Joppa

A strong odor of marijuana in a Joppa home where Harford County sheriff's deputies had responded to settle a domestic dispute on Sunday has led to the arrests of a young couple and the seizure of about eight pounds of marijuana, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said Thursday. Deputies responded to the home in the 800 block of Chatfield Road about 12:15 p.m. for a report of a verbal altercation between Michael Allen Brandt, 26, and Julia Michele Leonard, 24, the sheriff's office said.

Because of an increasing number of calls for law enforcement services in Joppa, Sheriff Joseph P. Meadows has decided to designate that area as a separate patrol beat.That means that, as staffing permits, at least one deputy a shift will be assigned exclusively to Joppa and will leave that beat only to back up deputies in emergencies in other sectors."We recognize Joppa is not the only area with a rising crime rate, but we are seeing a definite increase in the number of responses to that area," Sheriff Meadows said.

In an article in the April 24 edition of The Sun for Harford County, William George Fender, one of 18 people linked by police to a Joppa drug operation, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, not cocaine.The Sun regrets the errors.Isabel Velez, the convicted 53-year-old matriarch of East Coast drug kingpins, sits in the county Detention Center awaiting sentencing on cocaine charges that could bring the Joppa woman a 200-year prison term and $1.2 million in fines.As a Circuit Court jury ended the nine-day trial Tuesday after only three hours of deliberation, Velez muttered to her courtroom Spanish translator, "Jesus, forgive them for they know not what they do," a deputy sheriff said.

An arrest warrant was issued late Tuesday evening for a 19-year-old Joppa woman who allegedly tried to kill her 9-month-old daughter by injecting her repeatedly with insulin. Harford County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to the 900 block of Scannell Court in Joppa for a report of a child in cardiac arrest at about 1:33 p.m. Tuesday, according to a press release. As deputies arrived, they were met by paramedics from the Joppa-Magnolia Volunteer Fire Company who were administering emergency medical care to the child.

Joppa View Elementary School in Perry Hall has been looking at alternatives to standard grades since the school opened three years ago.The result: an assessment based on a portfolio of a student's work, a checklist of appropriate skills and behaviors and two mandatory parent-student-teacher conferences.The portfolio is a collection of a student's work, kept in a folder in the classroom.The student can put anything he wants into the folder; the teacher also contributes examples of the student's work.

Juanita Eileen Skaggs, a retired social worker who lived in Joppa, died Sunday at a hospital in Oklahoma City after a stroke. She was 69.A memorial service for Mrs. Skaggs, who had been visiting relatives in Oklahoma City, was held yesterday at the Hahn-Cook/Street and Draper Funeral Home there.Born Juanita Eileen Gibson in Oklahoma City, she graduated from the University of Oklahoma and began doing social work after her husband, Jesse Sparks Skaggs Jr., retired as a major in the Air Force in 1962.

Police were seeking a man who broke into the home of a Joppa woman yesterday and sexually assaulted her, said a spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office.Sgt. Edward Hopkins, the spokesman, said the woman was at home alone about 5: 15 p.m. when the man entered through a door.Hopkins said the woman, who was not raped, was treated at Fallston General Hospital for lacerations.The woman's attacker was described as a white man wearing dark clothing, about 6 feet tall, weighing 220 pounds, with severe acne, Hopkins said.

An 8-year-old Harford County boy was severely burned yesterday after playing with gasoline and matches near his Joppa home, a state fire official said.William Edward Moore II received second- and third-degree burns over 40 percent of his body after he and at least one other child took charcoal briquettes and gasoline into the woods near his home, said W. Faron Taylor, Deputy State Fire Marshal.The boy was in serious but stable condition at the Baltimore Regional Burn Center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center last night.

State police have identified a body found yesterday in a wooded area of Joppa as that of Roger Lee Shepherd. Cpl. David Sexton, of the Maryland State Police barracks in Bel Air, said the body was discovered near the 600 block of Philadelphia Road. Police said they found no evidence of foul play. Shepherd, a resident of the 600 block of Philadelphia Road, was reported missing after he walked away from his house about 9 a.m. Sunday. Shepherd, who lived with his mother, had been diagnosed with depression, Sexton said.

Joppa man was found fatally stabbed early yesterday in a parking lot in Edgewood, Harford County sheriff's deputies said. About 2 a.m., two passers-by saw the wounded David Arnold Byrd, 30, lying in the 1900 block of Edgewater Drive, said Sgt. Chris Presberry, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office. Byrd, of the 400 block of Latimer Road, had been stabbed in the torso. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, where he was pronounced dead, Presberry said. Presberry said police have no suspects in Byrd's killing.