Richmond Phillips is a former Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who murdered his ex-girlfriend, 20-year-old Wynetta Wright, and their 11-month-old daughter, Jaylin Wright, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on May 31, 2011. He shot Wright in the head and left the baby strapped into a car seat inside a closed SUV during a heat advisory, where she died of hyperthermia. Prosecutors said he killed them to avoid a paternity and child support hearing scheduled for that same day. A jury convicted him in January 2013, and he is serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
What Happened on May 30 and 31, 2011
Phillips was 40 and married. Wright, 20, had a daughter with him. The two were due in court on May 31, 2011 for a paternity and child support hearing. According to Wright’s mother, her daughter had not spoken to Phillips in about a year until the night of May 30, when he called asking to meet. Wright left home after that call. She was never seen alive again.
Prosecutors said Phillips lured her to a wooded area near the Hillcrest Heights Community Center in Prince George’s County in the early morning hours of May 31 and shot her in the head with a .22-caliber handgun. The weapon was not his police-issued firearm. He then drove Wright’s Saturn SUV to a parking lot in the 2400 block of Southern Avenue, with Jaylin still strapped into her car seat inside. He left the vehicle with the doors closed and windows up. A heat advisory was in effect, and temperatures inside the car reached an estimated 125 degrees. Jaylin, days short of her first birthday, died of hyperthermia.
While this was happening, Phillips’s wife tried to reach him by phone nearly 40 times and got no answer. When he finally called her back, he said he had lost his keys and was outside their home.
How Police Caught Him
Wright’s mother reported her missing on May 31 after not hearing from her. Prince George’s County Police issued a critical missing persons alert for Wright and Jaylin. Around 7:00 p.m. on June 2, searchers found Wright’s body near the tree line of Oxon Run Stream Valley Park, close to the Hillcrest Heights Community Center. Jaylin’s body was discovered shortly afterward inside the SUV in the nearby parking lot.
A Prince George’s County detective approached Phillips under the pretext of investigating his “missing mistress.” Phillips first said he had not spoken to Wright in a year. When investigators confronted him with phone records, he admitted to text messages but denied meeting her. He eventually conceded that he had met Wright in the early morning hours of May 31, while continuing to deny any role in the killings. On June 3, 2011, he surrendered to Prince George’s County police and was charged with first-degree murder in Wright’s death. Charges tied to Jaylin’s death followed after the autopsy confirmed heat exposure as the cause.
The Trial
Phillips went to trial on January 14, 2013, in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. He faced two counts of first-degree murder, one count of use of a handgun in a crime of violence, and one count of first-degree child abuse. Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks and Assistant State’s Attorney Wes Adams prosecuted the case. Brian Denton represented Phillips.
The prosecution’s theory was simple. Phillips was facing a paternity suit and wanted out of child support, so he killed the mother and left the child to die. The defense told jurors Phillips “didn’t do this thing” and argued the evidence fell short.
On the third day of trial, Kimberly Everett, an administrative assistant for the D.C. police, testified that she had been having an affair with Phillips since around February 2010. She told jurors she had once seen a small-caliber gun strapped to Phillips’s left ankle in a hotel room, a weapon separate from his police-issued firearm. That testimony mattered because prosecutors said the murder weapon was a .22-caliber gun, not his service weapon.
On January 17, 2013, the jury found Phillips guilty on all counts.
Sentencing
On March 22, 2013, Phillips received two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 20 additional years. It was the maximum sentence available. Relatives and friends of Wynetta Wright called him a “soulless monster,” a “predator,” and a “coward” at the hearing. Her mother told the court, “My daughter didn’t have a chance, but my grandbaby could have been saved.”
Alsobrooks said, “There is something evil about a man who can kill his own child, especially when he was sworn to protect us. Phillips is a disgrace to the uniform and the profession. He is a coward and a killer.” She said the case “deeply affected this community” and that her office was pleased Phillips received the maximum sentence “for his wretched conduct.”
The DNA Appeal
Phillips’s case produced a significant Maryland appellate ruling on DNA evidence. The Prince George’s County DNA laboratory had analyzed a sample from the steering wheel of Wright’s SUV. It was a complex, low-copy-number sample with genetic material from at least five contributors, including Wright, Jaylin, Phillips, and two unknown individuals. Forensic chemist Jessica Charak concluded Phillips could not be excluded as a contributor, with a random match probability of roughly 1 in 2.93 million in the African American population.
The defense argued the evidence should not have been admitted because Maryland’s DNA Admissibility Statute referenced two entities, the Technical Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods and the FBI’s DNA Advisory Board, that had both been dissolved by the time of the analysis. The lab had instead followed the FBI’s Quality Assurance Standards. The defense also challenged the lab’s interpretation methods under the Frye-Reed general-acceptance standard.
The Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state’s highest court, issued a unanimous decision on January 20, 2017 in Phillips v. State, 451 Md. 180. Writing for the court, Judge Joseph M. Getty held that the FBI’s Quality Assurance Standards are “standards established by the DNA Advisory Board” within the meaning of the statute, because the Board had originally promulgated them. Its later dissolution did not strip that work of legal effect. The DNA evidence was therefore automatically admissible, and no Frye-Reed hearing had been needed. Judge Getty wrote that the statute “was not intended as a ‘best practices’ statute” but as a mechanism to admit DNA evidence that meets minimum federal standards. Defendants, the court said, can still challenge the weight of such evidence through cross-examination and their own experts.
The ruling upheld Phillips’s convictions and remains leading Maryland precedent on the automatic admissibility of DNA evidence tested under FBI quality assurance standards. The Maryland General Assembly had already amended the statute in 2016 to reference the QAS directly, but the court noted that change applied only prospectively.
Where Richmond Phillips Is Now
Phillips is serving his two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole in Maryland’s correctional system.