Four days after the verdict, now-Corporal David McDougall sat in his black SUV outside of the federal courthouse as a cold rain misted the windows. He had eschewed his typical plaid shirt and jeans for a suit.

“This is an important day for the investigation,” he said. “It’s been a crazy journey.”

Moments earlier, Antonio “Brill” Shropshire was sentenced in front of a packed audience, including his mother, father, his two grandmothers and dozens of other friends and family who watched the proceeding with red-rimmed eyes. Several begged Judge Blake to spare Shropshire the maximum sentence so he could one day come home to his young son. McDougall sat at the prosecution’s table, alongside Wise and Hines.

Shropshire, a tall, bearded man in a maroon prison uniform, called McDougall and the government’s lawyers “liars”, and continued to deny he was ever the leader of a large-scale heroin operation. But he also promised to lead a crime-free life if he were allowed to return home.

“Heroin kills people, Mr Shropshire,” said Judge Blake. “Mr Shropshire continued to sell this poison. Does that mean he’s a monster? Of course not.”

She sentenced him to 25 years in prison. Both Shropshire and Glen Kyle Wells are appealing against their convictions.

McDougall said he thought the sentence was fair, and was pleased by the guilty verdicts at the GTTF trial. But he doesn’t get too emotional about this stuff.

“It’s just part of the job. Just going through the steps now.”

None of the eight officers has been sentenced - Judge Blake is expected to make those decisions in spring. Hendrix, Ward, Allers and Rayam are facing 20 years; Gondo, Hersl and Taylor could get up to 60 years.

Wayne Jenkins is expected to receive between 20 and 30 years in federal prison. Should he choose to make a statement, the sentencing would be the first time the public will hear directly from him. Through his lawyer, he declined to comment for this story.

It will also be the first opportunity his victims will have to address him, a day that Ronald Hamilton is eagerly awaiting.

“I’ll be the first one,” he said. “This has ruined me. This has crushed me.”

In the course of testimony, the names of an additional 11 current and former Baltimore city police officers came out, including a former partner of Jenkins’ and a high-ranking deputy commissioner. None has been charged, and a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department says they are actively investigating the allegations raised at trial. One commander was demoted. Two lieutenants who directly supervised Jenkins remain on the force.

“It ain’t over. It’s just begun,” says Shawn Whiting, who pointed out his arrest involved additional officers. “It’s way far bigger than people think.”

Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh fired Commissioner Kevin Davis the Friday before the GTTF trial began, citing “impatience” with the climbing homicide rate. Davis was replaced by his deputy commissioner Darryl De Sousa, who announced a slew of reforms, including random ethics tests and polygraphs for officers. According to a spokesman, new checks and balances will be implemented to make sure gun cases are tracked from “arrest to adjudication”, and an anti-corruption unit will be established to focus specifically on the misconduct of the Gun Trace Task Force officers.

Critics have questioned how an investigative unit housed within the BPD will be any different than the current Internal Affairs division, which failed to root out the GTTF officers.

“We still believe we have the capability to investigate on our own - we have to, that’s the bottom line,” says TJ Smith, chief of media relations.

After years of fighting for the right to view officers’ Internal Affairs files, Deborah Katz Levi, in charge of the public defender's special litigation projects, says that a month after the end of the trial she’s suddenly been granted “unparalleled access” to 21 officers’ files, including some members of the GTTF.

Levi says they're now working with the State's Attorney's Office to expand the number of convictions "that need to be undone". The office says their initial assessment concluded that 284 cases - active or closed - have been affected by the seven originally indicted GTTF officers. Mosby's office will only proceed on three active cases. She has also told the media that after factoring in the expanded timeline and additional officers whose names arose at trial, the number of cases involved could rise to “thousands”.

Mosby fired an assistant state’s attorney from her staff in February, but has never said whether this person leaked information to Jenkins.

“The [US Attorney's office] has shared components of its GTTF investigation with our office and we are not at liberty to comment,” Mosby’s spokeswoman wrote.

The ripple effects of the case are constant and ongoing. Andre Crowder and other victims of the GTTF moved away from the city of Baltimore for fear of retaliation. Sticky, the alleged murderer of Davon Robinson, will go on trial this spring. He has pleaded not guilty.

Among Baltimore citizens and police officers alike, there is sharp disagreement on how Sean Suiter died. Earlier this year, the FBI declined to take the case.

A state senator proposed the creation of a special commission with subpoena power to perform a detailed two-year investigation into the GTTF, and answer the lingering questions surrounding the BPD. However, Mayor Pugh says the police department is already under federal oversight, and that her changes to the upper ranks will be sufficient to address the GTTF’s impact.

“I believe in the work that is currently already under way,” she says.

Back in Harford County, new dealers have stepped into the vacuum left by Shropshire and Anderson. There have been 103 overdoses in 2018, so far, putting the county on track for another record breaking year.

McDougall continues to investigate overdoses. He arrives on the scene of parents’ worst nightmares, he removes bodies from childhood bedrooms. He admits there’s a feeling he’s chasing his own tail, sometimes.

“Somebody’s got to do the job,” he says. ”That’s me.”