On the evening of May 10, 2021, a burst of gunfire shattered the calm on the 1100 block of Washington Boulevard in Baltimore. When police arrived shortly before 7 p.m., they found Larry Randall, a 43-year-old Black man, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics rushed him to a local hospital, but his injuries were too severe, and he was pronounced dead.
Homicide detectives began their investigation by interviewing witnesses and reviewing surveillance video from area businesses, including a convenience store and a bar. The footage captured a black Mercedes pulling up alongside Randall as he stood in the street. A person inside the car, dressed in all black, opened fire. The assailant then reportedly exited the vehicle, stood over Randall as he lay on the ground, and shot him again. Police stated the shooting followed a dispute.
Within days, investigators identified a suspect, Le'var Cooper, a 43-year-old resident of nearby Windsor Mill.
Detectives learned that the Mercedes used in the attack had been loaned to Cooper by a friend, who became a key witness for the prosecution. Police also found Cooper's fingerprint on the vehicle, and his cell phone data placed him in the vicinity of the murder around the time it occurred. Cooper was arrested four days after the shooting.
Cooper was charged with first-degree murder, firearm use in a felony-violent crime, carrying a handgun, having a handgun in a vehicle, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He has consistently maintained his innocence throughout the legal proceedings in Baltimore City Circuit Court. The prosecution built its case around the video evidence and the testimony of the man who loaned Cooper the car. The defense, in turn, challenged the witness's credibility. The case resulted in three separate trials, but each one ended with a hung jury and was declared a mistrial.
After the three mistrials, the state proceeded with a fourth trial. Just before it began, prosecutors announced they had extracted new data from a cellphone recovered from Cooper at the time of his 2021 arrest. The data allegedly included a factory reset performed the day after the murder, web searches for Mercedes-Benz vehicles and Maryland homicide maps, and the contact information for the prosecution's main witness. As of March 2025, jury selection for Levar Cooper's fourth trial had begun, with the judge still to decide whether the new cellphone evidence would be admissible in court.
