Eastpoint

The 29-year-old woman who was killed in her Eastpoint rowhouse during the weekend was strangled, Baltimore County police said yesterday. Melissa Taylor of the 7300 block of Edsworth Road was found dead inside the house by her mother, who stopped by to visit about 2:45 p.m. Saturday. Carol Sparacco, Taylor's neighbor, said she was inside the home before police arrived and saw a "long round line" with a "phone cord or rope attached it" near the body. Cpl. Vickie Warehime, a police spokeswoman, said authorities know of no motive and have no suspects in the case.

Services for Maurice Rubenstein, who practiced general dentistry in the Eastpoint area for many years, will be held at 11 a.m. today at Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral establishment, 6010 Reisterstown Road.Dr. Rubenstein, who was 62 and resided on Beech View Court in Towson, died of cancer Monday at the Mercy Medical Center.He retired at the beginning of 1988 after practicing in Baltimore and then eastern Baltimore County.He taught part time in the departments of community dentistry and oral diagnosis at the University of Maryland dental school, appeared as a dentist on radio and television talk shows, and was the author of several professional papers.

A southwest Baltimore couple have pleaded guilty to federa drug charges for distributing cocaine here for a Philadelphia-fed drug ring operated by a Halethorpe mechanic and an Arbutus lawyer.Karen Nelson, 35, and her husband Glenn, 31, both of the 600 block of Wickham Road, entered their pleas Friday to Judge John R. Hargrove in U.S. District Court. Glenn Nelson works in the Baltimore Sun's transportation department.Prosecutor Andrew G.W. Norman said Karen Nelson, assisted by her husband, distributed between five and 49.5 kilograms of cocaine in the Baltimore area from July 1988 to March 1989.

A woman was struck and killed by a sport utility vehicle while crossing a Baltimore County street Friday night, police said. Dundalk resident Susan Davis, 45, was walking across North Point Boulevard at about 8 p.m. when an SUV heading south struck her, said a dispatcher for Baltimore County police. The incident took place near Eastpoint Mall. Davis was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. A crash team is investigating the accident. steve.kilar@baltsun.com twitter.com/stevekilar

Eastpoint Mall, in southeast Baltimore County, was sold at auction Tuesday for $30.3 million, according to the auctioneer. A real estate investment firm based in southern Florida, LNR Property LLC, purchased the mall on the behalf of the lender who foreclosed on the property, said Alexander Forbes, of Tidewater Auctions LLC in Towson. One other bidder actively competed with LNR during the auction process, Forbes said. The auction stemmed from a lender's lawsuit against Thor Equities LLC, the New York-based investment firm that bought the mall in 2006.

Eastpoint Mall in Baltimore said Tuesday it has signed leases with DSW Shoe Warehouse and Burlington Coat Factory. The mall, which is owned by Thor Equities, said it also signed a 15-year lease extension with Value City Furniture. DSW, which is scheduled to open in April, signed a 10-year lease for 18,000 square feet of space formerly occupied in part by Steve & Barry, a clothing store. Burlington Coat Factory signed a 10-year lease to open a 70,000-square-foot store in March. The mall serves about 6 million shoppers a year, according to Thor Equities.

Bloomingdale's? Macy's? Saks Fifth Avenue? Such glitzy, pricey stores are not what Eastpoint Mall has in mind for its nearly completed $30 million renovation."

A farmers' market that was once a staple at the now-defunct Golden Ring Mall will be resurrected 10 minutes away in eastern Baltimore County. The Eastpoint Mall farmers' market will open Wednesday. Organizers say it will operate from noon to 3 p.m. every Wednesday until October, selling items such as sweet corn, tomatoes, squash, pears and strawberries, most of it produced by Baltimore County farmers. The state has seen an explosion in the number of such markets since 1990, when there were 20. Today, there are an estimated 65, two-thirds of which get support from the state Department of Agriculture.

Police in Baltimore County are investigating a quadruple stabbing overnight that officers believe may have involved road rage. Cpl. John Wachter, a spokesman for the county police department, said four people were injured at about 2 a.m. in a stabbing incident near the Eastpoint Mall that may have been sparked by a confrontation in traffic. One person was taken to Franklin Square Hospital Center for treatment and another to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Wachter said, but he could provide no details on the status of the other two people.

The state's mosquito-spraying campaign moved into eastern Baltimore County last night after two dead crows infected with the West Nile virus were found in Eastpoint and Dundalk. Four more infected crows were also found in Baltimore, and two in Montgomery County - the first in the Washington suburbs. In all, 21 infected crows have been found this year in Maryland. Also yesterday, Washington officials announced the discovery of two infected crows in that city's northwest section. The southward movement of the virus in September and October is consistent with a federal government prediction last week that the virus would spread south with fall bird migrations.