2 Brothers Were Likely Targeted in Attack, Police Say

Noe Navarro Gutierrez and his brother were walking home from work Tuesday, only a few hundred feet from their home in Waldorf, when two men approached, Navarro Gutierrez recalled. One produced a pistol, holding it to Navarro Gutierrez's head. The other produced a knife, holding his brother hostage about 10 paces back, Navarro Gutierrez said.

According to police, the men wanted money and a cellphone. Navarro Gutierrez, who had worked as a police officer in El Salvador for nearly a dozen years, wasn't having it.

Navarro Gutierrez said that as his brother yelled in Spanish for the men to "leave him alone," he grabbed the barrel of his assailant's pistol and put a hand on his throat. Both attackers fled, but not before one fatally stabbed Lesponado Geremias-Navarro Gutierrez, 30, authorities said.

"We were always together," Noe Navarro Gutierrez, 34, said in an interview Wednesday. "We were brothers."

The brothers did not appear to know their attackers, police said. Investigators believe they were targeted, if only because two of their housemates were robbed two weeks earlier around the same time, they said.

"Certainly we're investigating whether or not there's a link there," said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Charles County Sheriff's Office. "The chances of it being a coincidence are slim."

Police said the Navarro Gutierrez brothers were attacked as they walked home to the 900 block of Truro Lane about 10:30 p.m. from work at the nearby Yums Grand Buffet. Navarro Gutierrez said his police training kicked in almost immediately after his brother distracted the gunman.

"I put one hand on [the gunman's] throat and the other on the gun and forced it down so he wouldn't shoot me or my brother," he said.

The assailants operated a little differently when they attacked and robbed two of the brothers' housemates just before 11 p.m. July 17, police said. In that case, two men, 51 and 43, were walking home and when the older one stopped to check the mail, a group approached him from behind, police said. The assailants knocked him unconscious and took his money, cellphone, credit card and identification, police said. When the younger man tried to help, the robbers sprayed him in the face with a substance that burned his eyes, police said.

Navarro Gutierrez said he and his brother lived with about eight other housemates.

Richardson said the sheriff's office is offering a $5,000 reward in addition to the $1,000 offered by Crime Solvers for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case. She said the homicide is Charles County's fourth this year. Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS.