Front Porch

Baltimore police officers responding to a call for a suspicious death two blocks from the Pimlico Race Course on Friday found the body of a man who had been shot and possibly left on the front porch of a house for as long as 12 hours. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said officers had searched the area about 1:30 a.m. Friday after someone called 911 to report hearing gunshots. But he said the officers found nothing. Detectives do not yet know if the gunshots from early Friday were related to the body found in the afternoon, but Guglielmi said detectives were investigating that possibility.

They may be few and far between, but little stone cottages buried in the woods, surrounded by blooming flowers, stone pathways, fancy gates, trellises, and outdoor tables set for tea really do exist. Karen and Todd Morrill own such a place - a getaway in northern Baltimore County. Think of a Thomas Kinkade painting or an illustration from a child's book of fairy tales. That is the enchanted place called Holly Hillside. "We could also call it Bliss House," Karen Morrill said, sipping her tea, and gazing from the front porch onto a garden as colorful as a box of crayons.

Police have arrested and charged a 22-year-old neighbor in the fatal stabbing of Emma Coxson, 91, who was found slain in her Northwest Baltimore apartment last week.Rhonda Renee Hall, who lived upstairs from Mrs. Coxson, was interviewed by Baltimore police Saturday and arrested that night. City police spokeswoman Sabrina Tapp-Harper said yesterday that Ms. Hall is charged with first-degree murder, robbery and a separate deadly weapon charge. She was being held last night without bail.The women lived just one floor from each other in a small Northwest Baltimore apartment house, but their lives were worlds apart.

Maybe it's the side porch, or the house's Southern style.Maybe it's that Felicia Northrop -- whose friends call her Martha Stewart Jr. -- loves to entertain.Whatever it is, something makes the Northrops' Fox Valley home in West Friendship warm and inviting, and some nights when Felicia's husband, Creig, comes home from work, he greets a few neighbors and their children before he finds his own -- Victoria, 4, and Jake, 2."I wanted people to feel like they could always come in -- there would always be a pitcher of ice tea or a pot of coffee or something -- and just feel real welcome," said Felicia, 28, who insisted that they include a side door off the kitchen.

THIS WEEK'S news contained a story about several of the Baltimore neighborhoods where I often walk, bank, shop and dine - the Mount Vernon-Penn Station-Bolton Hill section of the city. Tucked within the story was a comment from someone who said these neighborhoods needed a change of streetlight, perhaps outdoor lamps on a more human scale, lights geared to the sidewalk, not automobiles. Amen. Ever since the city ripped out the graceful old streetlights I knew in my youth, I've been a critic of the aluminum poles and their ugly fluorescent glow.

By Preakness Saturday, every last Christmas tree pine needle has to be out of my house. I also have to cut my first rose of the season. It's also the day when the winter rugs must disappear down into my cellar. I live by a Baltimore calendar wherein the Christmas holiday season, late winter and a cool, wet spring have a way of mushing together. By mid-May, it's time for a change. I make the time to clean, tear up the house and find the last holiday light bulbs that might have rolled under the sofa.

JGS Homes has opened a sales trailer at Summit Ridge in Mount Airy, where the company is building 30 traditional homes on lots of one-quarter acre to one-third acre.Crown molding in the living and dining rooms, hardwood flooring the foyer and powder room and gas-powered heat, cooking and hot water are some of the standard features in the Carroll County community.The Brighton I is a 2,050-square-foot home with a beginning price of $214,900. The first floor has a front porch, two-story foyer with guest closet, 11-by-13-foot living room, 10-by-9-foot library, 11-by-11-foot dining room, 11-by-19-foot kitchen/breakfast area, powder and laundry rooms, 18-by-13-foot family room with gas fireplace and two-car garage.

A 12-year-old girl playing on her front porch is accidentally killed by a gang member's stray bullet; the girl's father posts a sign berating his neighbors for refusing to come forth as witnesses.An innocent 20-year-old is murdered by shots fired from an automobile; his grief-stricken mother places flowers and balloons the fatal street corner so residents won't forget.The first incident is the fictional foundation for Charles Fuller's 1980 drama, "Zooman and the Sign," currently receiving a disturbingly timely production at Arena Players.

It's a simple and sad story. Girl dates boy. Girl leaves boy for another boy. First boy confronts second boy and ends up dead. Darion Sawyer and Jeffrey L. Brown. Sawyer, a 29-year-old budding comic book artist, was fatally shot, and Brown, a 34-year-old grocery worker who had never before been arrested or even gotten a traffic ticket, is charged with killing him. The police and prosecutors say it is first-degree murder. Brown's lawyers, Margaret A. Mead and Catherine Flynn, call it self-defense.

Marsha and John Wise bought their home six years ago after losing out on another house in the same neighborhood because they had not made an offer quickly enough. The couple had fallen in love with the community of Hunting Ridge, a historic district near Baltimore's western edge known for solid homes in varied architectural styles amid huge trees and rolling terrain. They really wanted to live there - enough to write to community leaders, inquiring if they knew any homeowners in their midst who would be interested in selling.