Bloodsworth

A local playwright and actor whose work showcases cultural diversity was arrested Sunday afternoon on a downtown street by police officers who the playwright says shouted racially tinged insults at him.Mitchell Ferguson said he was doing nothing more than standing at Read and St. Paul streets searching his briefcase for a script when an officer questioned him and ordered him to move.The accounts of Central District Officer Timothy S. Williams, a seven-year veteran who is white, and Ferguson, who is black, differ.

Player of the YearSarah Oglesby, St. Paul's, senior, midfield: Oglesby enjoyed the kind of season most seniors can only dream of. Returning from an All-Metro junior year, she led the No. 3 Gators (11-0-5) to an unbeaten season and the Association of Independent Schools A Division tournament championship. A veteran of the Olympic-development style Futures Program, Oglesby excelled at all the basics and led her team in scoring with nine goals and two assists. But her contribution can't be measured just in skills and stats.

Bloodsworth deserves full compensationI am bitterly disappointed with the Baltimore County government's decision not to contribute any money to the settlement with Kirk N. Bloodsworth.Mr. Bloodsworth was wrongly arrested, convicted and sentenced to die in 1984. He spent nine years of his life in prison. Years of not looking forward to release but to death by electrocution. Years of living in fear of other prisoners, who show no mercy to child molesters.I can't even fathom the depths of despair a man would experience living the constant shadow of death.

Roland Park coach Debbie Bloodsworth said her players were a bit nervous in the first half of yesterday's game against rival Bryn Mawr.That's understandable, considering they were writing the latest chapter in a series that is believed to date back to World War II.But once the jitters went away, the host Reds showed why they've won an unprecedented five straight Association of Independent Schools titles.Fourteenth-ranked Roland Park (7-2-1) outshot No. 9 Bryn Mawr, 10-4, in the second half, scoring with under five minutes left en route to a 1-0 victory.

The Maryland Board of Public works yesterday approved a $300,000 payment to Kirk N. Bloodsworth, the Cambridge waterman who spent nearly nine years in prison in the 1984 rape and murder of a Rosedale girl but was released after new scientific evidence created serious doubts about his guilt.Pardoned by Gov. William Donald Schaefer in December, Mr. Bloodsworth, 33, said he hopes the payment puts "the final chapter in the book for this case, and the whole ordeal.""I'm ready for an ending," he said.

With a Christmas pardon from the governor, Kirk Noble Bloodsworth regained his status as an innocent man -- something he lost almost 9 years ago when he was convicted in the rape and slaying of a 9-year-old Rosedale girl.The pardon from Gov. William Donald Schaefer clears Mr. Bloodsworth's name. It also opens the door for a financial settlement from the state for wrongly imprisoning him.But it also raises troubling questions.How was Mr. Bloodsworth convicted not once, but twice? Why do prosecutors still refuse to say they had the wrong man, even after a sophisticated DNA test showed he could not have been the man who raped Dawn Venice Hamilton on a summer day in 1984?

GEORGETOWN, Del. -- David Bloodsworth, part-time mayor, doesn't know how many people live in his town anymore.But trash collection is up, housing is tight, and the police chief is pushing to hire a Spanish-speaking officer.Immigration -- 1990s style -- has come to Georgetown, a 203-year-old hamlet whose official history is titled "Sixteen Miles From Anywhere." What began as a trickle five years ago has turned into a flood. Immigrants, mainly from Guatemala, have taken jobs in local chicken processing plants.

The Maryland Board of Public Works has agreed on a $300,000 payment to Kirk N. Bloodsworth, who was pardoned in December after spending nine years in prison when new evidence cast serious doubt on his guilt in the murder of a 9-year-old Rosedale girl.But the panel delayed a vote on the settlement yesterday, hoping to persuade Baltimore County, which prosecuted Mr. Bloodsworth, to provide as much as $50,000 toward the total.The board, composed of Gov. William Donald Schaefer, Treasurer Lucille Maurer and Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein, postponed action on the settlement for "wrongful imprisonment" until June 22 to give Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden, who is recuperating from brain surgery, a chance to decide whether the county will contribute.

Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, once a convicted child-killer facing execution, left prison yesterday in style.The burly, red-haired former waterman rolled past the barbed wire and brick walls of the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup in the back of a black stretch limousine, smoking a cigar and sipping a beer -- a free man.The last time Mr. Bloodsworth was a free man was Aug. 9, 1984, the day Baltimore County police arrested him and charged himwith sexually assaulting...

WASHINGTON -- Until a month ago, few people wanted to listen to Kirk Noble Bloodsworth proclaim his innocence. He spent nine years in prison as a convicted child molester and murderer.But yesterday Mr. Bloodsworth had the ear of Congress, telling his story to a subcommittee listening to the debate over shortening the appeals process for death row inmates.After recounting his arrest, conviction and time spent in Maryland prisons, Mr. Bloodsworth urged members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights not to speed up the appeals process.

Police Maj. Scott L. Bloodsworth stands on Charles Street in Federal Hill as the crowd of revelers swells. It's Friday, just before midnight, and already many patrons have had too much to drink. Outside Noble's Bar, a giddy young woman screams and runs into the open arms of a friend, sending both crashing to the pavement. Bloodsworth, who commands the Southern District, watches his officers watch the partyers. He has officers strategically placed along Charles and Cross streets, on blocks dominated by the biggest and most popular taverns, and near a bank machine and a parking garage.

Two Baltimore programs that use DNA evidence in criminal cases will receive $307,000 from the National Institute of Justice, part of an award named after a former Maryland death row inmate who was exonerated by the forensic evidence, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Wednesday. The Innocence Project, based at the University of Baltimore School of Law, which works to free wrongly convicted inmates, will get most of the Kirk Bloodsworth testing grant money. The Baltimore state's attorney's office's forensics division will receive about $13,000 to purchase computers to track and maintain documentation in forensic DNA cases that might later qualify for post-conviction testing.

John A. Steele Sr. was cremated without ceremony. Only his estranged wife and children attended the brief service at the Charles L. Stevens Funeral Home in Locust Point. No words were spoken. No death notice appeared in the paper. No obituary was written. Jane Steele loved her husband but couldn't live with him. She stayed married even after kicking him out of their Clement Street rowhouse 16 years ago. He had stopped working and turned to alcohol 16 years before that. She worked then in a factory, putting labels on cans, and she sewed dresses and cleaned houses to pay the mortgage.

On July 3, 2006, MARIE B. MATACOTTA (nee Bloodsworth); beloved wife of the late Augusta J. Matacotta and devoted mother of Larry A. Ruark. Funeral Services and Interment will be at convenience of the family. Arrangements by MARZULLO FUNERAL CHAPEL, P.A., 410-254-5201.

On January 14, 2006, EDWARD G., of Baltimore, beloved father of Sharon Baylin, of Baltimore and Valerie Bloodsworth, also survived by 3 grandchildren and 1 great-granddaughter. A Graveside service will be held at Parkwood Cemetery, Taylor Avenue, on Monday at 1 P.M. Family will receive friends at their residence following the service. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Maryland SPCA, 300 Falls Rd, Baltimore, MD 21211-2403. Inquiries may be directed to CAFA Stephen D. Lohrmann C.A. at 410-321-1005.

On January 3, 2006, OLIVE W. BLOODSWORTH DAVIES beloved wife of the late E. Woodrow Bloodsworth and Stanley W. Davies, devoted mother of Olive May Abt and her husband Frederick W. Abt III and Martha Kulaga and her husband Louis N. Kulaga, loving grandmother of Rick and Lisa Abt, Laura and Ted Kaelber, Becky and Doug Bradley and Matt Kulaga and Emily Clayton and dear great-grandmother of Jonathan and Carli Abt and Mikayla Bradley. Relatives and friends are invited to call at SCHIMUNEK FUNERAL HOME INC., 9705 Belair Road (at Forge Road)

On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, JAMES A. BLOODSWORTH of Glen Burnie, loving husband of Lois Bloodsworth; cherished father of Darrell Bloodsworth, Heidi Bloodsworth and Rose Flynn; devoted grandfather to Sheila Flynn. The family will receive visitors at the family owned Singleton Funeral Home, 1 Second Ave, S.W., (at Crain Hwy) Glen Burnie from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 P.M. on Thursday. The Funeral Ceremony will be held at 8 P.M. on Thursday in the Funeral Home Chapel.

In the clear light of hindsight, Kimberly Shay Ruffner was the obvious suspect. He was known to Baltimore police as a sexual criminal, with an interest in little girls. He lived near the spot 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton was found sexually assaulted and beaten to death. At the time of the 1984 murder, he had just been released from jail. But Baltimore County police and prosecutors never focused on Ruffner while they attempted to solve the grisly crime. Instead, their attention was on an Eastern Shore man with no criminal record and a stable family background - a man court psychiatrists would later say did not fit the profile of a pedophile or killer.

Nearly 20 years after a little girl's beaten body was found in a wooded area of Rosedale, and 19 years after an innocent man was sentenced to death for that killing, the Dawn Hamilton murder case ended yesterday when her true killer pleaded guilty in a Baltimore County courtroom. Kimberly Shay Ruffner, a former East Baltimore man with a history of sexual attacks, acknowledged that he alone had sexually assaulted and murdered the 9-year-old girl in 1984. He was sentenced to life in prison; he is already serving time for an unrelated assault.

Murder case shows the need to preserve DNA The importance of preserving and testing DNA evidence became clear when prosecutors in Maryland finally matched evidence in Kirk Bloodsworth's case nearly 20 years after the murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton ("Justice ill-served," editorial, Sept. 10). Almost 20 years after this horrible crime was committed, and 10 years after Mr. Bloodsworth was exonerated, the state finally checked to see if the DNA from this case matched anyone else in the system.