Eviction

By Ruben Castaneda A Forest Heights woman disputed the official account of the incident in which her dog was shot to death Friday by Prince George's County sheriff's deputies who had gone to her home to serve an eviction notice. In a statement, the sheriff's department said that deputies knocked on the front and back doors of the home and made a commotion, but they received no response indicating that a dog was present. But Donya Williams, 38, said Monday that her 2 1/2-year-old Rottweiler, Kato, barked whenever anyone knocked on the door or walked by outside.

The Maryland attorney general's office moved Thursday to halt an alleged pyramid scheme by a Gambrills company and its owner, who are accused of bilking about 500 people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by promising commissions, free rent and cars in exchange for recruiting more investors. The plan started to fall apart when rent checks bounced and the investors were evicted. More than 115 people paid several thousand dollars into the company for an apartment, and most have been tossed out, according to authorities.

As eviction day loomed, 79-year-old Ruth Hearn lived in an upstairs bedroom of her cold, dark home, using oil lamps for light. By her reckoning, her family had worked the 124-acre Wincopia Farms in Southeastern Howard County for six or seven generations. Before her husband's death in 1996, they grew flowers for the White House grounds; more recently, Ruth and her daughter Emily had dreamed of expanding the business with a botanical garden. But the $4.5 million loan they took out in 2002 had ballooned to a $13 million debt that they could never repay, and in 2008, lender Gourley & Gourley LLC foreclosed.

The peace agreement that had held since last summer between a Baltimore church and a group that advocates for feral cats appears to have broken down, with the pastor saying he'll order a feeding station and two small shelters removed from the property. The Rev. Reginald Turner, pastor of Northside Baptist Church on East Northern Parkway, said members of the congregation met Sunday and decided to end the arrangement made last August with Alley Cat Allies, a national group based in Bethesda that had acted as mediator in a dispute between the church and several people who have been taking care of a group of cats that have lived for years in a wooded area behind the church.

Baltimore County's homeless count jumped by nearly 25 percent in the past year, according to the county's annual survey of those living without a permanent home. More than a third of the 890 people counted said they were homeless for the first time. "Unemployment and eviction numbers are high and are contributing to the increases," said Sue Bull, the county's homeless coordinator. "Evictions are up by 21 percent, and loss of job contributed in 23 percent of those surveyed." County administrators and 65 volunteers conducted the annual "point-in-time" survey Jan. 28. They traveled the county to check shelters, libraries, soup kitchens and bus stops.

Marjorie Benedum and her husband, Mel Harris, knew their landlord was facing foreclosure but were reassured when he said they could keep renting the Southwest Baltimore house after his family lost it. Then Harris, who is 79 and retired, came home from church three weeks ago to find a sheriff's notice on the door. Get out in 10 days, it said, or be evicted. "We weren't sure what we were going to do," recalled Benedum, 62. More and more renters have been caught up in the national foreclosure crisis, and lenders taking back those homes nearly always want them gone.

A man and a woman have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 74-year-old Rosedale man who had planned to evict them from his home, according to Baltimore County police. A relative found the body of David Leroy Weeks on Friday night at his home in the 1200 block of Hilldale Road, police said. Weeks was found in his bed with a pillow taped over his head, and blood was on the sheets, according to police. Michael Paul DiMattei, 35, and Erin Eileen Steffy, 35, had lived with Weeks for several years, but the homeowner had planned to go to court to obtain an eviction notice on the day his body was discovered, police said.

An Essex family staved off eviction Monday when a District Court judge declined Baltimore County's request that he order the family off the property. Judge Norman R. Stone III told an attorney representing the county that the issues involved in the case were too complex for easy resolution and that county officials had not proved they were entitled to remove James M. Schneider, his wife and their children from their home without helping them relocate. "I wish I could put a stake through the heart of this case," Stone said, "but I can't."