The trial of a Florida man charged with killing his ex-wife and her partner in their home near Lake Linganore in August 2024 has been postponed until March 2026.
A three-week trial for David Phillip Turner had been scheduled to start Tuesday in Frederick County Circuit Court.
Turner, 34, of Miami, is accused of murdering his ex-wife, Crimea Malita Baker, 33, and her partner, Sean Antoine Lange, 34, at the home they shared on Mandalong Court near Lake Linganore in the early-morning hours of Aug. 25, 2024.
He is being held without bail at the Frederick County Detention Center, according to online court records.
A jury trial had been scheduled to start Tuesday in Frederick County Circuit Court, and stretch until Aug. 22.
The trial has been rescheduled for late March 2026, with a motions hearing scheduled in February, State’s Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Jacqueline Rottmann wrote in an email Monday.
Turner is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and use of a firearm in a violent crime and one count of home invasion.
He was extradited to Maryland from Florida in December, after being arrested there in September.
Turner fired his lawyer at the end of April, and had not hired a new attorney, prosecutors wrote in a motion earlier this summer requesting a postponement.
Online court records did not list a new attorney to represent Turner as of Monday.
The 20-day trial that was expected to start Tuesday would have required about 35 witnesses from various states, requiring extensive coordination of their travel, the prosecutors wrote in their motion requesting a postponement.
Since representing himself, Turner has filed a variety of motions challenging various elements of the case, as well as one asking that Judge Terrence J. McGann be removed from the case and another judge assigned.
Part of Turner’s argument in the July 15 motion was that McGann, a retired judge from Montgomery County, “does not have an active career and therefore does not have incentive to make conservative and fair judgements as he is not worried about future appoints [sic] or a future election.”
In another motion, filed July 17, Turner objected to a mental competency evaluation that McGann ordered, and asserted that the judge was biased against him because Turner had challenged some of the court’s rulings.
Shell casings found
Police believe Turner traveled from Florida to Frederick County in August 2024, and killed Baker and Lange in the early-morning hours of Aug. 25.
Charging documents in the case indicate that 44 shell casings and one live round were found at the scene.
There were four children age 13 and under in the home at the time of the shooting. Three of them were the children of Baker and Turner and one was the child of Baker and Lange, The Frederick News-Post previously reported.
According to charging documents, police responded to the family’s home at approximately 7 a.m. on Aug. 25 after receiving a call for help from one of the children. The child reported hearing gunshots around 1:25 a.m.
When police arrived, some of the children were reportedly walking down the stairs and pointing toward the master bedroom upstairs where the shootings are believed to have taken place.
Another child later emerged from the basement, where the child was believed to have been hiding.
Turner and Baker were divorced in 2019.
A Toyota Highlander with similar characteristics to Turner’s was captured on surveillance cameras at approximately 12:53 a.m. on Aug. 25, parking on Bodkin Way, near the house where the shootings took place.
The same vehicle was captured on surveillance cameras driving on Saponi Drive toward Eaglehead Drive at approximately 1:31 a.m., according to charging documents.