Family Man

The petite woman with the strong voice glared at the baby-faced man at the defense table, confronting with her eyes the 23-year-old who last year confronted her in her Wiltondale home with a knife, a condom and handcuffs. "I hope you realize that you and I are now tied together for the rest of our lives," she said, as he kept his eyes downcast. "You won't consume me, but you will always be in my mind, and I hope one day it will be way back in my mind. ... On the other hand, I hope that I always stay in the front of your mind, so that you realize what you have done and that you are haunted by it."

With the church pews crowded and the widow singing a hymn, friends and relatives of Michael C. Hargrove mourned the loss of the father of three young girls, who was struck down by an errant bullet while he stood at his apartment window last week. The emotional funeral at Full Gospel Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ was marked by pastors and friends trying to answer one question: Why did such an innocent person die? "We are left without answers," Bishop Jonathan D. Wallace said in his eulogy, urging the congregation not to lose faith in God. City police said yesterday that they were questioning witnesses but had no suspects and knew of no motive in the fatal shootings of Hargrove and Kevin A. Pearson.

Sitting on stage behind a pine table, armed with a glass of water, actor Spalding Gray has spent the past 25 years talking about himself. Through 18 autobiographical monologues, he has shared stories from his exotic, careering life with thousands of strangers. He has talked about his adolescent sexual encounters, recounted details of movie-making and mused about creation and death, especially death. He has become known for blending hilarity with darkness - and for sweeping lovers, relatives and friends into the fast-moving currents of his narratives.

As Baltimore County police investigate the death of Philip E. Wheeler four days after his arrival at the county detention center, members of his family are raising questions about the medical treatment he received. Wheeler, 44, of Baltimore, collapsed inside a cell in the jail's medical unit the evening of Dec. 29. He had been transferred to the medical area that day. But his wife and son said they have heard that Wheeler was sick for days, and that he may not have been promptly treated by corrections officers or the medical workers under contract to provide health care at the jail.

Jack Campbell is a modern-day Scrooge, a slick, cocky, $2,400 Ermenegildo Zegna suit-wearing investment bank president. He has no life outside work and snorts derisively when his minions dare to suggest leaving the office in time for Christmas Eve dinner with their families. In fact, Campbell (Nicolas Cage) is so hardened to matters unrelated to corporate takeovers that he thinks he doesn't regret picking his career over his college sweetheart 13 years ago. But one night he meets a mysterious stranger (Don Cheadle)

John Charles Evelius, a retired founding partner of the Baltimore law firm of Gallagher, Evelius and Jones, who counseled the Archdiocese of Baltimore and Catholic Charities, died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 74. The Ellicott City resident retired in 1996 from the law firm, located in the Park Charles Building at 218 N. Charles St., which he had established in 1961 with Francis X. Gallagher, a highly respected Baltimore attorney and civic leader.

A federal jury in Baltimore has awarded $2.45 million to the family of an Eastern Shore man killed in 1994 when the airplane he was riding in crashed in icy weather in Pottstown, Pa. The family of John Powell, who was 39 when the crash occurred, was awarded the settlement Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation showed the pilot of the Piper Aerostar, Frederick G. Erb, didn't de-ice the plane before taking off from Pottstown Limerick Airport.

Two state agencies have settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a West Baltimore man who was autopsied and cremated without notice to his relatives who were frantically searching for him. The payment of $17,500 will be made to the siblings and mother of James King, who died on June 20, 1994, while apparently on his way to visit his doctor. The settlement came just before the case was scheduled to go before a jury. King, then 63 and living on North Carey Street, was found collapsed in the parking lot of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

The family of a man accidentally shot to death in April by a police officer during a traffic stop has been given $2 million as part of a settlement agreement with Montgomery County officials.Junious W. Roberts Jr., 44, was fatally shot April 14 in Wheaton by Montgomery County police officer Sean Thielke, who said his gun discharged accidentally during a brief struggle. A grand jury declined to indict Thielke. Roberts' family sued, hiring noted attorney Johnnie L. Cochran.In the settlement agreement, county officials agreed to pay $2 million to Roberts' relatives and also to recommend that $1 million be spent on Police Department training, new video cameras to be placed in patrol cars and recruitment of minority officers.

EMMITSBURG -- Looking at Jim Phelan's cluttered office at Knott Arena, it is difficult to tell that he is the winningest active Division I coach in the country or that he's on the verge of doing something only three others have accomplished in their careers -- win 800 games.There are more family photos than team pictures, more references to Phelan's life as a husband, father and grandfather than to his now legendary 45-year career at Mount St. Mary's. "If he has a bad side," said his wife, Dottie, "it's that he doesn't promote himself."