Baltimore Woman

The state's highest court erased Friday the first-degree murder conviction and life sentence of a Baltimore woman accused in the 2007 fatal shooting of her boyfriend, ruling that city police violated her constitutional rights. Investigators should have advised Juanita Marie Robinson, now 31, of her Miranda rights — the well-known warnings that begin with, "You have the right to remain silent" — before her second and third statements about the killing of Andre McBride, the justices decided.

"Lies, lies, lies!" the prosecutor exclaimed. "They'll catch up to you in the end. " With that proclamation, Baltimore County Assistant State's Attorney Rachel E. Karceski launched into her closing statement Friday in the murder trial of a 31-year-old used-car salesman accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend in November 2009 and dumping her body near a highway in Virginia. "The defendant's story just doesn't add up," Karceski went on, reciting a litany of assertions and explanations by Frederick A. Christian both before his arrest and during his trial this week, when he took the witness stand.

A Baltimore woman charged in the slaying of a popular Glen Burnie dentist will be tried with her 23-year-old cousin, an Anne Arundel circuit judge ruled Friday, despite their attempts to sever the two cases. Judge Pamela L. North rejected a request by attorneys for Shontay Hickman, 36, and Dante Jeter for separate trials. Police believe Hickman plotted with Jeter to kill Dr. Albert Woonho Ro in 2006. Hickman had worked for Ro as an office manager and was suspected by his family of stealing more than $14,000 from his practice.

D'Lana Simmons was found "not criminally responsible" on Tuesday for the beating death of her 66-year-old aunt last year, using the steering wheel locking device known as "The Club" as a murder weapon. "This was a clear case of somebody who was psychotic," Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Gale E. Rasin said, reading from a doctor's report on Simmons' mental status. Simmons struck her aunt, Cecelia Mitchell, approximately 56 times on the evening of Sept. 17, then called 911 for help "stating that she had hurt her aunt and that [the woman]

A 21-year-old Baltimore woman pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to creating child pornography by videotaping sex acts she and her boyfriend performed on a girl, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office said. Tiffany Bolner, 21, faces a minimum sentence of 15 years for sexually abusing a minor she befriended in 2009. The girl would spend the night — and later, weekends — at the home that Bolner shared with co-defendant Jesse Aaron Davison, according to the statement of facts in her plea agreement.

A woman and her pets died in an early-morning blaze Sunday in the Belair-Edison neighborhood of Northeast Baltimore, fire officials said. Baltimore Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said the fire broke out at about 2:30 a.m. in the 4000 block of Shannon Drive, and the two-story brick rowhouse was filled with smoke when firefighters arrived approximately 10 minutes later. They discovered the body of a woman on the first floor, a part of the house consumed by fire. The state medical examiner will determine an official cause of death, but Cartwright said firefighters believe smoke inhalation and burns were to blame.

In the last years of her life, Audrey R. Dix spent much of her time tending to her garden and her animals, and she made arrangements for how the animals would manage after she was gone. She made plans for the dog and the three birds she had cared for in her small white rancher on Greenmeadow Drive in Lutherville- Timonium, but kept other animals in mind as well, animals she would never see or know. Dix left instructions in her will, and now, just over a year after her death of cancer at age 79, word of the details is out among the beneficiaries; $550,000 will be split five ways, including by four animal welfare organizations.

A 40-year-old Baltimore County woman has been indicted on charges that she billed the city school system for more than $100,000 in tutoring services that she never provided, the state prosecutor's office announced. Prosecutors say that for three years, Tracy Denise Queen submitted false documentation and invoices to the school system for tutoring services for special-education students through her home-based company Queen's Mobile Education. School officials terminated her contract last year, though they said Friday that they were only aware of problems concerning a 2009 contract that involved about $44,000.

A 38-year-old Rosedale woman who prosecutors said falsely claimed that she was dying of cancer and hit up her friends for thousands of dollars for treatments was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison on a charge of felony theft. Dina Perouty Leone, a former real estate agent whose license was revoked in 2007, was also ordered by Baltimore County Circuit Judge John G. Turnbull II to pay restitution of $14,000 to her victims, though he acknowledged that he saw no chance Leone would actually do so. In a tearful apology to the court, Leone said: "I didn't know I had a problem until this came up. It's not easy for me because I don't know right from wrong all the time.