Crime Watch

A Baltimore County judge told prosecutors yesterday that some statements made to police by the 16-year-old high school student charged with killing his mother and trying to kill his father with a baseball bat in their Riderwood home in May could not be used at his trial in January. Shortly after being handcuffed in his backyard by Baltimore County police, Lewin C. Powell III is said to have told an officer the location of the bat and asked another whether Maryland has the death penalty for killers. The statements were made by Powell before he was informed of his Miranda rights, said Shanell Harleston and Denise Brown, Powell's attorneys, and Circuit Judge Kathleen G. Cox ruled them inadmissible. However, she ruled that other statements - including one in which Powell is said to have told an officer the location of his mother's body in the home's garage - could be used at trial. Powell's mother, Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell, 39, was killed after the two argued in their Alston Road home about the teenager's grades at McDonogh School, where he was a sophomore, police said. Cox denied a defense request that incriminating statements Powell made to Detective Alvin Barton during a later interrogation be thrown out because the video camera used to record homicide interrogations malfunctioned. "Before there were video recorders or tape recorders, detectives took statements from people all the time," she said.

Kevin Rector

Second prison escapee recaptured on Shore

Two inmates who walked away from an Eastern Shore correctional facility Wednesday evening have been recaptured, state police said. State police arrested Billy G. Dolly, 41, without incident about 5:30 p.m. Thursday after he was spotted at the intersection of Routes 313 and 302 in Barclay, Queen Anne's County. Dolly's last known address was in Sparks, Baltimore County, and police said he was serving time for theft. Two and a half hours earlier, James Allen Cramer, 52, was arrested by the Queen Anne's County Sheriff's Office at an undisclosed location. Authorities said an anonymous tipster aided police in Cramer's apprehension. Cramer was serving time for drugs and robbery with a deadly weapon.

By a Baltimore Sun reporter