Dontay

The brazen escape Monday of Dontay Carter, a 19-year-old convicted killer who fooled two prison guards and leaped from a bathroom window of the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse downtown prompted the city's biggest manhunt since 1964. He was re-captured late yesterday.Those pursued nearly three decades ago were the Veney brothers, who had killed a police sergeant and wounded a lieutenant during and after a Christmas eve holdup of a liquor store. Police canvassed neighborhoods, searching houses and questioning anyone who bore the slightest resemblance to the suspects.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer ordered "a full investigation into Dontay Carter's escape from a Baltimore courthouse yesterday and vowed to fire any corrections worker found negligent in guarding the 19-year-old convicted killer.Mr. Schaefer, who spent the day in Pittsburgh, landed at Baltimore-Washington International Airport just after 5 p.m. to be greeted with news of Carter's jump through a bathroom window.Already, the phones in the State House were ringing with calls from citizens angry and worried that Carter -- convicted in a murder and two kidnappings and on trial for a third abduction -- was back on the streets."

Convicted killer Dontay Carter, whose violent kidnappin spree made him one of Baltimore's most feared criminals, escaped from the city's main courthouse yesterday by jumping out of a judge's bathroom window and running away.The East Baltimore teen-ager remained on the loose last night and was the target of a huge police manhunt on the evening that mayors from around the nation were attending the city's preinaugural gala.Carter -- in the past described by prosecutors as a "monster" for his coldblooded attacks and lack of remorse -- called prison officials 40 minutes after his escape and told them he might turn himself in.News of the escape prompted angry legislators to call for a review of courthouse procedures and the firing of any corrections personnel who may have been negligent.

During his brief stay at the city Detention Center, Dontay Carter attacked correctional officers, threatened to incite other inmates to stab guards and vowed to stuff one guard's family into a car trunk, jail officials are saying.Defending their decision to move the East Baltimore teen-ager to the Maryland Penitentiary to await trial for murder and kidnapping, officials filed papers last week in U.S. District Court detailing Carter's alleged infractions at the Baltimore City Detention Center.

When it comes to issuing denials that don't ring true, Dontay Carter is a chip off the old block.One day after a jury found the East Baltimore teen-ager guilty in the beating death of a Catonsville man, another jury found his father guilty on four drug charges.Both father and son denied the charges to the end.Jerome Carter, 36, was convicted yesterday of possession of cocaine and heroin with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute the two drugs, said Sharon R. Holback, a prosecutor in the Narcotics Investigations Division of the Baltimore state's attorney's office.

Yesterday the children of Vitalis V. Pilius stayed home from school. The man found guilty of killing Pilius was moved to a new cell, where prison officers could keep a steady eye on him. Heaven forbid, he should attempt to hurt himself. The widow of Vitalis Pilius planned a picnic.Life has to go on, for the Pilius family and even for Dontay Carter. Pilius' widow, Aldona, wanted to draw her children around her after a nine-month ordeal. The captors of the 19-year-old Carter wanted to put him into the general prison population and hope for the best.

Is Dontay Carter a murdering, lying "snake," as the prosecution suggested, or was he framed by police, as his lawyer argued?That question now rests with a Baltimore jury.The jury, which deliberated for five hours yesterday without reaching a verdict, was to return this morning to consider the East Baltimore teen-ager's fate. Carter, 19, is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the Feb. 11 beating death of Vitalis V. Pilius.During yesterday's closing arguments, prosecutors said Carter was stripped of his cloak of presumed innocence during the four-week trial.

Hour by hour, day after day, Vickie Wash and Dontay Carter sat within 7 feet of each other. Separated only by the East Baltimore teen-ager's two lawyers, the prosecutor and the defendant did not exchange so much as a meaningful glance.Yesterday, however, they verbally slugged it out.She smiled and coated her questions and comments with sarcasm. He leaned forward, pointed his finger and said her prosecution was the last step in his persecution."I don't care a bucket full of spit for no police," Carter said.

At a critical moment in the police interrogation of Dontay Carter, homicide Detective Donald Steinhice rose from his chair to hit the teen-age suspect in a tender spot -- his ego.Convinced that Carter was lying when he initially tried to pass the blame for Vitalis V. Pilius' death to a youth known as "Tom Boh," the detective said: "In other words, you ain't s," according to testimony yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court."

Dontay Carter admitted to police that he struck Vitalis V. Pilius "nine or 10 times" in the neck with a pipe and dumped the body in the basement of a vacant rowhouse, jurors in the East Baltimore teen-ager's murder trial were told yesterday.Carter told police that he and Clarence Woodward, who has also been charged in Mr. Pilius' death, abducted the Catonsville man at gunpoint from the parking garage at the Harbor Park Cinema and then looked for a place to kill him, Baltimore homicide Detective Sgt. John Barrick testified during the ninth day of the trial in city Circuit Court.