Body Was Found

Baltimore police arrested a 17-year-old yesterday and charged him with first-degree murder in connection with the death of a 12-year-old girl whose body was found strangled and set on fire in the basement of her West Baltimore home.In addition to murder, Jamal Amin Jackson of the 1200 block of Ashburton St. was charged as an adult with first-degree rape in the death of Natishia Moore, who was killed in the early hours of March 5."I prayed for them to find the right person and not just make an arrest.

A man walking in Leakin Park yesterday evening found what turned out to be an unidentified body wrapped in heavy plastic.Police said the wrapping was left intact in order to preserve any evidence and was to have been opened today at the state medical examiner's office, where an autopsy was expected to provide the cause of death.Police said that unless the body bore identification, it would be fingerprinted. Police said the body was found about 5:15 p.m. lying a few feet off the 600 block of Ellicott Drive near a wooded area by a man taking a walk.

A woman whose body was found in woods near the end of Dubois Road late Tuesday afternoon died of multiple stab wounds and cuts, a spokesman for the state medical examiner's office who would not identify himself said yesterday.The woman, who was in her 20s, had cuts and bruises on her upper body and on her hands, county police said.Officer Randy Bell, a police spokesman, said homicide detectives had tentatively identified the woman but that her name would not be released until it was confirmed through fingerprint records, probably today.

The body of an unidentified man believed to have been murdered was found yesterday afternoon by a farmer in the rural Pindell area of southern Anne Arundel County, authorities reported.The fully clothed, decomposing body was found shortly after 3 p.m. in a wooded area off Upper Pindell Road, near the borders with both Calvert and Prince George's counties, according to Officer Terry M. Crowe, a county police spokesman.No identification was found at the site.Police were awaiting a report from the state medical examiner's office on a full description of the man -- including his height, weight, race and approximate age, as well as the precise cause of death.

Nearly three months after her partially decomposed body was found in a culvert under busy Little Patuxent Parkway, the state medical examiner's office confirmed yesterday that 15-year-old Tara Allison Gladden was murdered, probably by suffocation or strangulation.A one-page press release confirmed the worst suspicions of family members who reported her missing from their home in the 5600 block of Vantage Pint Road on July 22."In consideration of the circumstances under which the body was found together with the autopsy and toxicological findings, the cause of death is probable asphyxiation (obstruction of airway)

City homicide investigators were trying to determine yesterday the identities of a dead woman found rolled in plastic trash bags and a man who was shot fatally as he ran from a car on Reisterstown Road.The woman's body was found at 8:10 a.m. yesterday by a passer-by in an alley behind the 4600 block of Homer Ave.Police said the woman died of "blunt trauma" injuries to her head, but what instrument had been used was unclear.Lt. Robert Floyd, of the Northwestern District, said he did not believe that the woman had been dead long.

Homicide investigators and police recruits sifted yesterday through underbrush and debris in the woods where an Old Mill High School student was found stabbed to death Saturday."

The parents of James R. "Jamie" Griffin still visit the woods in the Gunpowder Falls State Park where his body was found in 1990, eight years after their only child disappeared.Others also have made this pilgrimage, and have left tokens in remembrance of the gifted, 17-year-old pianist who was killed in 1982, just before his graduation from Dulaney High School.Somebody even left a neatly painted sign that reads: "May the legend of Jamie Griffin live forever in the hearts and minds of all who enter the Gunpowder River."

Baltimore's 1992 murder toll rose to 68 yesterday when police found the bodies of two young women in a vacant rowhouse and that of an elderly woman in a public housing project.Lt. Robert Stanton of the homicide unit said last night the bodies of the young women, apparently strangled, were in a vacant house in the 2500 block of Salem Ave. Neither had been identified last night.In another section of West Baltimore, police found the elderly woman's body in the Gilmor Homes housing project in the 1600 block of Delano Court.

Federal authorities are investigating the fatal shooting of a wealthy Homeland businessman whose body was found Tuesday night near the Baltimore-Washington Parkway north of Greenbelt.The victim, 34-year-old J. Schuyler "Sky" Alland, had been shot in the head. His body was found about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday by three people driving near the national Agricultural Research Center, checking out what they initially thought was a deer, according to the U.S. Park Police.Mr. Alland's leased car -- an $80,000 black BMW-750iL, with temporary Maryland tag 30619X -- was still missing last night, believed taken by the killer.