Man Found Guilty in 2021 Germantown Murder; Instagram Plays Role in Investigation

This afternoon, in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, MD, before John Maloney, a jury found defendant, Mario Samm, 22, of Frederick, MD, guilty of murder in the second-degree and use of a firearm in commission of a crime of violence for the death of 25-year-old Jahandar Darvish. Samm faces up to 60 years in prison. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 19^th, 2023.

This stems from an incident inside Darvish’s apartment on the 19300 block of Circle Gate Drive in Germantown on December 23, 2021. During an altercation, Samm fired seven rounds from two firearms, striking the victim three times. One of the other bullets went through the floor into an apartment unit below. There were no additional injuries. During the investigation it was found that social media posts of the defendant in the weeks preceding the incident, showed him with one of the guns believed to be used in the fatal shooting. Additional information below from the charging documents:

On December 23, 2021, patrols units with the Montgomery County Police Department responded to the area of I9347 Circle Gate Drive, Apartment 201, Germantown, Montgomery County, Maryland 20874 for a report of shooting that just occurred. Upon arrival, units located the victim, identified as Jahandar Darvish, inside the above residence. The victim was obviously deceased and suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. A search warrant was obtained for the apartment and evidence was collected including several .40 caliber spent shell casings and multiple items to submit for DNA processing in the hopes that a DNA profile of the suspect could be obtained.

The investigation revealed that the victim had recently moved from 12809 Pinnacle Drive Apartment 201, Germantown, Montgomery County, 20874 to his current address on Circle Gate Drive. The current resident of Pinnacle Drive met with investigators on December 23, 2021. The current resident of the Pinnacle Drive address stated that on December 23, 2021, at 1612 hours, the Ring video system on the apartment door activated. The video showed a black male wearing a black winter jacket with a fur trimmed hood approaching the door. The male stood at the door for several minutes before talking on his cell phone and leaving the residence. The current resident stated that they did not recognize the male and stated that they believed that the male was looking for the victim.

There was a witness, to be named at a later time, who was present with the victim at his apartment at time of the incident. Immediately before the shooting, the victim was speaking on the phone with a subject and providing directions to his current apartment from his old apartment. The victim stated to the witness that they might know the subject coming over because they are friends on Instagram. Once the subject arrived at the front door to the apartment, the phone conversation ended. The victim, witness and subject were hanging out for approximately 20-30 minutes. The victim and the subject got into an argument, which led to the subject shooting the victim. After the murder, the witness provided the Instagram accounts df_r_da_longwayy and df_rx_longwayy_4life as the accounts believed to belong to the subject who came to the victim’s apartment that day.

Another witness reported hearing the sounds of shots, then observing a black male run from the building and get into a new model, silver GMC SUV. The vehicle pulled out of the parking space and initially went the wrong way to get out of the parking lot to a dead end, turned around and then fled the parking lot at a high rate of speed. The witness was able to take a photograph of the vehicle, and investigators were able to determine that it was a newer model GMC Terrain.

Your affiant was able to link the above mentioned Instagram accounts to a subject identified as Mario Samm, a black male with a date of birth of November 8, 1990. Samm has a long criminal history to include narcotics trafficking, armed robbery, first degree assault and handgun violations. He is a subject well known to law enforcement and has been the subject of several long criminal investigations. The biographical information that is included in his prior social media accounts matches the biographical information which is provided in the above reference Instagram accounts. Photos of the subject in the Instagram account were examined by your affiant and compared to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration photograph on Mario Samm’s driver’s license and it was the same person. Featured photo shows the 19300 block of Circle Gate Drive in Germantown, courtesy of Google Maps