Maryland man sentenced for participating in Franklin County
A Maryland man who was part of a triple homicide in Franklin County that authorities say was due to drugs and a romantic relationship involving a police informant was sentenced Thursday.
Kenyatta Corbett, 41, was sentenced to life imprisonment by United States District Court Judge Christopher Conner, according to a news release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). A consecutive 20-year term was also handed to Corbett on a companion robbery charge.
Three people were found by Pennsylvania State Police after they were zipped-tied, shot execution-style, and then set on fire inside a barn along Welsh Run Road in Mercersburg in June 2016. Two of the victims were found dead but one was rushed to York Hospital where he later died, the release states.
Evidence presented by prosecutors during Corbett’s guilty plea showed that the female victim who was aiding federal authorities in the drug trafficking case, was in a relationship with two other co-defendants, the DOJ said.
When it was discovered by Corbett and other defendants that the woman was helping authorities, they planned for her murder and hired a Baltimore-based gang to head to the property and kill her the DOJ said.
In order to try and protect the group’s drug trafficking activities the woman was killed but the other two were murdered because they were witnesses, the release states.
The gang was promised that they could take $20,000 that was supposed to be in a safe inside the barn along with any drugs and firearms they could find. No money was ever found on the property.
In total, there were 14 other people charged in the case that took seven years for authorities to investigate.
The following federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies participated in the
investigation: Drug Enforcement Administration Harrisburg Resident Office; Pennsylvania State
Police, Chambersburg; Pennsylvania State Police, Troop H; Franklin County Drug Task Force;
Franklin County Adult Probation; Pennsylvania State Probation and Parole; Hagerstown Police
Department, Criminal Investigation Division; Drug Enforcement Administration, Hagerstown
Resident Office; Washington County Narcotics Task Force; Drug Enforcement Administration,
Baltimore District Office, Strike Force Group 1; Maryland State Police Homicide Unit;
Baltimore Police Department Narcotics, Fugitive, And Homicide Units; Baltimore County Police
Department Narcotics and Gang Unit; Federal Bureau of Investigation Evidence Management
Unit, Quantico, VA; US Marshal’s Service Harrisburg, PA and Phoenix, AZ; Franklin County
District Attorney’s Office; United States Attorney’s Office, District Of Maryland; and the
Washington County State’s Attorney’s Office.
