BALTIMORE — A Baltimore woman was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for assisting in the murder of a woman and her 7-year-old child during a 2015 drug-related robbery.
Kiara Haynes, 37, also was given five years of supervised release after she was found guilty of aiding and abetting the use and discharge of a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime and crime of violence.
Jennifer Jeffrey and her 7-year-old child were killed in 2015.
Haynes has been detained since her arrest in Texas on June 18, 2021, on a related federal criminal complaint.
According to Haynes’s plea agreement, Haynes helped her co-defendant, Andre Briscoe, with whom she was romantically involved, plan to steal heroin from Jennifer Jeffrey, a long-time friend of Haynes.
On May 26, 2015, Briscoe arrived at Haynes’s apartment from his home in Cambridge. During the course of the evening, Briscoe said that Jeffrey had heroin and he planned to rob and kill Jeffrey to get the heroin. Briscoe confirmed to Haynes his intention to kill not only Jeffrey, but her minor child if the child were present at the time of the robbery.
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Haynes offered to help Briscoe get a gun.
Haynes then contacted a relative whom she knew to have a gun.
In exchange for allowing Haynes to use the gun, Haynes promised to give the relative some of the stolen heroin and give his gun back. Haynes and Briscoe met with the relative’s brother, who gave Haynes a .45 caliber firearm. Haynes and Briscoe returned to Haynes’s apartment with the gun.
According to police, later that night, as detailed in the plea agreement, Briscoe left Haynes’s apartment to go hang out with Jeffrey at Jeffrey’s nearby home. When Haynes woke up later and realized that Briscoe had not returned, Haynes got upset.
Between 4 a.m. and 5 p.m., Haynes walked over to Jeffrey’s home and began banging on the door and yelling for Briscoe to come out. Jeffrey’s relative opened the door and told Haynes that children were in the house asleep and that Haynes should go home, which she eventually did.
According to Haynes’s plea agreement, at approximately 7:23 a.m., Briscoe walked back from Jeffrey’s residence to Haynes’s apartment.
Briscoe told Haynes that Jeffrey had shown him a large amount of heroin and that Jeffrey’s child did not feel well and had not gone to school that day. At approximately 11:41 a.m., Haynes overheard Briscoe on the phone with Jeffrey, who was talking about making breakfast for Briscoe. When Briscoe got off the phone, he retrieved the .45-caliber gun from Haynes’s bedroom and told Haynes that he was going to Jeffrey’s to get the drugs.
When Briscoe returned to Haynes’s apartment, Haynes asked him what had happened. Briscoe told Haynes that Jeffrey and her child were dead and gave Haynes a bag of heroin as her “cut” of Jeffrey’s drugs. As detailed in the plea agreement, Haynes returned the gun, along with the heroin given to her by Briscoe, as payment for the use of the gun.
On May 28, 2015, after a receiving a call for assistance, the Baltimore Police Department discovered Jeffrey and her child dead in their home.
In her plea agreement, Haynes further admitted that she lied to investigators and prosecutors about these events on five occasions between May 2015 and November 2020.
Andre Ricardo Briscoe, a/k/a “Poo”, age 38, of Baltimore and Cambridge, Maryland, was convicted by a federal jury on June 8, 2022, for federal drug distribution charges, use of a firearm to commit murder in relation to drug trafficking crime, killing a witness to prevent communication with law enforcement, and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Briscoe faces a mandatory life sentence for killing a witness and for using a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime resulting in death, related to the murder of Jeffrey’s child.
Judge Bennett has scheduled Briscoe’s sentencing for September 20, 2022 at 11:00 a.m.
“The murders of Jennifer Jeffrey and her child were a senseless tragedy,” said U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron. “Not only did Kiara Haynes have opportunities to prevent the murders of Jennifer Jeffrey and her child, she lied to investigators about what happened after the crimes were committed. If you threaten or harm a witness, especially a child, the full weight of federal law enforcement will be harnessed to hold you accountable and bring you to justice, no matter how long it takes.”
