Jerome Todd Utley Sr., 60, was stabbed to death on Sunday, June 25, 2023, inside a residence in the 900 block of North Caroline Street in East Baltimore. The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists his death as a homicide.
According to the Baltimore Sun, officers were called at around 12:15 p.m. that Sunday to the 900 block of North Caroline Street "for a reported cutting." There they found a 60-year-old man "dead with multiple stab wounds inside an East Baltimore residence," the Sun reported, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Police identified him the next day as Jerome Utley. WMAR-2 News listed his death in its daily tracker of the city's killings, and Fox45 reported his name in a roundup of two people killed in Baltimore that Sunday.
Homicide detectives asked anyone with information to call them, and the Sun noted that anonymous tips could be made through Metro Crime Stoppers.
Police did not say whose home it was, whether Utley lived there, how he came to be inside, or who called for help. They did not describe a suspect, an argument or a robbery, and no follow up report naming a suspect or describing an arrest could be found. A list of the year's homicides kept by a longtime Baltimore crime tracker shows no suspect for his case. The fact that he was killed indoors in the middle of the day suggests that he may have been with someone he knew, but the record does not say so, and investigators have not released any theory of the case.
His obituary, posted by Covenant Funeral Service, gives his full name as Jerome Todd Utley Sr. and his dates as February 21, 1963, to June 25, 2023. The title "Sr." suggests that he was a father whose son carries his name. Beyond those details, little about his life has been made public, and no news outlet appears to have spoken with his family. His name was read with the city's other homicide victims on WYPR and printed in the Catholic Review, which asked readers to pray for each victim by name.
The Sun described the location as being in the Gay Street neighborhood, a small East Baltimore community of rowhouses named for one of the diagonal streets that cut through that part of the city. The area sits east of downtown, a short distance from the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus, which dominates much of that side of the city.
Homicides in Baltimore began falling steeply in 2023 and 2024, reaching the lowest totals in decades, yet many killings from those years remain unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Jerome Utley could be found in news archives or public records. More than three years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was in or around the 900 block of North Caroline Street on the morning or early afternoon of June 25, 2023, or who knew who Jerome Utley was spending time with that weekend, may know something that would help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
