First Degree Murder

A Baltimore man serving a 60-year murder sentence now faces life without parole in an unrelated homicide in Glen Burnie, after he was convicted Monday of the first-degree murder of Dr. Albert Woonho Ro. Dante Jeter, 25, is scheduled to be sentenced July 24 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for his role in the fatal beating, stabbing and robbery on Sept. 26, 2006, of Ro, 51, a dentist well-known in the area's Korean-American community. Prosecutor Anne Colt Leitess said she intends to seek life without parole for the murder, plus another life sentence for Jeter's conviction of conspiring with his cousin, Shontay Joyner Hickman, 37, also of Baltimore, and possibly additional time for a robbery conviction.

A 43-year-old man who police say was stabbed more than 20 times last month by his stepson during an argument over money died late last week from his injuries, according to police and court records. Police say George Stevenson was able to call for help, and responding officers found him bleeding profusely in the living room of his apartment in the 1400 block of Limit Ave., suffering from stab wounds to his arm, chest and back. Stevenson said he had been stabbed with an unknown object by his stepson, 16-year-old Galen Stevenson, who then fled on foot, police said.

Three Baltimore men were arrested and charged Sunday with first-degree murder in the Saturday morning stabbing death of a Marine at a house party in Northeast Baltimore, police said. The three men arrested and charged with the murder of Pfc. Darius Ray were Michael Wiggins, 26; Vernon Hadley, 22; and Nicky Woodward, 27, said Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Four homicide detectives interviewed more than 30 witnesses to the stabbing, Guglielmi said. "The murder of a service member hits very hard," Guglielmi said.

A Baltimore man serving a 60-year murder sentence now faces life without parole in an unrelated homicide in Glen Burnie, after he was convicted Monday of the first-degree murder of Dr. Albert Woonho Ro. Dante Jeter, 25, is scheduled to be sentenced July 24 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for his role in the fatal beating, stabbing and robbery on Sept. 26, 2006, of Ro, 51, a dentist well-known in the area's Korean-American community. Prosecutor Anne Colt Leitess said she intends to seek life without parole for the murder, plus another life sentence for Jeter's conviction of conspiring with his cousin, Shontay Joyner Hickman, 37, also of Baltimore, and possibly additional time for a robbery conviction.

A 48-year-old homeless man who police say set his girlfriend on fire has been indicted on first-degree murder charges by a Howard County grand jury. Richard Rodola, of no fixed address in Laurel, poured gasoline on Pamela Myers on Oct. 23 in the woods where they lived, police say. Myers, 37, died last week at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She was taken to the hospital with severe burns covering 70 percent of her body, police said. According to police, Rodola used Myers' own pocket lighter to start the fire.

A Baltimore County jury concluded Monday that Frederick A. Christian killed his girlfriend — the mother of their 2-year-old child — in November 2009 and that he used a gun to do so, even though the weapon was never found and, prosecutors conceded, much of the evidence against him was circumstantial. Testimony in Christian's trial, which lasted more than a week, showed that the body of 23-year-old Jerryell Myesha Foster was dumped near a highway in Virginia, where it was found several months after she disappeared from the apartment in Cockeysville she had shared with the defendant and their daughter.

After a two-week trial that traced a failing marriage's path from disharmony to a vicious killing, a former community activist in Northeast Baltimore was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of his pregnant wife in 2008. The jury also convicted Cleaven L. Williams Jr. of a dangerous-weapon charge in the death of Veronica Williams, with whom he had three children. Their relationship, testimony showed, was fast disintegrating in the weeks before she was attacked.

A 43-year-old man who police say was stabbed more than 20 times last month by his stepson during an argument over money died late last week from his injuries, according to police and court records. Police say George Stevenson was able to call for help, and responding officers found him bleeding profusely in the living room of his apartment in the 1400 block of Limit Ave., suffering from stab wounds to his arm, chest and back. Stevenson said he had been stabbed with an unknown object by his stepson, 16-year-old Galen Stevenson, who then fled on foot, police said.

The 14-year-old boy who Baltimore police say confessed to beating his grandmother with a hammer has been charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder, according to court records. At his bail review Friday morning, Hassanhii Garrett sat in the front row wearing a teal school shirt with his hands shackled behind him. At 5 feet 3 inches tall, he could pass for a boy several years younger. When a judge read the charges against him, a detainee in his 60s who was sitting behind the boy looked at him and shook his head in disbelief.

For years, the Koontz family — Ron, Mary and their daughter, Kelsey — was a "pretty close-knit" group. Mary Koontz made "awesome sandwiches" for her husband and welcomed her daughter's friends into their "quiet suburban home," Kelsey, now 17, said in court Wednesday. "I could see the love between my parents," Kelsey Koontz said. "My childhood was fine. It was awesome." But in a few short years, she went on, the family's harmony dissolved into mistrust and recriminations, her parents separated, and Mary Koontz went to live in Florida.

A Baltimore grand jury indicted a 29-year-old woman Monday on attempted murder and seven other charges in connection with the brutal stabbing of her 8-month-old daughter during a supervised visit at a city social services office in April. Kenisha Thomas, who is being held without bail in the incident, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in district court Tuesday, but the indictment will move the felony case into circuit court. An arraignment on the new charges is set for July 17. According to police, Thomas smuggled a large kitchen knife into a Baltimore social services office April 24 and repeatedly stabbed the infant, named Pretty Diamond, in the head and neck as office staff fought back, with one man throwing a chair at her. The baby, who previously was removed from Thomas' care, survived.

A boy who came home from school and found his mother dead was then bound with belts and duct tape by her alleged killer, whom police arrested last week. Edward Ford, 36, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 44-year-old Cheryl Thomas, who was discovered dead in her home in the McCulloh Homes housing project near downtown Thursday afternoon. According to police, Thomas' son returned from school and found her in her bedroom, handcuffed behind her back and with her feet bound.

City police say they have made an arrest in the killing of a 44-year-old woman found handcuffed and bound by the feet in her bedroom at the McCulloh Homes housing project.  Cheryl Thomas was found May 3 in the 400 block of Cummings Court at about 5 p.m. after police received a call for an assault, according to police spokesman Sgt. Anthony Smith. Officers found Thomas dead in her bed, the victim of an apparent asphyxiation. She was partially clothed, and was handcuffed with her feet bound, police said.

A Circuit Court Jury on Friday found a 34-year-old man guilty of first-degree murder for fatally shooting a man in East Baltimore in the summer of 2010, according to the city State's Attorney's Office. Antonio Moore, of the 400 block of North Robinson St., faces up to life plus 25 years in prison when he is sentenced June 20. Prosecutors said he got into an argument with Avon Beasley on June 12, 2010, in the 200 block of North Rose St. The suspect left but returned 20 minutes later on a bicycle, took out a .25 caliber handgun and shot Beasley in the chest.

A Baltimore County man was found guilty by a Circuit Court jury Friday of fatally shooting a man found in an Owings Mills home in 2009, a state prosecutor said. Gerald E. Sears, 31, who was living in Owings Mills at the time of the killing, was convicted of first-degree murder, dealing cocaine and a handgun charge in the death of Scott M. Greenberg, 51, a father of two who ran a snowball stand on Reisterstown Road. He could be sentenced to life in prison without parole, said, Assistant State's Attorney Adam Lippe.

Six weeks after Scott M. Greenberg was found shot to death in his parents' house in Owings Mills in August, 2009, police arrested Gerald E. Sears and charged him with murder, robbery and drug-dealing. Police never found the murder weapon, or the wallet, bank card and cell phone they claim Sears took from Greenberg. Nor did they find Sears' fingerprints or DNA in the house. What they did get were cell phone records, Sears' admission that he'd been in the house to sell crack cocaine, and no sign the house on Velvet Valley Way had been ransacked by a burglar.

In the days after his twin's disappearance, police say, Wael Ali led searchers to within feet of his brother's body, telling them he felt "something was wrong there. " Whether police suspect that Ali wanted his friends to find his dead brother or whether they think he was merely trying to cover his tracks is unknown, but the detail is one of several revealed in court documents that charge Ali with first-degree murder in the 2007 killing of his twin brother, Wasel. The documents were made public Friday after Ali was extradited from Georgia to stand trial in Howard County.

Four people pleaded guilty Monday for their role in the abduction and torture of a 19-year-old woman left for dead in a vacant home in East Baltimore in 2010, prosecutors said.  The woman was snatched from a motel in March 2010, and taken to the abandoned home where she was duct-taped, shot in the face, stabbed, and tossed into a dark basement flooded with a foot of water. It all stemmed from a drug dispute, police said. "They were taking turns torturing me," she told police at the time.  After multiple postponements, the trial was set to begin Monday.

A Dundalk woman who was sentenced last week to 60 years in prison in her husband's murder pleaded guilty Thursday to assaulting an officer at the Baltimore County Detention Center last August, said Deputy State's Attorney John P. Cox. Jaclyn J. Martin, 31, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor second-degree assault in an altercation with a woman officer on Aug. 21 and was sentenced to the time she has served since the charge was filed on Aug. 31. ...