District Man Sentenced to 20-Year Prison Term
In Fatal Stabbing of Family Friend
- Defendant’s Family Tried to Stop the Attack, Aided the Victim

     WASHINGTON - Terrance D. Brooks, 45, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to 20 years of incarceration for the fatal stabbing of a Maryland man in January 2010, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. announced.

     Brooks pled guilty in May 2011 to a charge of second degree murder while armed. He was sentenced by the Honorable Judge Thomas J. Motley in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia.

     According to the government’s evidence, on January 2, 2010, at about 11 p.m., Brooks and the victim, Zachary Funke, 22, were attending a family gathering in the 1700 block of Mississippi Avenue SE. The two men got into an argument over a few dollars. Brooks punched the victim. The fight was broken up by Brooks’s family members, who told Brooks to leave the area.

     Brooks, however, returned to the area a few minutes later and pulled a knife from his pocket as he approached the victim. A family member attempted to intervene and stop Brooks from attacking the victim. Brooks stabbed the victim twice, once in the abdomen and once in the upper torso, severing his subclavian artery and piercing his lung. Brooks’s family members attempted to save the victim and drove him to the hospital, where he died of his injuries. Brooks was arrested a few hours later, asleep in bed a short distance from where he fatally stabbed the victim. The victim’s blood was found on Brooks’s jeans and boots.

     In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen commended the efforts of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers who were involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case, including Detective Darin March, Detective Wayne Marable, Detective John Bevilacqua, Detective Keith Batton, Detective Jonathan Clingerman, Detective Anthony McGee, Officer Keith Halpin, Officer Thomas Barksdale, Officer Leonard Vaughn, Crime Scene Technician Fred Brown, Crime Scene Technician Curtis Lancaster, Crime Scene Technician Ralph Nitz, Crime Scene Technician James Holder, Crime Scene Technician Jay Gregory, and Crime Scene Technician Eric Coker. U.S. Attorney Machen also cited the efforts of several members of his staff, including Intelligence Analyst Lawrence Grasso; Paralegal Kelly Blakeney; Victim Advocate Marcey Rinker, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff, who investigated and prosecuted this case.

 

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