Maryland

Officer's Sharp Memory Leads to Arrest in Silver Spring Slaying

A patrol officer's sharp memory is credited for the arrest of a man police say brutally stabbed and killed another man outside a shopping center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Oscar Danilo Manzano-Mora, 23, is accused of killing Edras Armando Munoz the night of May 8.

Witnesses told police the two men had gotten into a fist fight in the parking lot of a shopping center at 8528 Piney Branch Road.

Court documents said Manzano-Mora's friends urged him to get a knife. Manzano-Mora then followed Munoz down the street, stabbed him in the chest and took off, according to the documents.

Montgomery County Police Officer Anders Johnson responded to the stabbing scene and said his memory was jogged when witnesses described the suspect as a heavy-set Hispanic man who was with a woman wearing a distinctive red Helly Hanson jacket.

"And I though OK. I might be onto something here," Johnson said.

Johnson said he was called to a report of people smoking marijuana in a stairwell at a nearby building in December. He remembered questioning a heavy-set man and a woman wearing a red Helly Hansen jacket.

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"I documented everything. Our body-worn cameras were on. I used that case number to search our body-worn camera footage. That also showed me a female that was wearing a bright-red Helly Hansen jacket," Johnson said.

His body camera video combined with gas station surveillance video from the night of the murder led to Manzano-Mora's arrest on Wedneday, police said.

Manzano-Mora was charged with first-degree murder.

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