Dentist

Dr. Faina Nagel, a dentist who practiced in Columbia and had earlier lived in Leningrad and Israel, died of stomach cancer March 9 at her Howard County home. She was 54. Born Faina Okun in Belarus, she grew up in Leningrad and attended the Leningrad Pediatric Institute. Her father, a physics teacher, suffered the loss of his family, who were Jews, during World War II. Her mother was a store manager. As a teen, she was a member of the Young Communist Party. Family members said she encountered anti-Semitism and left the U.S.S.R.

Dr. Thomas F. Clement, a retired Carroll County dentist, died Friday of colon cancer at the Charlestown retirement community. He was 82. The son of a dentist and a homemaker, Dr. Clement was born in Baltimore and raised on Edmondson Avenue in West Baltimore. After graduating in 1945 from City College, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. He was a 1951 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. He met his future wife, the former Esther R. Moore, who was a nursing student at the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing.

The seven people seated around the conference table want to know why Maia Brittingham isn't growing. The 11-year-old's mother has driven three hours from the family's home outside Ocean City to seek answers at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The case is now before Dr. Jay Perman, a veteran pediatrician who also happens to be the new president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. As Perman leads five students and a resident through Maia's medical history, a question arises about the answers her mother has given.

In a brief ceremony Friday, the family of a dentist slain in his Glen Burnie office and the Korean Society of Maryland thanked police, prosecutors and other Anne Arundel County officials who worked to bring the four-year-old homicide case to a recent indictment. "It's a good thing for the detectives — they did a good thing and they are working very hard — to show our appreciation," said Dr. Charles Kim, a brother-in-law of the victim, Dr. Albert Woonho Ro. "It is good for police to have encouragement and to show people, even with a cold case, it can be solved," Kim said at the unusual courthouse ceremony, during which more than two dozen citations were issued by the Korean society, County Executive John R. Leopold, Sheriff Ronald Bateman and others.

An Anne Arundel County judge set bail at $3 million Wednesday for a Baltimore woman accused of killing her former employer, Glen Burnie dentist Albert Woonho Ro, after hearing that others might have been involved in the slaying and that Ro might have been tortured. Assistant State's Attorney M. Virginia Miles told the judge that the defendant, Shontay Joyner Hickman, may face more charges because police believe she "systematically" stole money from Ro's dental practice, where she worked as the office manager.

A former office manager for a Glen Burnie dentist who was fatally beaten in 2006 has been charged with murdering him, prosecutors said Tuesday. A relative of hers also has been charged. Shontay Joyner-Hickman, 35, was arrested Monday night at her home in the 700 block of N. Kenwood St. in Baltimore by Anne Arundel County police and ordered held without bail Tuesday. She and Dante Jeter, 23, were indicted Friday in the death of Albert Woonho Ro. Jeter had already been jailed in Baltimore to await trial on a different murder charge in the city.

Dr. Albert Perrelli, a retired dentist who went on humanitarian missions, died of respiratory disease June 29 at the Gilchrist Hospice Center. He was 80 and lived in Towson. Born in Cosenza, Italy, he immigrated to the United States with his family and lived in Dundalk. "He was the son of a toolmaker and entrepreneur, and he assimilated quickly," said his daughter, Ann Perrelli of Caracas, Venezuela. "He learned English and took on odd jobs to help support the family." He was a 1948 graduate of Loyola High School, where he played football.