Since Anthony Fertitta's burning body was found on a sidewalk in Millersville, investigators have known this much: With the floor to girlfriend Cynthia McKay's home covered in bleach and stained with blood, someone had tried to cover up the crime.
McKay's younger son, Matthew Joseph Haarhoff, quickly implicated his older brother. He recanted a few days later, according to court records, saying he had lied at their mother's urging. When both young men were later charged, McKay's lawyer said she was "a mess emotionally."
By the end of last year, all three had been indicted in the killing.
Yesterday, the focus turned back to McKay as her older son described finding her standing over Fertitta's bloodied body and agreeing to help her dispose of it.
Christopher James Haarhoff, 21, agreed to serve five years in prison for being an accessory to the February 2006 crime, helping to drag Fertitta's body out through a back door and onto the roadside, where it was doused with gasoline and set afire. His attorney, John M. McKenna, said afterward that Christopher Haarhoff "pled to what he did, nothing more, nothing less."
Prosecutors declined to comment further, noting the other cases. Neither McKay nor Matthew Haarhoff has gone to trial, and McKay's public defender could not be reached for comment.
Yesterday's plea hearing shed new light on how authorities believe Fertitta, 50, of Baltimore, was killed.
Unknown to Fertitta, a UPS driver and warehouse worker who was prudent with his money, he was dating a convicted con artist who once had faked her own death and who just months before they met had been released from prison after embezzling $205,000 from a Baltimore seminary. It was one of more than a dozen fraud and theft convictions.
Prosecutors said McKay opened credit cards in Fertitta's name and intercepted the bills, and bought a car by forging one of his checks.
In December 2005, when Fertitta said he won $20,000 playing Keno, McKay called Christopher Haarhoff, prosecutors said, and hatched a robbery plot: He and a friend would don ski masks and rob Fertitta on his way to work after being given a signal from McKay and using a gun she had given them.
That plan fell apart, but McKay is accused of continuing to steal from Fertitta. Two months later, while Haarhoff was out with friends playing pool, his mother called crying and told him to come to her house, prosecutors said.
