A key witness against a triple shooting suspect went missing Friday, forcing Baltimore City prosecutors to place the case on an inactive docket.

Prosecutors said they couldn’t find the only person able to identify Vincent Berry, 19, as the shooter of three people on the 1300 block of North Luzerne Avenue on April 25.

Prosecutors asked Baltimore City Circuit Judge Michel Pierson to postpone the case until they could find their witness, but he refused, causing them to place the case on a stet - or inactive — docket.

“When [you] find this witness, we will prosecute this case,” said Joseph Sviatko, a spokesman for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office. “We’ve dismissed cases in the past only to reopen them once the missing witnesses were located.”

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The missing witness wasn’t the first problem in the state’s case against Berry.

In November, a potential witness for prosecutors, one of three people shot in North Luzerne Avenue incident, was murdered.

Carlos Smithson, 22, was killed on Grogan Avenue, only days before Berry’s trial was initially scheduled to begin. The judge granted a postponement after Smithson’s killing.

Prosecutors said they hoped Smithson would testify, but he was not cooperative.

Smithson would not give any statement to police and refused to identify who shot him before he was killed.

Smithson’s murder remains unsolved.

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com