A Frederick, Maryland, man was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison for killing a Hagerstown teen when he was 16.
A Frederick jury found Richard Eugene Cartnail III, 18, guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder last December in the June 2020 death of 17-year-old Ty’Kerria Katherine Dawson. He was tried as an adult.
Judge Scott Rolle issued two concurrent life sentences for those convictions, plus a consecutive 20-year sentence for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and a concurrent five-year sentence for being a minor in possession of a regulated firearm.
Dawson’s body was found off a walking trail. Prosecutors said she and Cartnail were in a relationship, and on the night of the murder she met Cartnail at his home. From there, he led her to a wooded area where an accomplice was waiting with a gun and a change of clothes, and Cartnail shot her in the head.
Cartnail “acted senselessly and has an utter lack of remorse,” Frederick County State’s Attorney Charlie Smith said in a statement. “He deserves this sentence. This was a cold and calculated murder, and the manipulation of individuals around him was also egregious.”
