Baby Sitters

Paul Stephen Riggins -- the man Howard County police say is their only suspect in the disappearance of his wife -- told a circuit judge yesterday that he made a terrible mistake when he began a lengthy sexual relationship with the family's 15-year-old baby sitter.That four-year-long mistake netted him 18 months in jail for child abuse as the former baby sitter, now 20, and a courtroom filled with friends and family of his missing wife looked on yesterday."It never should have gone as far as it did," said Riggins, 40. "Whatever I can do to prove I am not really as bad as it seems I will do."

After a courtroom confession that was disputed by prosecutors, an Owings Mills woman was sentenced to 18 years yesterday for battering and shaking to death an infant she was watching in her home. Thu Thi Le, 31, was sentenced by Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge John G. Turnbull II in the July 1999 death of 4-month-old Kimdang Thi Le. Le, who is not related to the victim, was convicted Feb. 14 of second-degree murder and child abuse. Le had been Kimdang's baby sitter for about three months when she called the parents July 2, 1999, to report that the baby seemed ill, according to testimony.

Police have reunited a 9-year-old girl with her biological mother and arrested a former Harford County woman on charges that she used an elaborate forgery scheme to abduct the girl. Yesterday, Donna L. Snyder said her daughter, Caitlyn Crowther, is in good health and glad to be home after months of separation. Snyder lashed out at the judicial system, which she believes is responsible for the abduction. "How can a grandparent have a hard time getting custody of a grandchild, but a complete stranger can get custody of someone's child?"

Anne Arundel County police were investigating the death last night of a 6-month-old girl whose body was discovered at her baby sitter's house. Police were called about 8:30 p.m. to a home in the 1600 block of Cananaro Drive in Annapolis, where they found Alexis Michelle LaPinto dead in a bedroom. Police detectives questioned the baby's mother, Denise LaPinto, and witnesses, including the baby sitter, whose name they did not release. They also were awaiting a report by the medical examiner's office on the cause of death.

A few days after he reported his wife missing, Paul Stephen Riggins asked his girlfriend - the family's teen-age baby sitter - to marry him and gave her his wife's ring, a Howard County police investigator testified yesterday. That moment was recounted by police Lt. Greg Marshall during the second full day of testimony in the Riggins murder trial as defense attorneys tried to chip away at the prosecution's case and at the credibility of its witnesses. Stephen Riggins, 43, is being tried in Howard County Circuit Court on a charge of first-degree murder in the disappearance July 1996 of his wife, Nancy Lee Riggins.

A 4-year-old Harford County boy drowned yesterday in the Gunpowder River after his baby sitter left him and two other children on the shore as she set up a picnic lunch nearby, officials said. James Spicer, of Edgewood, had come to Gunpowder Falls State Park in northern Baltimore County with his younger sister and a third child, all under the care of Jeanette Muehleisen of Edgewood. Two other adults and Muehleisen's teen-age daughter accompanied them. About 1 p.m., Muehleisen left the three children on the beach while she prepared lunch, said Susan O'Brien, spokeswoman with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

In a case that pitted church members against one another, a 31-year-old Columbia man was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in prison for sexually abusing little girls he was paid to baby-sit. William Glenn Engle, known as Glenn, pleaded guilty to fondling two girls between 1991 and 1998. As part of the plea agreement, the state dropped a third, similar charge. Despite testimony from a psychologist who said Engle suffered from severe anxiety and would not fare well in prison, Howard County Circuit Judge Diane Leasure refused to suspend all of Engle's 15-year sentence.

A 22-year-old Curtis Bay woman was shot to death last night by a gunman who apparently mistook her for her friend, with whom he had been feuding for six years, police said.Minutes after the shooting, police arrested a convicted murderer and charged him with the slaying, police said.Police said Tambra Dove, a beautician who lived in the 1500 block of Cypress St. in Curtis Bay, apparently was an innocent victim who ran afoul of a feud between the suspect and the woman who cared for Dove's child.

The Elkridge man arrested and charged with having sex with his daughter's underage baby sitter was released from jail yesterday after posting $10,000 bail.Paul Stephen Riggins Jr., 39, had been held overnight at the Howard County Detention Center after his arrest Tuesday morning as he left his job at a Dorsey trucking company -- a job from which he was fired the same day, his lawyer said.Stephen Riggins, as he is known to family and friends, has acknowledged under oath that he also is a suspect in the possible homicide of his wife, Nancy Lee Riggins, who disappeared in July, according to court documents.

For the first time since Nancy Lee Riggins vanished a little over a year ago, Howard County police have publicly labeled the case a "possible homicide."Police consistently had termed the Elkridge woman's disappearance a suspicious missing-person case. But in a hearing Friday in Howard County Circuit Court, Cpl. Mark Miller testified that detectives in the violent crimes unit approached the investigation as a possible homicide.The hearing was held to determine whether taped conversations could be used as evidence in a sex-offense trial scheduled to begin Monday against Riggins' husband, Paul Stephen Riggins Jr.Riggins, 40, is accused of having an illicit long-term sexual relationship with his daughter's baby sitter that began in 1992, when the girl was 14 or 15 and Riggins was 34.The conversations between Riggins and the baby sitter were taped by police beginning days after Nancy Riggins' disappearance on July 1, 1996.