Double Murder

A 26-year-old convicted by a jury on Friday of killing two 17-year-olds in a Baltimore park in 2008 is to be sentenced in May and could receive two consecutive life terms in prison, according to the city state's attorney's office. Timothy Crockett had been released from a federal penitentiary in Illinois, where he was serving time for a gun charge, two weeks before he shot Darrius Harrison and Djuan Anderson in Easterwood Park in June three years ago. Witnesses told police at the time that they heard Crockett and an accomplice "plan and arrange" the shootings and then retrieve a gun. Prosecutors said that both victims had been shot in the head in the 3 a.m. attack.

With his retirement ride wrapping up in the Super Bowl, Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis remains a popular topic on social media. And while perceptions have changed since Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in relation to a double murder in Atlanta in 2000, some on social media remain critical of the 17-year NFL veteran. According to Forbes.com, which recently spoke to a social media firm called Fizziology , approximately 20 percent of all mentions of Lewis on sites like Twitter and Facebook were analyzed as negative or mixed in the past week.

An attorney representing Kenneth D. Perry, accused of committing a double murder in 1998, tried Friday to methodically take apart a homicide detective's investigation of the case during the defendant's second trial in Baltimore Circuit Court. Attorney Janice Bledsoe zeroed in repeatedly during cross-examination on what she termed failures or inconsistencies in the investigation of the murders of Perry's former girlfriend, LaShawn Jordan, and her friend Kelly Bunn in a Reservoir Hill apartment.

Two people were arrested in downtown Baltimore Friday in connection with a double homicide in Connecticut, city police confirmed. Police received intelligence that Claude Turner, 36, and Elizabeth Swiderski Turner, 26, were staying in Baltimore homeless shelters, and on Friday staff confirmed that they had seen the pair recently, said Anthony Guglielmi, the chief spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department.  Undercover officers searched...

A 23-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to consecutive life terms plus 40 years in prison for fatally shooting two people in 2007 who were attacked in broad daylight after they emerged from a Dollar Store in the city'sBelair-Edisonneighborhood. Larry Livingston Joseph had been convicted of the crimes in August 2008 but the state's Court of Special Appeals threw out the verdict two years ago. The judges ruled that the trial judge had failed to ask Joseph why he wanted to fire his attorney.

Kenneth D. Perry, who was found guilty in February of killing two women 12 years ago in the presence of two children — one of them his infant son — was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole, plus 50 years. As he was led out of the courtroom, he grinned and began humming a tune. Judge Stuart R. Berger said that in his 13 years on the bench, he had not seen a more "horrific, callous and senseless act of violence," and called it "tragic and gratuitous. " The 45-year-old defendant, notorious for his contentiousness in court, had been convicted in the case once before, in 2001, and given the same sentence, but a judge later determined that a prosecutor had failed to turn over crucial materials to the defense.

Residents of the Bishop's Garth apartment complex in Westminster will take the first steps Wednesday night toward forming a neighborhood association in the wake of a double murder that stunned the community 13 days ago.Some residents are some still smarting under what they see as criticism from Police Chief Sam R. Leppo. They plan to meet with city government officials.Mayor W. Benjamin Brown told the City Council last night that the session will be at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the apartments, at 99 Charles St.The bodies of Cathryn B. Farrar, 39, and her friend George "Billy" Wahl of Westminster, 35, were found in her apartment Aug. 2 after neighbors became concerned and called police.

Police in Prince George's and Baltimore counties believe a man found Thursday in the trunk of a car in Greenbelt is the second victim of what is possibly a drug-related double murder.Baltimore County police had been looking for Darwin Milburn, 20, for the past week. They wanted to question him about the slaying of his 19-year-old girlfriend, Edna Coates. She was found March 4 in the couple's Randallstown apartment, dead from several gunshots to the head.The search ended when Mr. Milburn was found Thursday morning.

Dear Jay Leno,Goodness knows I've tried to understand this fascination with the O. J. Simpson trial from your perspective.You are, after all, a comedian and the host of the "Tonight Show" no less. The trial and the resulting circus must be a veritable comedy gold mine for a skilled monologist like yourself.There's just one thing that has bothered me all along: The situation isn't funny.Oh, I know you've said that you're not making fun of Mr. Simpson or the murders but of all the peculiarities surrounding the court proceedings.

FREDERICK - The prosecution in the double-murder trial of Erika E. Sifrit finished its case yesterday using an unlikely witness in an attempt to further tie her to a weapon used in one of the slayings - her father. E. Scott Collins, Worcester County assistant state's attorney, called Mitchell Grace to the stand in the final moments of yesterday's testimony, questioning him about a gun that his son in-law, former Navy SEAL Benjamin Sifrit, bought for his wife, Erika. "He upset me when he told me he was planning on buying my daughter a gun," Grace said.

A 23-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to consecutive life terms plus 40 years in prison for fatally shooting two people in 2007 who were attacked in broad daylight after they emerged from a Dollar Store in the city'sBelair-Edisonneighborhood. Larry Livingston Joseph had been convicted of the crimes in August 2008 but the state's Court of Special Appeals threw out the verdict two years ago. The judges ruled that the trial judge had failed to ask Joseph why he wanted to fire his attorney.

A 24-year-old man who walked into the Laurel police station on Christmas Eve and confessed to a double murder on Long Island, according to police, is being held pending an extradition hearing as early as Tuesday. Jim Collins, a spokesman for the Laurel city police, said Jerry A. Lewis went to the station about 7:40 p.m. Saturday and told officers he had committed the slayings in North Bay Shore, N.Y. The bodies of 21-year-old Shakeela Planter and her 2-year-old son Jaiden Planter had been found in their apartment Friday, though local media reports said they had apparently been killed about five days earlier - the mother stabbed and the son beaten to death.

Even though police do not think the recent execution-style double murder at Arundel Mills Mall was a random act of violence, it is a scary reminder of just how close violent crime can be to Anne Arundel County residents ("Police kill suspect in mall shootings," Nov. 13). Less than 12 hours later, acting on information from a citizen, a joint task force which included police from Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties, surrounded the suspect's house in Capital Heights, a community in Prince George's County, in preparation for executing a search warrant.

Seniors in the forensics class at St. Paul's School scrapped the traditional blue books and delved into a real-life mystery for their final exam. Instead of an essay, they applied 21st-century tools and technology to their investigation of an unsolved 170-year-old double murder. "It's our own episode of 'Cold Case,'" said Will Stokes of Hunt Valley. "They get very lucky on TV. Our job was more tedious. " Working in teams of four in one of the Brooklandville school's co-ed classes, the students took two weeks to study the 1842 murder of Alexander and Rebecca Smith, analyze the evidence found at their Long Island farmhouse, which was the scene of the crime, and draw their conclusions based on what they discovered.

Timothy Crockett, 26, was sentenced to two life terms in prison — with all but 45 years of the sentence suspended — for the double murder of two teen-agers, the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office announced Thursday. A jury found in March that Crockett shot Darrius Harrison and Djuan Anderson, both 17, in Senator Troy Braily-Easterwood Park in June 2008. The event occurred two weeks after he had been released from a federal penitentiary in Illinois, where he was serving time for a gun charge, and while he was on probation for drug dealing.

Kenneth D. Perry, who was found guilty in February of killing two women 12 years ago in the presence of two children — one of them his infant son — was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole, plus 50 years. As he was led out of the courtroom, he grinned and began humming a tune. Judge Stuart R. Berger said that in his 13 years on the bench, he had not seen a more "horrific, callous and senseless act of violence," and called it "tragic and gratuitous. " The 45-year-old defendant, notorious for his contentiousness in court, had been convicted in the case once before, in 2001, and given the same sentence, but a judge later determined that a prosecutor had failed to turn over crucial materials to the defense.

Ira Johnson was unlike anyone I had ever met. Something about him left you uneasy, as if he knew who you were without asking. He could look right through you, dismiss you, even as you sat in front of him. He was a strange mix of danger and aloofness, the way his legs twitched under the table, the way he leaned so far back in his chair. He would smile, then jingle the handcuffs hanging from his wrists. Something about him, about the way he stared at your back when you turned around, something about him was evil.

Seniors in the forensics class at St. Paul's School scrapped the traditional blue books and delved into a real-life mystery for their final exam. Instead of an essay, they applied 21st-century tools and technology to their investigation of an unsolved 170-year-old double murder. "It's our own episode of 'Cold Case,'" said Will Stokes of Hunt Valley. "They get very lucky on TV. Our job was more tedious. " Working in teams of four in one of the Brooklandville school's co-ed classes, the students took two weeks to study the 1842 murder of Alexander and Rebecca Smith, analyze the evidence found at their Long Island farmhouse, which was the scene of the crime, and draw their conclusions based on what they discovered.

A 26-year-old convicted by a jury on Friday of killing two 17-year-olds in a Baltimore park in 2008 is to be sentenced in May and could receive two consecutive life terms in prison, according to the city state's attorney's office. Timothy Crockett had been released from a federal penitentiary in Illinois, where he was serving time for a gun charge, two weeks before he shot Darrius Harrison and Djuan Anderson in Easterwood Park in June three years ago. Witnesses told police at the time that they heard Crockett and an accomplice "plan and arrange" the shootings and then retrieve a gun. Prosecutors said that both victims had been shot in the head in the 3 a.m. attack.

An attorney representing Kenneth D. Perry, accused of committing a double murder in 1998, tried Friday to methodically take apart a homicide detective's investigation of the case during the defendant's second trial in Baltimore Circuit Court. Attorney Janice Bledsoe zeroed in repeatedly during cross-examination on what she termed failures or inconsistencies in the investigation of the murders of Perry's former girlfriend, LaShawn Jordan, and her friend Kelly Bunn in a Reservoir Hill apartment.