.

One number sits at the center of the file: $50.

The full record shows how prosecutors said that number became the motive, the evidence fight, and the reason three defendants were tied to a murder case.