Body

When Howard County authorities said they found the badly decomposed remains of Christine Jarrett beneath a shed in her own backyard, they moved swiftly to charge her husband - long a suspect - with the murder. That discovery - two decades after her disappearance - is expected to become the focus of Robert Jarrett Jr.'s first-degree murder trial as it enters its second week. Though the body proved to be the tipping point for investigators in the field, it has also become a target for Jarrett's lawyers, who say it doesn't prove their client is guilty.

Mutter Museum may leave you shocked and horrified or amazed and fascinated. Either way, its collections of bones, bodies, body parts, plus tumors and other terrors, are unforgettable. The nation's finest and oldest medical museum - celebrating its 150th anniversary this month - bills itself as "disturbingly informative," and that is absolutely true. Specimens lining its wood-and-glass display cases reveal the effects of epidemics and diseases on the body, as well as an amazing array of human curiosities and anomalies.

At first glance, the Metro Gallery's Saturday night bill seems like an odd pairing: Dope Body - one of Baltimore's noisiest, most abrasive bands in years - and Mykki Blanco, a gender-bending, impressively nimble rapper from New York. But watch some live YouTube clips of each act, and the show makes more sense. Dope Body and Mykki Blanco command attention immediately, and both are capable of consistently winning over new audiences through sheer force and charisma. It doesn't matter that their albums would be categorized at opposite ends of the store.

A Jamaican woman received a life sentence Friday for murder in connection with the 2009 death of a man in a White Marsh apartment - after which officials say she and her co-conspirators dismembered the body and disposed of pieces in the Loch Raven and Liberty Road areas. Jean Brown, 43, of Jamaica, was sentenced by a U.S. District Judge. Federal investigators said she was one of the leaders of a group that obtained marijuana in Arizona and California and transported it to Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.

A woman's body found Saturday afternoon along the Kent Island shoreline has been identified as that of a local woman who had been missing for three weeks, the Maryland State Police said Sunday. Police said doctors at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore identified the body through dental records. The cause and manner of death are still under investigation. A man who was fishing off a pier saw the body in the water near the shoreline and called police about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, according to state police.

Orioles reserve catcher Taylor Teagarden woke up with back pain on Friday and has been shut down for at least a day or two. Teagarden missed a big chunk of last season after suffering a more serious back injury in spring training, but he said Friday's discomfort is not comparable to the problem that delayed his arrival in Baltimore last year until midseason. “[It was] real stiff, pretty achy this morning, a little more than normal," Teagarden said “Just want to be a little cautious, you know.

The body of a Harford County man who had been missing since early last month was recovered Tuesday from the Susquehanna River below Conowingo Dam, Maryland State Police said. The man has been identified as Scott R. Hammer, 57, of Havre de Grace. His body has been transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore for an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death, according to a news release from State Police. Shortly before 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Maryland Natural Resources Police officers were contacted by workers at Conowingo Dam, who reported seeing a body lying on a rock in the river after the water level was lowered, State Police said.

City confirmed Saturday that a man and a woman whose bodies were found in a burning car in West Baltimore early Friday morning had been shot. Police said it was still not clear whether they were killed by bullets or the fire and had no more information on the cause of the blaze. The fire was discovered at about 5 a.m. in the 2000 block of N. Monroe St. in the Mondawmin neighborhood, fire officials said. "Whether or not they are fire victims or otherwise has to be determined by the state medical examiner," Baltimore City Fire Department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright said Friday.

A Halethorpe man whom police said struck another man in the head 24 times with a hatchet was convicted in Baltimore County Circuit Court Thursday night, according to the state's attorney's office. After a four-day trial, a jury found Larry Eugene Horton, 38, guilty in the death of Ryan Wesley Jackson, 18, whose body was found in Brooklyn Oct. 15. Horton's attorney, Donald C. Wright, said "we're disappointed by the verdict. " Horton had claimed he was acting in self-defense when he said Jackson, who sold him crack cocaine, was there to collect a drug debt.

Oh, the physical sacrifices I make for my job as a journalist. True, I have never been assaulted by a mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as CBS' Lara Logan was. And I've never been injured by a bomb, as happened to ABC's Bob Woodruff and CBS' Kimberly Dozier in Iraq. In fact, the last time I left Maryland for an assignment, it was to cover the Philadelphia Flower Show, and that's not exactly hazard duty. But I am recovering from injuries suffered while writing a food story for our Wednesday Taste section, and I'd like a little more attention to my suffering than I got in the emergency room.