Investigators said Cedric Callaway’s injuries, statements and movements did not match the account he gave police after Sarah Bundy disappeared.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Cedric Dion Callaway told police that armed robbers had attacked him and left his wife missing, but investigators said the story soon collided with what they saw on his body, what cameras recorded and what he said before detectives told him Sarah Elizabeth Bundy was dead.
That series of contradictions became a defining feature of a murder investigation that ended Sept. 15, 2026, with Callaway sentenced to life in prison with all but 40 years suspended. The 51-year-old Curtis Bay man pleaded guilty to first-degree murder during the fourth day of his jury trial, admitting responsibility for killing Bundy, 44, in May 2025. The sentence imposed by Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Christine Celeste concluded the main criminal case more than 15 months after Bundy was found dead in a Brooklyn Park alley.
Callaway’s robbery account entered the investigation unexpectedly. Anne Arundel County homicide detectives were still working the scene where Bundy’s body had been found when a Baltimore police officer contacted them. Baltimore officers had Callaway in custody on an unrelated matter, and he had a story about what happened the night before. He said he and his wife had been robbed in the area where investigators were examining the death. He claimed he had been pistol-whipped and said Bundy remained missing. A local report citing charging documents said Callaway told officers he escaped the robbery on foot, leaving his wife behind.
Investigators found problems with that account almost immediately. Detectives said Callaway showed no injuries consistent with being struck with a gun. They instead observed apparent blood on his hands and beneath his fingernails. At the same time, footage collected from near the homicide scene showed a man whose appearance investigators said matched Callaway’s. That man was shown with a woman matching Bundy before she was found dead. The emerging evidence did not merely raise questions about the alleged robbery; according to police, it increasingly placed Callaway in the chain of events they were trying to reconstruct.
Then came a statement prosecutors highlighted in both their plea and sentencing announcements. Detectives transported Callaway to the Anne Arundel County Police Criminal Investigations Division. Upon arrival, prosecutors said, he made an unsolicited remark that he was going to “prison.” He also said he would kill himself if he was being charged with murder. Authorities said the timing stood out because detectives had not yet informed Callaway that Bundy was dead. The state’s public account does not include the complete interview, so it does not establish every fact Callaway had learned before making the statement, but prosecutors repeatedly cited the remark when describing the evidence.
While those contradictions focused attention on Callaway, surveillance footage gave investigators an independent way to examine the couple’s movements. Video from a nearby camera showed a woman matching Bundy accompanied by a man dressed in dark clothing and a black hooded sweatshirt during the early morning of May 23, 2025. Investigators said the man guided her toward Alley 79. That was the same alley where Bundy would be found later that morning. Police treated the unidentified man in the recording as a person of interest before determining that Callaway matched his appearance.
A separate set of cameras added more detail. Prosecutors said video from a laundromat at 716 Church Street recorded Callaway and Bundy together until about 12:15 a.m. The pair left and headed toward Sixth Street. At approximately 1:30 a.m., footage showed Callaway returning alone from the direction of Alley 79. This time he carried a jacket and a crossbody bag. Authorities said Bundy had been wearing that bag in earlier video. The recording also showed Callaway throwing the jacket into an outside trash can. The state did not publicly describe laboratory testing associated with those items in its sentencing release, so no additional forensic conclusions about them have been asserted.
The crime scene itself had been reported hours later. Anne Arundel County police said officers were dispatched at about 9:05 a.m. on May 23 to the area of Disney Road and Alley 79 after someone reported a person lying on the ground. Officers found a dead woman with visible trauma. The department’s first announcement said investigators had not yet identified her. Homicide detectives and Evidence Collection Unit personnel took over the scene, and the body was sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore.
Authorities identified the victim as Bundy by the next day. Prosecutors later said tires had been placed over her body in what investigators believed was an effort to conceal it. They described significant trauma to her head, face and neck but did not publish unnecessary graphic details. Reporting based on the charging documents said police identified Bundy through tattoos. The same charging records, as reported by WMAR, said a witness heard a woman shouting words to the effect of “I love you, don’t hurt me” around the time surveillance footage placed Bundy and the man near the alley.
The robbery claim therefore sat beside a growing set of contradictory facts: investigators said Callaway had none of the injuries expected from the attack he described; he had apparent blood on his hands; cameras placed him with Bundy before she disappeared; video showed him returning alone from the direction of the alley; he was carrying a bag authorities associated with Bundy; and he made a statement about prison and a possible murder charge before detectives had told him his wife was dead. Each fact came from a different part of the investigation, allowing prosecutors to present the case as a convergence of evidence rather than a single disputed observation.
Police obtained an arrest warrant for Callaway on May 23, the day Bundy was found, and announced the arrest in a May 24 update. The formal circuit court case followed the next month. A Maryland Judiciary filing report shows Callaway was indicted in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court on June 20, 2025, on one count of first-degree murder. Public reports do not provide every procedural event between that indictment and trial, but the charge remained first-degree murder when the case went before a jury in August 2026.
The trial lasted into its fourth day before the prosecution was relieved of having to prove the charge to a verdict. On Aug. 13, 2026, Callaway pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in front of Celeste. State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess called the plea unexpected and said it came after several days in which the state had been presenting its case. Her office said Assistant State’s Attorney Katherine D. Anthony prosecuted the case and that the Anne Arundel County Police Homicide Unit led the investigation.
The guilty plea also changed the legal meaning of the evidence that had accumulated. Before the plea, the surveillance footage, police observations, witness information and Callaway’s statements were evidence the state intended to use to establish guilt. After Callaway admitted first-degree murder, the case moved into sentencing. Under Maryland law, a person convicted of first-degree murder receives life imprisonment or, when separate statutory requirements are satisfied, life without parole. Celeste imposed a life sentence and suspended all but 40 years.
At sentencing, Leitess described Bundy’s killing as a “brutal, calculated act of domestic violence.” She said the 40-year unsuspended term ensured accountability while acknowledging that no punishment could restore Bundy to her family. The state’s sentencing announcement did not contain a statement from Callaway, a detailed defense presentation or a transcript of victim-impact remarks. Those gaps are significant because they limit what can responsibly be said about the positions presented to the judge beyond the information authorities made public.
The court judgment left no unresolved question about the charge on which Callaway was convicted. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life with all but 40 years suspended. What began with his claim that an unknown attacker had assaulted him and taken his wife ended with his own admission that he was responsible for her murder.
Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.