Repeat Offender Sentenced to Life Without Parole After Third Murder Conviction in Baltimore

Repeat Offender Sentenced to Life Without Parole

Reginald Lively, 68, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2021 killing of his neighbor, 68-year-old John Hall III, in Northwest Baltimore, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office announced.

Background and prior convictions

Lively has a decades-long history of violent crime. In 1986 he pleaded guilty in Anne Arundel County to second-degree murder in the death of Eleanor Williams and served eight years of a 20-year sentence. In 2000 he pleaded guilty in North Carolina to second-degree murder in the death of Willy Mae Arrington; he received a 30-year sentence there and served roughly 12 years before being paroled a second time.

Cold case reopened and investigation

Hall’s killing initially went unsolved. The case was revived by the State’s Attorney’s Cold Case Unit under Chief Kurt Bjorklund, whose team pursued additional investigative avenues, including expanded DNA testing. That renewed work, the office says, produced the evidence that led to a jury conviction for first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon.

Crime scene and forensic evidence

On the morning of May 28, 2021, officers responded to an apartment at 3809 Clarks Lane after maintenance workers entered a unit following complaints of water leaking from ceilings. Inside they found Hall unconscious and injured on the floor, covered with a blanket; he was pronounced dead shortly after 11 a.m. An autopsy concluded Hall died of homicide, suffering at least 17 blunt-force injuries and 88 sharp-force wounds.

Investigators learned Hall had reportedly won about $1,000 at a casino the night before, but no comparable cash was found in his apartment. Suspicion turned to Lively, who lived in the same building. Surveillance footage showed a man believed to be Lively entering an elevator at about 6:17 a.m. on the morning of the killing and leaving roughly 35 minutes later carrying a plastic bag that appeared heavy and stained a reddish color; the man returned under 15 minutes later without the bag.

Phone records placed Lively in the building during the likely time of the homicide—between roughly 6:32 and 6:41 a.m. A search warrant executed at Lively’s apartment on June 11, 2021, recovered clothing that matched what the man wore in surveillance footage, and subsequent DNA testing connected Lively to Hall’s unit. During questioning, Lively initially denied involvement, then admitted he was the person in the video but offered conflicting explanations; at one point he claimed the bag contained a wrench taken from a vacant unit, a claim investigators deemed implausible.

"This violent offender should never have been allowed to walk free," State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said on Nov. 12. "Thanks to Chief Bjorklund’s relentless advocacy for Mr. Hall’s family, those days are over. No longer will repeat violent offenders serve a few years only to be released and terrorize our communities again."

Chief Kurt Bjorklund credited the continued collaboration between the Baltimore Police Department and the Cold Case Unit, noting that "fresh eyes" and additional testing were crucial to securing a conviction from a file that already contained significant evidence from 2021.

Outcome

With the life-without-parole sentence, prosecutors say Lively will spend the rest of his life behind bars, concluding a violent criminal history that twice saw him released early before allegedly killing again.