Accomplice

As completely disheartened and enraged as many of us still are over the senseless, tragic, brutal murder of Stephen Pitcairn last year, this week's article about Lavelva Merritt's trial ("Woman who helped rob Hopkins' Pitcairn sentenced to 15 years," Nov. 8) opens the floodgates for an equally strong reaction. Ms. Merritt is quoted as having said, "I punched him in the head and took his phone. " She described herself as, "just as guilty as John," referring to the now convicted murderer, John Wagner, Ms. Merritt's boyfriend.

More than five years after Dr. Albert Woonho Ro was found beaten to death in his Glen Burnie dental office, his dental assistant admitted Monday that she siphoned more than $17,000 from his business and had him killed to cover it up. Shontay Joyner Hickman, 36, of Baltimore pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder in the death of the dentist, who was from a family well-known in the local Korean-American community. She was sentenced to life in prison. Hickman's plea agreement was sealed because of the continuing investigation — a man charged in Ro's killing is scheduled to go on trial in May. "I have destroyed a lot, his family and mine," she said through tears as she apologized to more than a dozen members of Ro's family seated in the courtroom.

Salvatore P. Spinnato, an admitted con man who fled the state last year to avoid abduction charges, was convicted yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court of kidnapping, assault and false imprisonment in an attack on his ex-wife's boyfriend.Judge Barbara Kerr Howe also convicted the 54-year-old Spinnato's accomplice, Homer Paul Shaffer, 31, of the same charges in the July 3, 1996, incident. She found both men not guilty of handgun charges.The judge's ruling came after a two-day trial in which Spinnato testified that he only meant to intimidate the victim the day he lured the man to a vacant house where an accomplice waited with an electrical stun gun.While Spinnato admitted he bought a stun device that gave off electric shocks and brought Lynn R. Hogg, 40, to the Arbutus house, he said, "There was not supposed to be an altercation.

Howard County police have arrested a 25-year-old Glen Burnie man, who they say was involved in a shooting last week in Columbia. Eric Brandon Miller, of the 1300 block of Whitman Drive, was charged with first- and second-degree assault in the Jan. 11 shooting of Marcus Lee, 20, of Columbia. Lee remains in an area hospital with an injury that is not life-threatening, police said. Lee had been shot once at about 8:30 p.m. and had run into a Sam's Mart store in the 5800 block of Stevens Forest Road seeking help.

Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Eugene M. Lerner sentenced an accomplice to a Crofton murder to 20 years in prison yesterday.The sentence of Rueben L. Williams, 23, formerly of Landover, will run concurrently with a 12 1/2 -year federal sentence he is serving on armed robbery and other charges, following the prosecution's recommendation.Williams pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit armed robbery in connection with the shooting death of Catherine Elizabeth Webster, 16, of Bowie outside Crofton Billiards in March 1995.

A New Windsor woman who was an accomplice in two convenience store robberies in Carroll County was given a suspended five-year prison sentence yesterday.Deidra M. Richards, 31, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery; other charges were dropped.As part of a plea agreement, Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. placed Richards on three years of supervised probation.He ordered her to complete 25 hours of community service, pay restitution of $402 and participate in any drug and alcohol program recommended by probation officials.

A 16-year-old who allegedly attempted to rob someone outside a West Baltimore bar early yesterday was shot to death when his accomplice opened fire on the intended robbery victim but hit the youth instead.The incident occurred about 3 a.m., when 18-year-old Corey Wilson left the 2 Spot Bar at Calverton Road and Wheeler Avenue and was confronted by two gunmen demanding his money, the police said.Mr. Wilson told investigators that instead of handing over his money, he pushed one of the holdup men and started to run south on Calverton Road.

An accomplice might have helped two women - one of them facing child-abduction charges - escape from a state psychiatric hospital in Catonsville on Saturday, police said yesterday. One of the women, Lisa L. Gabbert, 25, told police in Springdale, Ark., that a friend of Maria L. Baughman helped them escape about 3 a.m. Saturday. Gabbert turned herself in to Springdale authorities Tuesday. "The information she has given us is that somebody had removed bars from the window to help them get out of the window," said Sgt. Rick Mayes of the Springdale Police Department.

Howard County police have arrested a 25-year-old Glen Burnie man, who they say was involved in a shooting last week in Columbia. Eric Brandon Miller, of the 1300 block of Whitman Drive, was charged with first- and second-degree assault in the Jan. 11 shooting of Marcus Lee, 20, of Columbia. Lee remains in an area hospital with an injury that is not life-threatening, police said. Lee had been shot once at about 8:30 p.m. and had run into a Sam's Mart store in the 5800 block of Stevens Forest Road seeking help.

A 62-year-old Baltimore County man indicted in one of the county's oldest unsolved homicides has pleaded guilty to participating in the 1976 assault on a construction company owner and the apparently inadvertent fatal shooting of an accomplice during that attack. Ronald Ehrman Smuck, of Rosedale, pleaded guilty last week to one count of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting of Ronald Paul McFarland and one count of common-law assault in the attack on construction company owner Franco Marcantoni, according to court records and lawyers handling the case.

A collector charged with conspiring to steal valuable historic documents taken from museums in Maryland and several other states is alleging that he was illegally arrested in Baltimore by city officers who lacked enough evidence to place him in custody. Barry H. Landau, a well-known Manhattan collector, argues in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that it was his companion, Jason James Savedoff, who had sole possession of documents police found in a locker at the Maryland Historical Society in July.

One of two men who killed a 72-year-old customer during a holdup at a Waverly carryout in April 2010 was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years in prison, according to the Baltimore state's attorney's office. Michael Hunter, 20, of the 300 block of E. Belvedere Ave. was convicted in September of first-degree murder, three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a crime and armed robbery. Baltimore Circuit Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill handed down a 70-year sentence but suspended 20 years.

As completely disheartened and enraged as many of us still are over the senseless, tragic, brutal murder of Stephen Pitcairn last year, this week's article about Lavelva Merritt's trial ("Woman who helped rob Hopkins' Pitcairn sentenced to 15 years," Nov. 8) opens the floodgates for an equally strong reaction. Ms. Merritt is quoted as having said, "I punched him in the head and took his phone. " She described herself as, "just as guilty as John," referring to the now convicted murderer, John Wagner, Ms. Merritt's boyfriend.

Less than four months after a Maryland Historical Society employee uncovered a cultural property heist called "truly breathtaking" by national archivists, one of the men charged in the scheme has pleaded guilty. Jason James Savedoff, 24, admitted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that he and co-defendant Barry H. Landau, 63, conspired to steal and sell valuable historic documents from museums in several states, including Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

A Baltimore pastor who paid a hit man $50,000 in church funds to kill someone for life insurance payouts bought similar indemnity policies on his boyfriend when the pair were fighting, along with contracts on the man's mother and daughter, he testified Friday in city Circuit Court. He canceled them after time, however, "because we were getting along," he said. The admission was one of many confessions Kevin Pushia offered from the witness stand during the trial of his alleged accomplices, brothers James "Omar" Clea and Kareem Clea.

A Harford County judge sentenced a 22-year-old Edgewood man to 55 years in prison Tuesday for kidnapping and carjacking. Joshua Prince Freeman was convicted by a jury in the October 2009 kidnapping of Kara Smithson, 21, of Pylesville. Freeman and three accomplices, including a female juvenile who was known to the victim, lured Smithson to a location in the southern end of the county, according to Joseph I. Cassilly, Harford County State's Attorney. When Smithson met the group, she was carjacked, kidnapped and repeatedly struck and assaulted, while being driven around the Joppa area.

A 26-year-old welder was convicted yesterday in the murder of an Annapolis man found shot in the back last summer in a parking lot littered with cocaine.Robert Amos Patterson, of the 1000 block of Wooten Court in Silver Spring, showed no emotion as the Circuit Court jury's verdict was announced, but the victim's mother expressed relief and gratitude."Justice has been served, and I thank the Lord," said Vivian Holland, the mother of Rudolph C. Holland."Now, we can just hope that he gets life without parole," said the victim's girlfriend, Jackie Mason, 23, of Annapolis.

The arrest yesterday of a man police say is responsible for several armed robberies in Fells Point has merchants there breathing a little easier. But the business owners say they won't feel totally at ease until a suspected accomplice is arrested. They also want foot patrols reinstated in the area. "Certainly it's good news that they caught someone, but I think that from the descriptions people were giving, it's more than one person," said Susan Singer, president of the Fells Point Business Association.

A Baltimore City Schools Police officer shot a masked assailant suspected of robbing a store in East Baltimore Sunday night, and police were searching for two alleged accomplices who had apparently gotten away, police said. The unidentified suspect was shot once in the upper body and taken to an area hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening, police said. Just before 8:30 p.m., someone approached the on-duty officer, who was at a restaurant in the 2000 block of Harford Road, and said a dollar store across the street was being robbed, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from police reports in Baltimore and Baltimore County. Baltimore Central Burglary: Someone broke into a second-floor apartment in the 1200 block of St. Paul St. on Wednesday and removed a laptop computer and $700 in coins. Total value of the property was $1,800. Eastern Shooting: An unidentified man was reported in serious condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital yesterday after he was shot in the stomach about 3:40 p.m. Wednesday by an assailant in the 3000 block of E. Monument St. Police said the victim was found by officers responding to a report of a shooting.