Baltimore County judge won’t throw out murder case over warrantless cellphone search

A Baltimore County judge won’t throw out the case against a man charged in a fatal stabbing after a police detective looked through his cellphone without a search warrant and later lied about it.

Detective Storm Sheckells accurately guessed the passcode to Rashard Mack’s iPhone — it was his date of birth — and unlocked it on five separate occasions, according to court testimony. He’s been suspended with pay pending an internal investigation, police said.

For weeks, prosecutors maintained that police did not search the Baltimore man’s phone before obtaining a warrant, but later conceded that they had.

On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Michael Finifter ruled that the approximately 5% of data that could not have been obtained by police without the passcode cannot be used at trial. But he declined to dismiss the charges.

“The independent evidence of the charged offense, including his own recorded admissions and the crime scene evidence, is substantial and untainted,” Finifter wrote, adding that he concluded prosecutors had acted in good faith.

One of Mack’s attorneys, Assistant Public Defender Maureen Apugo, described the detective’s actions as brazen police misconduct. Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger has said Sheckells “misled us and others that he had not looked through the phone.”

Mack, 24, is being held without bail and awaiting trial on charges including first-degree murder in the killing of his ex-girlfriend Taejhiana Walker, 22, of New York, inside her Parkville apartment on March 29, 2025.