A District man charged in the killing of a transgender woman in Montgomery County last April was sentenced to 30 years in state prison on Friday.
Renier, then 21, of Fort Dupont Terrace fatally stabbed Keyonna Blakeney, 22. Blakeney was found dead of multiple stab wounds in the Red Roof Inn on Shady Grove Road in Rockville on April 16, 2016.
Five days earlier, police records in the District and Maryland show, Renier had pleaded guilty to pulling a knife on a Metro platform, in a case with a simple assault and weapon charge. Renier was awaiting sentencing in a District case, and on April 25, 2016, he was sentenced to probation and ordered to attend anger management classes.
In Blakeney’s killing, court documents show Renier arrived at the Red Roof Inn along with a second suspect via an Uber car arranged and paid for by Blakeney. A confidential informant told detectives the second suspect had arranged to meet Blakeney under the false pretense of a date and instead intended to rob her with Renier’s help. Court documents said the room in which Blakeney was found dead “appeared to have been ransacked.”
Police in court files said the second suspect knew Blakeney and that one of his relatives had dated her.
