Crutchley

ROCKVILLE -- Former Navy SEAL Benjamin Sifrit, on trial in the death and dismembering of a Virginia couple in Ocean City last year, once detailed to a friend how he would chop up a body to dispose of it if he ever killed someone, the friend testified yesterday. Michael McInnis of Virginia Beach, Va., described a conversation that he said he had with Sifrit at a strip bar in 1999, when both were SEALS. Sifrit said, hypothetically that he would put down plastic, chop off the limbs and head with a knife, and place the body parts in separate bags, according to McInnis.

ROCKVILLE - A former Navy SEAL charged with murder in the deaths of two Ocean City tourists admitted to the killings a few days later to scare a woman he had just met, a prosecutor said yesterday. Benjamin Sifrit, 25, "confessed" to Melissa Seling in his rented Ocean City condominium that he had recently fired shots through a bathroom door in the condo and killed the couple, Worcester County State's Attorney Joel J. Todd said during opening statements at Sifrit's trial. "I killed them.

ROCKVILLE -- In one of the most notorious -- and puzzling -- cases in the history of Ocean City, former Navy SEAL Benjamin Adam Sifrit goes on trial here today in the slayings of a Virginia couple whose dismembered bodies were found in June in a Hardscrabble, Del., landfill. His wife, Erika Sifrit, is scheduled to be tried starting June 2 in Frederick for her alleged role in the killings. Left unanswered in the voluminous pretrial records is how two people with seemingly bright futures ended up charged in a pair of grisly slayings that shook the seaside resort.

SNOW HILL - As a Worcester County judge rejected a motion yesterday to throw out evidence in the coming trial of murder suspect Benjamin A. Sifrit, his wife's lawyer filed court papers that could force prosecutors to drop first-degree murder charges against Erika E. Sifrit, a key provision of a deal that defense attorney Arcangelo M. Tuminelli says was made when she agreed to cooperate with police. The couple, both 24-year-old residents of Duncanville, Pa., are charged in the shooting deaths of two Virginia tourists who investigators say were killed and dismembered in a north Ocean City penthouse during the Memorial Day weekend.

A day after human remains were uncovered in a landfill 25 miles north of Ocean City, Delaware's chief medical examiner told resort police yesterday that he could not determine whether the dismembered parts are those of a Virginia couple investigators believe were killed in a luxury beachfront penthouse Memorial Day weekend. Instead, DNA samples will be tested by forensics experts at the Maryland State Police Crime Laboratory in Pikesville to determine if the remains are those of Martha Crutchley, 51, and Joshua Ford, 32, who were reported missing by co-workers when they failed to return from vacation a week ago. Military officials revealed yesterday that a former Navy SEAL who police believe shot the Virginia couple and disposed of their bodies was court-martialed in October 2000 for being absent without leave, insubordination and other offenses, then given a bad-conduct discharge that was made final May 14. Officials in Delaware and Maryland declined yesterday to say why conventional identification methods such as fingerprints or dental records failed to identify body parts that were discovered in half-a-dozen black trash bags.

HARDSCRABBLE, Del. - Using everything from heavy equipment to hand rakes, officers from nearly 40 Delmarva police agencies found dismembered bodies yesterday in a landfill here, believed to be a Virginia couple who police say were killed over Memorial Day weekend in an Ocean City penthouse. "Body parts or remains have been found and taken to the Delaware medical examiner's office to determine if these are the missing people," said Jay Hancock, an Ocean City police spokesman. "Obviously, the search will continue on past darkness."

A young husband and wife were charged yesterday in the deaths of a Virginia couple missing since their Memorial Day weekend visit to Ocean City, police said. Martha M. Crutchley, 51, and her boyfriend, Joshua E. Ford, 32, had left for Ocean City on May 17. They were reported missing Wednesday after Crutchley failed to show up for an important business meeting. Yesterday, Benjamin and Erika Sifrit of Altoona, Pa., were charged in their deaths, after police searched the Sifrits' Ocean City condominium and found blood-splattered walls, two spent shell-casings and a key to a nearby oceanfront condo where Crutchley and Ford had been staying.

OCEAN CITY -- Through the first four days of this year's White Marlin Open, 225 white marlin were caught, but none met the tournament's minimum weight of 65 pounds.Yesterday, nearly $800,000 hung in the balance as some 260 boats ran out to the offshore canyons."That's what one 65-pound white marlin would be worth across the board," Open co-chairman Andy Motsko said shortly after the scales opened at Harbor Island Marina. "But that's if only one white is weighed in."Or, if the same boat weighed in the top two white marlins of the week, which tournament officials said never had been done.