Trial Continues for Germantown Man Accused of Killing Friend

In their opening statements Monday, attorneys presented a scenario in which playful roughhousing between friends resulted in death.

Now Brenden Lamont "BJ" Dashiell, 25, is accused of killing his friend Justin Eugene Carter, 28, in a fistfight during a cookout Fourth of July weekend at Carter’s home in Gaithersburg.

The trial continues Tuesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, with Judge Ronald B. Rubin presiding. 

Dashiell was charged with manslaughter.

Initial arguments Monday were framed around whether Dashiell—who sobbed during portions of the proceedings—was the sole aggressor or whether both men were equal antagonizers.

“This was a one-sided beating,” said Montgomery County Assistant State’s Attorney Sherri Koch. “The defendant basically beat Justin to death.”

Dashiell’s attorney, Adam Harris, who is with the public defender’s office, offered an alternate view, that both men were willfully involved. 

“What happened on July 2 was a tragedy, not a crime,” Harris said.

Testimony from state’s witnesses Monday helped paint the picture of what may have happened on July 2, 2011. State’s witness Bradley D. Wilt, a fire fighter and paramedic with Montogmery County Fire & Rescue Service, testified that he found Carter on the ground unconscious and barely breathing when emergency personnel arrived at the scene.

According to witness testimony, the men were “like brothers.”

“I was in shock that they were fighting,” said Evelyn Carter, Justin Carter’s wife, Evelyn Carter. Dashiell was dating Evelyn Carter’s sister, whom he had two children with.

The state called Carter’s wife, Carter's stepson Aaron Evans, 18, and family friend Jeremy Vasquez, 21.

According to Vasquez’s testimony, Dashiell injured his arm while "play wrestling with" he and Carter. A verbal exchange followed and devolved into a fistfight when Carter thought Dashiell shoved his wife, Evelyn Carter, according to Vasquez’s testimony.

Evelyn Carter testified that she tripped over a step and had not been pushed by Dashiell. She said said the second fight dispersed with her nudging Dashiell away from the porch and her husband extending his hand to Dashiell for a conciliatory “shake.”

But according to witnesses’ testimonies, Dashiell allegedly rejected the gesture; Carter got mad and kicked over Dashiell’s moped, sparking the third and final fight in which Carter collapsed and never got back up.

Carter was pronounced dead at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital. The death was ruled a homicide after an autopsy determined blunt force trauma was the cause of death, court records state.