Killer

The search for the killers of Baltimore millionaire J. Schuyler "Sky" Alland was at a standstill in the summer of 1992. Whoever executed the businessman for his $80,000 black BMW apparently had gotten away with murder -- not to mention the car.U.S. Park Police Detective Timothy M. Squires was handling the first murder of his career, but he made a bold promise."He promised that he would find these guys," said Dorothy Alland Leighton, Mr. Alland's mother. "He said, 'Even when I retire, I'll continue to work on this case with no pay until I find who killed your son.' "His promise was fulfilled Wednesday when federal prosecutors wrapped up an intricate nationwide investigation into the February 1992 murder with the conviction of the killer, John Graham Bridges, 30, of Norfolk, Va. A co-defendant, Robert Patrick Gray, 25, of Cockeysville pleaded guilty Nov. 5."

It's roughly a week before the Baltimore Rock Opera Society debuts its most ambitious production to date, and musical director John DeCampos is "freaked out" from the pressure. He is not alone. "People are getting stressed out. Sometimes people are getting short with each other," DeCampos, 30, said. "There's a general nervousness about the show. " It's hard to blame him. Founded in 2007, the BROS has established a reputation in the local arts scene as a do-it-themselves theater ensemble guided by metal, beer and over-the-top silliness.

ON HIS DEATHBED, he received 100 telephone calls per hour. More operators had to be hired to handle the load. "We've never had this number of calls, even when Lucille Ball was here, Kirk Douglas or George Burns," said Paula Correia, spokeswoman for Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "Never anything like this, ever."One person who visited the dying man said: "It's a real shame. I went to the hospital and saw him, but he was unconscious. He didn't even know I was in the room. It wasn't a pretty sight, man. It was sad . . . I think it's terrible that this happened.

Tonight on “Dancing with the Stars,” each couple did two full dances. As the couples were introduced, Jacoby Jones was wearing a cowboy hat. We didn't find out why until his first routine, which turned out to be a Viennese waltz to “It's a Man's World.” And the cowboy hat is missing now. Huh. They replay Jacoby's mom yelling at Len last week. My parents are worried she might be turning voters off. We viewers love a protective mom, but we also don't like people griping or talking back to the judges too much.

As one who has challenged the killer drone research at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, I read with great interest Jeffrey Ian Ross' commentary on the subject ("Drones are different," June 20). While he mentions the recent crash of a drone in Maryland, he provides no insight on its mission or what caused it to fail. He does, however, point out that this monstrosity cost $176 million. As the fiscal battles continue between the mayor and the Baltimore City Council, imagine what Baltimore could do with $176 million.

Regarding the celebration in Baltimore for Barry Levinson's movie "Diner," ("Cast members, director celebrate 'Diner's 30 t h ," Dec. 12, I trust we will not be celebrating Mr. Levinson's "Homicide: Life on the Street. " Francis J. Gorman, Baltimore

Anne Arundel County police say that on Tuesday, Arthur Tyler Felton used a box cutter to steal a cell phone and an MP3 player from a Sears in the Annapolis Mall, then briefly carjacked a woman in the parking lot in a failed bid to escape. This is the same Arthur Tyler Felton who in 1991 fatally shot 6-year-old Tiffany Smith in the head during a gunfight with a rival in West Baltimore's Walbrook neighborhood. The shooting of the elementary school student shocked a city, sparked a campaign to rebuild streets lined with vacant rowhouses, focused police attention on gangs, guns and drugs, and prompted residents to create a memorial in the girl's honor.

The Sun's Tricia Bishop reports: Dante Parrish, a convicted killer who was freed from prison 20 years early with the help of the Innocence Project, was sentenced to life without parole Tuesday for brutally murdering a 15-year-old Baltimore boy in 2009, less than a year after his premature release. The brutal killing of Jason Mattison Jr., whose troubled life as a gay teenager drove him from house to house, only to take refuge in the very place he'd be killed as his heroin-laden aunt passed out, left the judge with a loss of words.

I HAVE JUST returned from nine days on the beach at Ocean City, and have the healthy glow and ruddiness of skin which signals initial-stage melanoma to prove it.Look, tanning is a problem for those of us with that kind of waxy, semi-translucent northern European skin.So before hitting the beach I slather on the sunscreen -- thick, greasy stuff with a Sun Protection Factor so high you wouldn't pink up at ground zero of a nuclear blast.Then I sit on the beach -- oh, yes, that's a sight -- and read my newspapers and books, and within an hour I look like I've been napping inside a blast furnace.

There are far too many punks in this city.So far this year, there have been 269 murders in this dark, dark city of ours and each murder has been sadder than the last.One of the saddest occurred Sunday night when a man with a gun shot and killed a teen-ager during an attempted robbery in East Baltimore.Police say Charles Feaster, 17, was murdered because he refused to surrender his leather Chicago Bulls team jacket to some crook who had waylaid him in an alley.And if nobody else will say it, I will: The killer is a punk.

Naval Petty Officer Alonzo M. Gladden Jr. had been back home for only four hours last October when an unknown person opened fire on him - killing him shortly after he dropped off his grandmother in South Baltimore. Months later, his killing remains unsolved, and city police have turned to Baltimore's Guardian Angels for help with the case. On Sunday, standing amid broken liquor bottles at the corner of Hollins Ferry Road and Patapsco Avenue, the volunteers and Gladden's relatives passed out fliers and held up signs asking passing motorists for leads in the case.

A simple question needs to be asked by The Sun: Did gun owners living in Watertown and elsewhere in the Boston area feel safer than those who didn't have a gun? With the Boston Marathon killers literally holding the town of Watertown, Mass., hostage, I can't imagine the extent of feelings of fear, hopelessness and helplessness of those living there who did not own a gun. Watertown and other Boston area gun owners must have thanked God that they would be able to defend their families against these killers.

Malaria is an enormous and tragic problem - that can be beat. It takes the life of a child every minute in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a million people die from malaria each year. It also stifles economic development, as malaria prevents children from attending school and adults from working. Today is World Malaria Day, and I am pleased to celebrate the lives saved and enriched by recent attention and investments. Not that many years ago, this would be an occasion for hand-wringing and lamenting the many victims of this disease and wishing we could get the world to do more.

I assumed that finding Policarpio Perez and Adan Canela guilty of the murders of their young relatives would be a slam dunk ("Split verdict in child killings," March 27). After all, the prosecution had the blood of the victims on both of the defendants' jeans as well as a pair of gloves and shoes belonging to the suspects with the victims' blood. What could be more compelling than the blood of the victims on clothing with the suspects' DNA? Thus I was flabbergasted when the judge ruled most of the blood evidence inadmissible.

Those of us who appear regularly in the North Avenue courthouse, where Baltimore City's domestic violence cases are heard, were already aware of the "spike" in domestic violence homicides noted recently by The Sun. We knew that some of those women had asked for the legal system's protection, and that some had not received it. But some of us also knew that even if they had gotten protective orders, or pressed charges, or participated in prosecution, those...

This is World Tuberculosis Day, the day in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch discovered the cause of tuberculosis (TB), an airborne infectious disease that continues to rage around the world, killing 1.4 million people each year. The disease remains a leading infectious disease killer globally. In Africa, TB is the biggest killer of people with HIV/AIDS. Baltimore once had the highest rates of TB cases and deaths in the U.S., but a heroic effort by the Baltimore City Health Department's TB clinic, led by the late Dr. David Glasser in the 1970s and 1980s, resulted in drastic reductions in our TB rates through the use of directly observed therapy (DOT)

GOT any idea what is the biggest killer of children in the world today? It is not AIDS. Nor is it whooping cough or typhus. Accidents are not the culprit, either.It is a medical problem that is almost never mentioned in polite company -- diarrhea.Sixty thousand kids die every day from this ailment. Five million babies and young children will die this year as a result of dehydration caused by diarrhea.What you and I know about diarrhea is almost entirely a function of the tidal wave of commercials on TV and radio aimed at getting us to buy stuff at the drugstore to treat what the ads often tactfully call "indigestion" or "upset stomach."

More and more these days, it seems as if the most interesting TV projects are coming from new and different places. "House of Cards,"  which Netflix is making in Baltimore, leads the parade. But DirecTV is getting in the game, too, and this week debuts a six-part mini-series about a transgendered contract killer played by Chloe Sevigny ("Big Love," "Boys Don't Cry"). "Hit & Miss," which premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday on DirecTV's Audience Channel is a British import created by Paul Abbott, who is usually praised for "Shameless"and "State of Play.

A Baltimore contract killer, who was caught telling an undercover FBI agent that he would murder someone for drugs and cash, pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to more than 19 years in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's office announced.  "There are other hit men like Antonio McKiver who commit drug-related murders in Baltimore," U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said in a news release. "Our challenge is to catch them before the next murder so we don't need to chase them afterwards.

Commentator Ron Lambert claims that the threat to wildlife presented by cats is based on unscientific methodologies ("Cats can be managed in a way that protects birds," March 2). Contrary to his assertion, a review of scientific literature published in January concluded that cats in the U.S. killed as many as 3.7 billion birds and 17 billion mammals every year, and that free-roaming cats may constitute the single greatest man-made cause of wildlife mortality. Several recent studies show that trap-neuter-release colonies do not lower cat populations.