The convicted sex offender accused of killing a Maryland probation agent stabbed him repeatedly in the head and neck, wrapped his body in plastic bags and pushed the victim under a bed in his Chevy Chase apartment, according to new court filings and prosecutors’ first comments on the case.
Emanuel Edward Sewell, 54, was ordered held Monday after a brief hearing in Montgomery County District Court. He is charged with murder in the May 31 death of Davis Martinez, 33.
The agent was conducting a routine visit alone to Sewell’s home, authorities said, and was attacked even as he wore his bulletproof vest. He suffered at least five wounds to his head and face, a stab wound to his brain and a six-inch slashing to his neck, prosecutors said.
“It was a brutal killing,” Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said.
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Last week, as union leaders representing agents continued to decry operating procedures at the state’s Division of Parole and Probation, state officials announced a management shake-up at the agency. They also suspended at-home visits by their agents as an investigation into what happened continues.
Sewell had been under supervision for several years after his release from prison in 2021. That earlier case — as detailed in court documents and recordings — was described by his own attorneys as horrific. Just after midnight on Oct. 18, 1996, according to court records, Sewell climbed through a ground-level window of a Montgomery County apartment, slipped into the bedroom and woke a young physicist by holding a knife to his throat.
“Don’t move, don’t scream,” Sewell told the man, according to prosecutors at the time. “I will cut you.”
Sewell bound the man’s arms and legs, gagged his mouth, and raped him, according to court proceedings. He left with the victim’s ATM card, videocassette recorder and 1991 Plymouth, court records say. Sewell later told a judge that the ravages of drug addiction played a role in his attacking a stranger.
“He was a victim of the evil that was in me,” Sewell said at the time.
Martinez’s co-workers have described him as dedicated, caring and generous. He had worked as a probation and parole agent for six years.
“He was just a really great person. He is a hero,” said Rayneika Robinson, president of the Division of Parole and Probation employees’ AFSCME Maryland local.
On Monday, prosecutors ticked off the series of injuries suffered by Martinez in arguing that Sewell should continue to be held without bond. “Six-inch cut to the jugular ... four to five stab wounds to the head ... stab wound above the eye,” Montgomery Deputy State’s Attorney Ryan Wechsler said in court.
She added that Martinez suffered bruises to his face and “defensive wounds,” suggesting the agent was trying to ward off the blows. Prosecutors said they intend to seek an indictment for first-degree murder, a step above Sewell’s current charge of second-degree murder.
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An attorney representing Sewell, Ilan Friedmann of the Maryland Public Defender’s Office, did not address the allegations in court. Judge William Simmons ordered that Sewell remain held without bond.
Sewell grew up in the D.C. area and was placed in and out of foster care. He moved at least 10 times before turning 16, according to his attorneys in the sex-assault case. He starred as a football player in high school in Montgomery County, they said, but was soon waylaid by cocaine use and mental illness.
Sewell had bright spots — earning his GED, buying a home in Rockville in his early 20s and working in accounting. “You have some gifts that a lot of people don’t have,” Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge D. Warren Donohue told Sewell years ago. “You strike me as being quite intelligent.”
By the mid-1990s, Sewell was smoking $150 worth of crack cocaine daily, his attorneys said in court hearings at that time. He went through bouts of homelessness and repeated suicide attempts — at one point jumping from Sugarloaf Mountain and at another from the top of a parking garage, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to robbery in 1995 after taking a woman’s purse and, after a brief stint in jail, was sentenced to probation, according to court records.
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In early 1996, prosecutors said, the young physicist took a job in Montgomery County in part because he believed it would be safer than living in Washington, according to then-Assistant State’s Attorney James Trusty. The apartment where he lived was near traffic, Trusty said, so he slept with earplugs. On a night in October 1996, unusually warm weather prompted him to leave a window open.
About 1 a.m., according to authorities, Sewell cut through a screen and got inside. He confronted the victim in his bed, bound him and sexually assaulted him. “Mr. Sewell threatened him with the knife, showed him the knife, and said, ‘I will cut you,’ or even that ‘I will kill you,’” Trusty said in court on April 18, 1997, when Sewell pleaded guilty to the attack.
During the crime, Sewell had grown angry that there was little money in the apartment. At another point, according to Trusty, Sewell told the man he shouldn’t leave his window open. He took the VCR and the ATM card, and, with the victim still bound, he hid his telephone in the refrigerator before leaving.
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The victim managed to wiggle free in about 10 minutes, eventually found his phone and called the police. Two weeks later, police spotted the physicist’s stolen Plymouth, pulled it over and found Sewell behind the wheel. It was evident, prosecutors said, that he had been living in the car.
Sewell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for a first-degree sex offense and additional time for a burglary count. He was released in 2021 under Maryland’s mandatory release provisions, which take into account credits that prisoners can earn for good conduct and participating in programs. Sewell was supervised by agents from Maryland’s parole and probation agency.
In his case, that meant routine visits to an apartment where he lived along Terrace Drive in an area of Montgomery north of East-West Highway and midway between Connecticut Avenue and 16th Street.
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Accounts differ on what kind of probation client Sewell was. Carolyn Scruggs, the head of Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said he “had not shown to pose a risk prior.” But Patrick Moran, president of the AFSCME Maryland employees’ union, said agents had raised concerns.
“This guy was known to be a problem,” Moran said.
It’s not clear exactly when Martinez arrived at Sewell’s home on May 31. He was not armed with a handgun, as is typical for probation agents, according to their union. He was wearing a bulletproof vest.
A neighbor would later tell detectives there was a knock at Sewell’s door about 9 a.m. Sometime later, the witness noticed a white Ford Taurus, which turned out to be Martinez’s state-issued car, parked outside. Several hours later, about 2 p.m., the witness said, Sewell walked from his apartment carrying two clear bags of clothes, climbed into his Hyundai Elantra and drove off.
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Shortly before 6 p.m., after Martinez had not reported back, Montgomery County police officers were called to the apartment. They eventually forced their way inside and “found an unresponsive male wrapped in multiple plastic bags underneath a bed,” investigators wrote in court papers. “Officers noted the body appeared to be in the fetal position and observed a bloodied towel near the front door.”
A manhunt for Sewell ensued. About 5 p.m. the next day, U.S. marshals in West Virginia got notice that Sewell’s Elantra was in the Hurricane area. Joined by state and local authorities, they saturated the area, spotting the car along Interstate 64 and tried to pull it over, according to Deputy U.S. Marshal Mark Waggamon. But the driver wouldn’t stop.
The marshals pinned the Elantra, disabling it, and approached on foot, Waggamon said. Sewell wasn’t armed, he said, but had to be forced out of the car.
Sewell was held in West Virginia for about a week before returning to Montgomery County on Friday, according to court records.
