In the 600 block of Dover, a tree-lined cobblestone street near the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, the sight of a police canine unit outside John and McCracken's rented two-story rowhouse Sunday night took some neighbors by surprise.
"There's never been any problem like this," said Kofi Kyei-Asare, a 13-year resident who owns four houses on the block. "This is always a very quiet street and extremely safe," he said, describing it as populated mainly by young professionals.
There was no sign of activity Tuesday evening at the house in which the couple lived, and no one answered the door. The couple's dog, a black Labrador mix, was taken to an animal shelter after McCracken's arrest.
"To me, they were just normal, regular people," said landlord Kevin Jarrell, who lives elsewhere. Jarrell rented the house to John a couple of years ago, he said, and McCracken moved in recently.
Asked if he had known what was going on inside the house, Jarrell said, "Of course not."
In their online biographies, McCracken and John emerge as accomplished scientists. McCracken's area of expertise is addiction and compulsive behaviors, according to the Neuroscience Academic Family Tree.
John's available record is more extensive. In 2004, while at Wake Forest, she wrote a paper on the effect of cocaine on serotonin levels in mice, and, that same year, another paper on the "acute and neurotoxic effects of psychostimulants."
Last year, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, John led medical students in a neuroscience discussion titled "This is your brain on drugs."
Baltimore Sun reporter Jonathan Pitts contributed to this article.
