Six days after 21-year-old Jesse Campos was killed inside of his White Oak apartment, detectives from Montgomery County Police's Major Crimes division said they believe he was targeted. They say a second slaying also was not random, though the two have not been officially connected.

Campos, of the 11400 block of July Drive, was fatally shot after two gunmen barged into his apartment Friday, Dec. 7. The suspects left his roommate and an adult female in the apartment uninjured. Officers arrived at the scene around 3:45 p.m. and found him dead, according to police. 

Three days later, police found Christoper White dead on a paved path behind an apartment in the 13900 block of Castle Boulevard. Officers responded to a report that gunshots had been heard and arrived around 9:56 p.m. An autopsy revealed that the 22-year-old from Landover died of gunshot wounds. 

Police held a special meeting for the community Thursday with Lt. Michael Price, acting commander of the 3rd District, which polices from downtown Silver Spring to Burtonsville, and Capt. Marcus Jones, director of Major Crimes, the police department that investigates homicide and sexual assault cases. 

"Right now, we're at the early stages of both investigations," Jones said. "We are currently looking at both of them individually, not ruling out that they could not be connected, but right now we don't have any evidence that supports that."

While Jones said that Campos was targeted, detectives are not sure about White.

"We don't believe that it's a random case," Jones said of White's shooting, "but right now we still have some facts to put together." 

Jones was encouraged by the community cooperation in the cases, something that he said was lacking in previous 3rd District murder investigations, particularly that of Franklin Amobi, a popular rapper from White Oak who was shot last December as he got into a car heading to work.

"We still think there's more witnesses that need to come forward," said Jones. "We feel a little bit better than we did with Frank's murder where we had a lot of people that really did not want to talk to us.

"We think we're making some strides and we'll see how they go," he continued.