First Degree Murder

Police charged two men Thursday with first-degree murder in the death of a man who was shot in Annapolis. Howard Durley, 30, of Anne Arundel County, was found shot to death in the 1900 block of Copeland Street about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. The suspects are William Chase, 19, of Capitol Heights and Charles Spriggs, 25, of Annapolis. Police say they found witnesses to the shooting who led them to the suspects. The shooting was not random, police said, and instead "apparently involves a relationship the victim had with a female.

A Baltimore jury convicted a man Monday in the first-degree murder of a bystander who witnessed him hitting his wife, the Office of the State's Attorney announced. Anthony Cole, 30, was also found guilty of attempted first-degree murder for shooting at his wife, who escaped unharmed, and several weapons charges. According to prosecutors, Cole rode his bicycle to the 1900 block of Etting Street in the Druid Heights neighborhood on the evening of April 14, 2012, and confronted his estranged wife, hitting her in the face.

Baltimore police on Monday charged a 37-year-old man in connection to a police-involved shooting over the weekend that left two wounded. Police said Theodore Smith, who lives on the 500 block of Rossiter Ave. in the Wiinston-Govans neighborhood, fought with an officer who was trying to clear a crowd outside a Homeland neighborhood take-out business early Sunday. The officer moved to disperse the crowd that had gathered in the 5400 block of York Road when he got into a physical struggle with Smith, who refused to show identification, police Det. Jeremy Silbert said.

The Anne Arundel County Police Homicide Unit executed an arrest warrant on Friday charging Cynthia Lisa Mills, 47, of the 1600 block Cananaro Drive, Annapolis, with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, solicitation of murder and attempted first-degree murder. Mills turned herself into police custody at the Southern District. She is being held without bond. Police allege that Mills is connected to a murder-for-hire plot in Virginia. The Leesburg Police Department in Leesburg, Va., had arrested Wendell Mansel last August in connection to the murder-for-hire plot.

A 30-year-old man killed last summer in West Baltimore was shot 21 times with two different handguns, according to documents filed in the charging of three people. Edward Ellis, 24, and Zebary Pearson Jr., 27, both of Abingdon, and Antoine Dorsey, 22, of Baltimore have been charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Jermaine Blue on July 28, 2012 in the 1400 block of Poplar Grove St.  According to court records, Blue, who lived in the nearby 2900 block of Presstman St., got into an early-morning argument with the three defendants, and Pearson and Ellis began assaulting him when Dorsey pulled out a handgun and shot him several times.

More than three years after 55-year-old Rodney Lewis was found lying in a pool of his own blood on his kitchen floor, Baltimore County police have charged a man his family had accepted into their Randallstown home. Eric Isaiah Johnson, 20, was arrested this month in the 2009 killing of Lewis. According to police, Lewis arrived home early and found Johnson and two other youths ransacking the home. Lewis' family had allowed Johnson to stay with them shortly before the killing, according to charging documents.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has sentenced Charlie Stevenson to life plus 23 years in prison after he was convicted in a deadly 2007 shooting. A jury convicted Stevenson, 22, of first-degree murder, murder conspiracy and other charges in September for his part in the attack that left two adults dead. The group he fired into included an 8-month-old baby. Stevenson was sentenced last Friday. Bagada Dionas, a Liberian immigrant who was Stevenson's partner in the attack, was convicted and sentenced in 2009.

A Glen Burnie man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for the first-degree murder of a man outside a bar in Glen Burnie, according to a spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County prosecutors. Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ronald A. Silkworth ordered that Clayton A. Battle, 35, begin his sentence after he completes an eight-year prison term on a drug conviction. Battle pleaded guilty last February to fatally shooting Kelly T. Fisher, a 30-year-old Glen Burnie resident, outside Dietrich's Tavern on Dec. 4, 2010.

A smoking ban went into effect at the start of 2012 for all properties owned or leased by the Harford County government, with one exception, the Circuit Courthouse on Bel Air's Main Street. There would still be a designated smoking area away from building entrances and at least 25 feet away from the building doors. Two Bel Air men, Cory Richard Strevig, 26, and Daniel James Sheets, 25, were charged in connection with a string of burglaries in the Fallston area in February. The five break-ins occurred during the day and the burglars got in through the rear entrances of the homes.

Alexander Kinyua, an electrical engineering student at Morgan State University, was charged with the first-degree murder of his roommate 37-year-old Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie. Kinyua allegedly hadn't just killed the man, but also had eaten his heart and portions of his brain. The victim's severed head and hands were found in the men's Joppa home. Additional remains were found in a nearby church's trash container. Kinyua was indicted on charges of first-degree murder and assault and had been sent to a Maryland state mental hospital.