Dasha Cleary

Dasha Cleary, a 20-year-old White woman from Waldorf, Maryland, was described by her family as a beloved member of her community who was always volunteering. Her mother, however, also shared that Dasha’s life had recently taken a turn, and that her involvement in certain things over the past two years was not a reflection of the daughter she knew. Dasha’s family was left heartbroken by her sudden death, asking for anyone with information to come forward.

In the early morning hours of January 27, 2022, a party inside a room at a Days Inn on the 4400 block of Connecticut Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., ended in gunfire. Police were called to the hotel around 3:30 a.m. for reports of a shooting. Inside, they found three women suffering from gunshot wounds. All three were transported to area hospitals, where Dasha was pronounced dead. The two other women were treated for life-threatening injuries. Two men who were also shot sought treatment at a hospital for non-life-threatening wounds. Investigators recovered a handgun from the scene and stated that the people involved in the incident knew one another.

The Metropolitan Police Department identified 18-year-old Gerald Thomas of Temple Hills, Maryland, as the suspect. On February 19, 2022, he was arrested on a D.C. Superior Court warrant and charged in connection with the shooting.

Thomas was initially charged with second-degree murder while armed. A judge’s decision to place him on home confinement with GPS monitoring caused great distress for Dasha’s family. “How is he still out? This is absolutely unfair and a slap in the face to my entire family and Dasha’s loved ones,” her mother stated during a court hearing in March 2023. While on release, Thomas was arrested in connection with other violent crimes, including two separate shootings in Prince George's County.

Prosecutors repeatedly argued that Thomas should be held in jail. He was eventually taken into custody, and his charges in Dasha’s death were upgraded to include first- and second-degree murder while armed, four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, attempted kidnapping while armed, and seven counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. After a procedural error led to him being mistakenly transferred out of the D.C. jail, a judge ordered him to remain detained in the District. Gerald Thomas remains in custody awaiting trial in D.C. Superior Court.