Sherry Crandell of Bowie, Prince George’s County, Maryland, United States grew up in Maine, USA. She was a devout Catholic.
Crandell worked as a nurse and an administrator at Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly, Prince George’s County. She supervised the family health center inside the hospital, which was a clinic that functioned as an outpatient doctor’s office.
Sherry Crandell
At around 8:30 p.m. on January 13, 1998, Crandell was found dead inside her Prince George’s Hospital Center office. She was 50.
That evening, Edward Barry Watts, then 48, sexually assaulted and strangled Crandell in her office. Although a male deoxyribonucleic acid profile was recovered from the scene, no suspect was identified.
At the time of Crandell’s death, she was going through a divorce. She has two sons namely Darren Crandell and Luke Crandell and a daughter named Tiffany Crandell.
Darren was in college at the time. He rushed to the hospital as soon as he was informed about his mother’s murder.
Edna Brown
Edna Brown was a housekeeper at the hospital. She told Prince George’s County Police Department officers that she saw Sherry being attacked when she walked past the victim’s office, which was on the fourth floor.
“I heard the lady screaming twice,” Brown said of Sherry. “I saw the lady laying on the floor. The man’s hands were around her neck.”
According Brown, the attacker was wearing a white doctor’s coat and had a stethoscope around his neck. She said, “I thought the man was helping her (but it) seems like he wasn’t helping her. He was hurting her.”
The Prince George’s County Police Department believed Brown had a mental disability and did not believe her claims so her testimony was kept confidential. She died in 2015.
Baari Shabazz
Watts had a long criminal history. In 1972, he was convicted for the attempted rape of a pregnant woman.
At the time of Sherry’s murder, Watts lived less than a mile from Prince George’s Hospital Center. He later changed his name to Baari Shabazz.
Investigators believe Shabazz may have entered the hospital intending to steal something. However, the motive for the murder is still unclear.
In 2019, Shabazz died. He was 69.
In 2021, detectives from the Cold Case Unit of the Prince George’s County Police Department obtained a warrant to investigate genetic material collected after the murder. They brought the evidence to the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation‘s field office in Baltimore, Maryland.
In October 2025, Shabazz was identified as the man who murdered Sherry. The FBI made the match when the DNA from the crime scene was compared with the DNA from his nephew.
CONAN Daily 