Daniel Greene Went From Being a Hero to a Murderer — Where Is the Disgraced Firefighter Now?
“He was living a double life,” said Daniel Greene's wife. “He had his wife and kids at home and his girlfriend on the side."
Published March 8 2024, 7:00 p.m. ET
Daniel Greene and his wife Jennifer Greene
In 1988 during his inaugural address, newly elected mayor Kurt Schmoke referred to Baltimore as The City That Reads. For years the city's benches were painted with that slogan, despite the fact that Baltimore had a disturbingly high illiteracy rate at the time of the slogan's inception. Privately, the people of Baltimore would jokingly refer to it as The City That Bleeds based on the fact that it has dominated the national average in terms of violent crimes.
One of the worst years Baltimore ever saw for violent crime was 2017, and in November of that year, one murder in particular created a stir among the first responder community. A Prince George's County firefighter by the name of Daniel Greene was arrested and charged with the murder of Baltimore Fire Department recruit Jon Hickey. Why did this happen and where is Daniel Greene now? Here's what we know.
Where is Daniel Greene now? He will be spending the rest of his life in prison.
According to WBAL, Greene was sentenced to life plus 20 years in February 2024. He was convicted in June 2023 of "first-degree murder, home invasion and use of a handgun in a violent crime," reported the outlet. Greene's sentencing was postponed from September 2023 when his attorney told the judge Greene was seeking new counsel. Warren Brown, his former lawyer, said he and Greene had come to an "impasse," and that new evidence made the case "not a closed matter," per WJZ .
Ultimately the judge granted the postponement saying, "I want to do this right for everyone." Naturally Hickey's family disagreed with this decision, and were very vocal about it in the courtroom. Speaking with WJZ outside of the courthouse, Hickey's mother said, "I'd love to know what kind of evidence he thinks he's coming up with because everything was shown in court."
On the day of his sentencing, the only new information brought to the table was the fact that Greene had found religion while incarcerated. The Baltimore Witness, a website that believes in transparency when in comes to crime data, was in the courtroom as Hickey's mother requested the death penalty be reinstated for this case. This of course did not go through. The very last thing the prosecutor said to the court was, "The reality is [Greene’s] a cold-blooded murderer."
Police look at video footage of Greene breaking into Hickey's home
What happened to Jon Hickey?
"[Daniel Greene] was living a double life," Greene's wife Jennifer told the jury during his trial, per WBAL. "He had his wife and kids at home and his girlfriend on the side." It was Greene's obsession with his ex-mistress that led him to Hickey's house the night of Nov. 30, 2017.
Greene had been able to hide his affair by faking business trips, and had pretended to be single by using fake divorce papers, a fake custody agreement, and a fake bachelor pad.
When the affair ended, Greene used his wife's laptop to stalk the Facebook page of his ex-mistress. He would frequently visit this woman's profile as well as Hickey's, the man she was dating. This is how Greene was able to track down Hickey's address. In surveillance footage obtained by police, Greene is seen pacing out on the sidewalks before and after the killing, per WBAL. Hickey was asleep on his couch and was shot in the head.
Greene's attorney argued this is circumstantial evidence because the face of the person in the video was covered. However, this person gets in and out of a black pickup truck, the same kind of truck Greene also owned at the time. Despite what Greene's lawyer asserted, the video surveillance combined with Greene's obsessive stalking of the couple online was enough for the jury to find him guilty.
