Gas Station

A 28-year-old Rosedale man who prosecutors said introduced a prospective hitman to a woman looking to have her husband killed was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder and two other counts in the murder-for-hire scheme. A jury deliberated less than two hours before finding Seamus A. Coyle guilty of participating in the March 1 murder of a Towson gas station owner, William Raymond Porter. Coyle was the first of six defendants to be tried, and faces a life sentence. "He was an important go-between," Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger said outside the courthouse after the verdict.

An 18-year-old man dressed in women's clothes was fatally shot in the head at a gas station in East Baltimore early Saturday morning, according to police. Desean Bowman, of the 200 block of Ballou Court, was pumping gas shortly after 2 a.m. at the Exxon gas station at the corner of E. Fayette and N. Caroline streets, near the Douglass Homes neighborhood, when a female friend of his got out of the car he was fueling and went to the station's cashier window, police said. At the window, the girl was approached by an unknown man who identified himself as "Tay" and attempted to talk to her, police said.

A man was fatally stabbed about 5 p.m. yesterday during an apparent robbery attempt at a Catonsville gas station, according to Baltimore County police. The victim was stabbed multiple times in the chest at Carroll Fuel in the 5200 block of Baltimore National Pike, said Cpl. Patrick Wilhelm. The man was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead an hour later. Wilhelm said the victim was a customer at the store and that police were searching for the attacker, who reportedly was seen running away the gas station.

An armed man entered a Columbia gas station, demanded cash and fled with a second man Saturday morning, Howard County police said.No injuries were reported in the 9:25 a.m. robbery of the Mobil gas station in the 7200 block of Cradlerock Way in Columbia's Owen Brown village.The robber was described as a black male, 25 to 30 years old, standing 5 feet 6 inches tall with a tan jacket.POLICE LOG* Long Reach: 8700 block of Cloudleap Court: The front window of the CVS Pharmacy was smashed early yesterday.

Two people robbed a Savage man Thursday as he sat in a car waiting for a friend to make a phone call at a gas station, Howard County police said.Derrick Landin, 35, was not injured in the robbery in the 9000 block of U.S. 1, police said.Landin's female friend drove into an Exxon gas station about 12: 30 a.m. to use a pay phone.While his friend used the phone, a white vehicle carrying three people pulled into the parking lot, police said.One of the occupants got out, went to a nearby pay phone, then got back into the vehicle, which drove away.

A Severna Park gas station attendant emptying the trash early yesterday was robbed by a man who may have threatened him with a gun, county police said.Wayne Adam Grogan, 19, told police he was standing at an outside trash bin about 2:30 a.m. in back of the Severna Park Crown Gas Station when a man came up behind him and put an object, believed to be a gun, to his back.Police said the man ordered Mr. Grogan to keep his mouth shut and forced him back to the cashier's booth, where he filled up a green duffel bag with an unknown amount of money.

A 52-year-old Essex woman accused of helping to set up a $9,000 contract killing provided the gun used in the crime, making her equally responsible for the victim's death, a prosecutor told a jury Thursday in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Susan M. Datta is one of six defendants accused of murder, conspiracy and other crimes in the killing of William R. Porter, who was shot in the head March 1 after being lured by a false alarm to his gas station on Towson's East Joppa Road. During opening statements, prosecutor Jennifer Schiffer told the jury that the crime was orchestrated by the victim's wife, Karla Porter, and that she was helped by Datta, her sister, and her 53-year-old brother, Calvin L. Mowers, as well as a nephew and another man. Schiffer said police officers summoned to the scene found the victim, known as Ray, "lying in a pool of his own blood" and that nothing could be done to save him. The prosecutor said Datta arranged for her sister to have a gun with which to kill Ray Porter, and that, in an interview with detectives, she had acknowledged acquiring the weapon two weeks earlier for that purpose.

A gunman robbed a Pasadena gas station of an undisclosed amount of money early yesterday, county police reported.According to police, the gunman walked into the Shell station in the 100 block of Mountain Road at 5 a.m., showed the clerk a gun and demanded money.The clerk gave him the cash, and the robber fled.

The Howard County Board of Appeals has postponed until next month a public hearing on a controversial proposal for a gas station in Glenwood.The board was supposed to review a request for an exception to allow a 10-pump gas station at Carrs Mill Road and Route 97 tonight, but the hearing has been rescheduled for April 6.This is the second delay.The board postponed a March 2 hearing after 200 residents of the western part of the county filled the room at the George Howard Building in Ellicott City and spilled into the hallway.

State police are investigating the theft of a cash register from a Westminster gas station Sunday. An unknown person entered the S. L. Bare Coastal Gas Station booth in the first block of Sullivan Ave. at 6:25 p.m. and stole the register containing an undisclosed amount of money and other goods, police said. The station attendant, who had left the booth unattended, was unable to give police a description of the thief. Anyone with information is asked to call Tfc. Danielle Barry at 410-386-3000.