Accomplice

A man carrying a shotgun robbed a man late last week in Elkridge after the victim said he was followed from Old Montgomery Road near Route 108, Howard County police said. The victim told police he was accosted by three people as he got out of his vehicle in the 5900 block of Meadow Rose shortly after midnight Friday. A man wearing a ski mask displayed a shotgun and demanded money, police said. The victim surrendered his money and was not injured, police said. The gunman was described to police as being tall with a thin build.

WASHINGTON - On the evening before last month's terrorist attacks, two of the suspected hijackers made stops at automated teller machines, a Wal-Mart store and a gas station in Portland, Maine, before turning in for the night at a nearby Comfort Inn. Security cameras captured those movements Sept. 10 by Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari. The next morning, surveillance video recorded the two men again as they passed through security at the Portland airport to catch a commuter flight to Boston, where they would board one of the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center.

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.

A judge has ordered a hearing to consider reopening the case of Michael Austin, a Baltimore ironworker whose 1975 murder conviction is being contested by a national organization that seeks to free innocent prisoners. The order was a setback for Baltimore's top prosecutor, State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy, whose office had argued against a hearing. It was also a signal the judge has sufficiently serious questions about the case that he wants to hear directly from defense attorneys and the prosecutor handling the case, Sharon A. May. The hearing, ordered by Baltimore Circuit Judge John Carroll Byrnes, is scheduled June 20. "We are grateful the court will hear Mr. Austin's case," said Larry Nathans, his lawyer.

Baltimore County police said yesterday they have found no evidence that anyone helped Joseph C. Palczynski elude police for 10 days after a string of killings this month. Police said they believe that Palczynski was on the move the whole time, hiding in a heavily wooded area of eastern Baltimore County. "We have not found any evidence yet that anyone helped [Palczynski]," said Bill Toohey, a county police spokesman. Also yesterday, Constance Ann Waugh, the Essex woman charged with purchasing the guns that police say Palczynski used to kill four people, has been found mentally competent to stand trial.

A man convicted of killing a retired Baltimore police officer in November 1998 during what police described as a robbery spree to get money to buy baby diapers was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without parole. Christopher M. Williams, 28, was sentenced in the slaying of Oliver T. Murdock, 73, who was gunned down outside his West Baltimore home. Williams also received a 20-year sentence on a handgun conviction. Kevin Blackman, 22, who admitted to being part of the robbery attempt and testified against Williams, received a 20-year sentence on a second-degree murder conviction.

The trial of a Baltimore man accused of shooting a Columbia pizza delivery woman on New Year's Day 1999 continues in Howard County Circuit Court this week with the expected testimony of an accomplice and the victim. Naim Quinton Abdul-Muhaimin, 21, is accused of dragging Martha Lunsford, 31, across a parking lot, putting a gun to her head and shooting her. He has been charged with attempted murder, assault, robbery and kidnapping. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. On Friday, his attorney, Paul M. Polansky, said during opening statements that his client assaulted and robbed Lunsford but didn't intend to harm her. Polansky said that another defendant in the case, Charles A. Mosley, 20, manipulated Abdul-Muhaimin.

SUPPOSE the crippling scourge of polio rose again in Ruxton, Roland Park, Potomac and other enclaves of power and privilege. Would the state of Maryland intervene for those kids? Would there be any higher priority for the use the state's $1 billion surplus? Could any tinpot committee chairman in Annapolis get in the way of needed legislation? Would Parris N. Glendening, who wishes to be known as the education governor, fail to act expeditiously? And what of Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who wishes to succeed Mr. Glendening?

A security guard shot and wounded a robbery suspect after the man allegedly pointed a gun at the guard and a jewelry store clerk at Towson Town Center yesterday afternoon, Baltimore County police said. Police said they are searching for two accomplices who were standing outside Mark Douglas Jewelers on the fourth floor of the mall at the time of the shooting. Four other employees were in the store at the time. None was injured. Police said the security guard became suspicious of the three men because they returned several times to the store.

NEW YORK -- Storming a shabby Brooklyn apartment block at dawn yesterday, an anti-terrorist task force seized a man they charged was an accomplice of Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian caught trying to smuggle powerful explosives and four sophisticated timing devices across the border near Seattle 2 1/2 weeks ago. The man arrested yesterday, identified as Abdel Ghani, a 31-year-old Algerian, traveled to Seattle earlier this month to meet with Ressam as...