It wasn’t like Keith Allen Garrett not to pick up the phone.

He was the chatty type. Every day, he spoke to his parents several times and his brother at least once. He rang his cousins regularly. He didn’t have any kids, but he loved hearing about all of his nieces and nephews and their shenanigans.

So when he didn’t call a cousin back on July 12, the family thought something might be wrong. When he didn’t pick up the phone hours later, they knew. Barbara Garrett, another cousin, decided to check on him at his Belair-Edison rowhome and found his screen door ajar and front door unlocked. His French bulldog, Draco, was barking inside.

She called police, who found the 60 year-old dead of “trauma to the body.” It was a homicide, officials determined. His wallet was the only item missing from the home, family said.

Who would kill Keith Garrett, the model neighbor who lived on Chesterfield Avenue for more than three decades? The retired educator who loved learning and devoted his life to teaching and mentoring inner-city kids? The man who set up an iPhone for his elderly neighbor and helped a nearby couple adopt a dog in need of a home?

As the investigation into his death continues, family members are remembering the son, brother and cousin they knew and loved, and trying to determine the best way to celebrate his life.

It was a full one.

“He didn’t look at who you were or where you came from,” Barbara Garrett said. “It was always: Somebody needed help, and he always was that one who always wanted to help, not just family but his friends.”

Keith Garrett was born Dec. 29, 1964, to Jean Allen Garrett and Thomas Lightfoot Garrett Sr. He was raised in New Canton, Virginia, a tiny town between Charlottesville and Richmond. He and his younger brother, Tommy Lightfoot Garrett Jr., were complete opposites as children — and as adults — but they loved each other just the same.

Keith Garrett was a bookworm from the very beginning, his brother said, and his nearly perfect memory made it easy for him to collect and share fun facts. He had a special gift for science and math, which he pursued into adulthood. He was also very athletic, starting karate around age 8 or 9. In high school, he played football and basketball — a natural fit, given he stood at about 6-foot-4.

He was a jubilant, extroverted child who always gave people the benefit of the doubt, Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said. Through six decades, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen his brother upset. It was an outlook that guided him to city life — he wanted to be around people, in a bustling area, where he could be as social as he wished, his brother said.

“He cared about what people thought, made sure they were happy,” Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said. “He wanted the best for everyone. He motivated others.”

After graduating from high school in 1983, Keith Garrett enlisted in the Army. Even though his parents weren’t on board, he saw military service as a way out of his hometown and a path to education. He always wanted to do things by himself, including paying tuition, Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said.

He was an intelligence officer and sergeant in the Army, serving in South Korea and Alaska, his brother said. While in the military, he started taking classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage. After being honorably discharged in the late 1980s, he took classes at various universities before earning a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Virginia, his brother said.

Keith Garrett moved to Baltimore in the 1990s, drawn to city life and vast family ties here. He enrolled at Johns Hopkins University and earned a chemical engineering degree, just because he loved learning, Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said. He started teaching — his true passion — and quickly became involved in his new community.

He felt a calling to help the less fortunate, especially children. The seventh-degree black belt volunteered to teach kids karate, a cousin said. In 1994, he earned a citizen citation from former Mayor Kurt Schmoke for his “untiring hours of volunteerism rendered to support the youth of the Sandtown-Winchester community.”

Keith Garrett always felt a little guilty that he had grown up comfortably when others couldn’t, his brother said. When he came to Baltimore, he saw many broken families and children facing difficult upbringings, Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said, “and he just thought, ‘They have such potential. So many of these kids are so intelligent.’”

He taught for several years before getting meningitis around 2000. The illness affected his brain, and he needed to get a shunt put in his head, Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said. Keith Garrett decided to retire and go on disability, and he started tutoring students from his home. He catered to children with learning disorders and those facing poverty.

Staying at home also meant more time with his dogs and cats, whom Keith Garrett treated like his children. He enjoyed getting to know his neighbors and was the resident house sitter.

Over the past few years, Keith Garrett spent most of his days reminiscing and laughing with family members. They always teased him about his locs, which his relatives begged him to cut. He finally did earlier this year, in solidarity with his baby niece who lost her hair to cancer.

Just before his killing, he attended a graduation party for one of his nieces. He stressed to his cousin, Sarah Garrett, how great it was to have the family together for a positive occasion.

“He was just a lot of fun to be around, but he had a quietness about him,” Sarah Garrett said. “As much as he would joke, he had this very soft gentleness.”

Keith Garrett had also been diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half earlier, but the prognosis was good, his brother said. He took health and fitness seriously and often went on runs. He had so many years left to live.

“He just was always so positive and always saw the good in people,” Tommy Lightfoot Garrett said. “It’s just devastating to me. They took his wallet, but he would have given them anything if they needed it. They didn’t have to rob him.”

The Banner publishes news stories about people who have recently died in Maryland. If your loved one has passed and you would like to inquire about an obituary, please contact obituary@thebaltimorebanner.com. If you are interested in placing a paid death notice, please contact groupsales@thebaltimorebanner.com or visit this website.