On the early morning of June 1, 2017, gunfire near Scott Town Road and Nick Road in Shady Side, Maryland, left 44-year-old Linda Lynn McKenzie and her 48-year-old boyfriend, Leslie Michael Smith, dead. Anne Arundel County officers arrived about 12:36 a.m. and both were pronounced dead at the scene with apparent gunshot wounds.

The couple lived on a houseboat in the Rock Hold Creek area. Earlier that evening they’d driven into a ditch and got into a loud argument, which drew the attention of a nearby resident, 58-year-old Kirk Byron Matthews. Witnesses say Matthews confronted them, threatened them and was later seen carrying a shotgun; surveillance footage reportedly shows a man matching his description walking away with what appeared to be a shotgun shortly after shots were heard.

Matthews was arrested and charged in the double homicide; a jury convicted him of two counts of second-degree murder and related firearm and ammunition offenses, and a lengthy prison sentence was imposed. What details about motive, the sequence of events, or any other evidence remain unclear to readers?