Three days after the stabbing death of a correctional officer inside a state prison in Jessup, the two inmates accused in the killing appeared in Anne Arundel County District Court yesterday under heavy guard as a judge ordered them held without bond.
Shackled at the feet, waist and wrists, with their hands encased in black glove-like material, Lamarr C. Harris, 35, and Lee E. Stephens, 27, looked unconcerned and said little as they faced Judge Megan B. Johnson, who read the charges against them in connection with the death of 42-year-old correction officer David McGuinn. Each man is charged with first- and second-degree murder and could face the death penalty.
McGuinn was stabbed in the neck Tuesday night by inmates apparently armed with homemade knives, after they jammed old locks to their cell doors and attacked the two-year veteran of the department, investigators said.
Additional information contained in court documents show the officer called for assistance on his radio that night and by the time help arrived, McGuinn was found "staggering down the steps with his face and head covered with blood."
Other officers stationed inside the maximum-security Maryland House of Correction in Jessup did a cursory search and spotted Harris washing what were believed to be bloody clothes and sheets in his cell sink, court papers say. The officers also found a bloody T-shirt and bloody boots under Stephens' bed, the documents say.
According to the statement, the officers also noticed a laceration on the knuckle of Harris' right ring finger.
A witness, unidentified in the court papers, told officers he watched as McGuinn was being stabbed, identifying Harris as the assailant.
"The victim was bent forward at the waist with his hands shielding his face. The defendant was raising his arm up and down in a stabbing motion. The witness saw the defendant strike the victim at least three times. The witness heard the victim cry in pain each time he was being stabbed," the papers continue.
McGuinn is the second Maryland correctional officer killed this year, a year in which the troubled prison system has been racked with violence. In January, Jeffery A. Wroten, a correctional officer at the Roxbury Correctional Institution, was killed with his own gun, allegedly by an inmate he was guarding at a Hagerstown hospital.
The Jessup prison was under lockdown at the time of the most recent killing, with prisoners confined mostly to their cells because of rumors that inmates were planning to attack an officer.
