Leakin

A recreational trail along the Gwynns Falls was lauded as an important "green" link among city neighborhoods during a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday in Leakin Park."

A man was shot near the east edge of Leakin Park in Baltimore Tuesday afternoon and later died at a hospital, police said. The man, who was shot multiple times in the 3800 block of Clifton Avenue about 4 p.m., has not yet been identified as police look for a motive and suspect and notify his next-of-kin. No more information was immediately available. Before Tuesday, 60 people had been killed in Baltimore in 2013. cwells@baltsun.com twitter.com/cwellssun

The city began dumping leaves for compost into Leakin Park this weekend, befuddling some residents, who mistook the black bags of leaves for trash. Heru Anu, 47, looked out his window yesterday and saw dump trucks lined up along Windsor Mill Road. Anu, an avid birdwatcher in the park, was angry. "There were piles and piles of bags and an odor like you would smell from a landfill," he said. But learning that the bags are full of recycled leaves collected from residents, not trash, Anu said, "Recycling's good.

Volunteers taking part in a cleanup at Leakin Park on Saturday morning discovered a decomposing body, police confirmed.  The body was discovered off of the 4900 block of N. Franklintown Rd., in the Southwestern District, at around 11 a.m. Police said volunteers were cleaning the area when they noticed what appeared to be a body in "severe stages of decomposition. "  There were no obvious signs of trauma or foul play, though a police spokeswoman said that was not unusual given the decomposition.

Leakin Park is a place where a person can go from a crowded urban road to a secluded wooded path in minutes. But what makes the wilderness expanse a sanctuary for city dwellers makes it attractive for killers as well.It has been dubbed "the city's largest unregistered graveyard" -- an urban forest in Dead Run Valley where children discover skeletons and city workers find bullet-riddled corpses draped over guardrails.Established six decades ago on land once owned by a Prussian railroad industrialist, Leakin Park is simply the place to dump a body in Baltimore.

Mary Louise Wolf is behind on gardening chores at her large, verdant swath of Dickeyville. A bunch of tarragon slumped by the curb one morning this week, waiting to be planted. Thirsty greenhouse tomato plants sagged from the heat."I've been so busy that I really haven't had time," Wolf said. "Isn't it terrible to be so involved with one thing?"Wolf's home is the nerve center of the 10th annual Baltimore Herb Festival, the state's largest celebration devoted to such vegetation as sage, rosemary and thyme.

The police said yesterday that they have no suspects in the slaying of a 35-year-old psychiatric counselor whose body was found late Thursday on a road that runs alongside Leakin Park.Hope Sarah Patterson of the first block of Brubar Court, Gwynn Oak, died from a gunshot to the right side of the head, the police said. No motive has been established for her killing. Police believe that she was shot and killed on the road."I'm really surprised. She stayed to her herself, but she could handle herself," said Jada R. Patterson, an 18-year-old nephew of Ms. Patterson.

The 1830s saw a "Franklin Towne" planned by William H. Freeman, a prominent Baltimore landowner -- but it didn't get off the paper because of a bank failure. Still, a leafy hamlet has grown up around what started as a gristmill along Dead Run, where Freeman envisioned his suburban oasis. Parts of Franklintown are recognized as local and national historic districts, and the former millhouse is a private home. The neighborhood is hidden between Leakin Park to the east and Security Boulevard to the west, just north of the tip of Interstate 70. Mostly in the city, Franklintown straddles the Baltimore City-Baltimore County line.

AFTER YEARS of brainstorming and fund-raising, today marks the groundbreaking for a 4.5-mile asphalt trail along stream valleys in West Baltimore's Leakin and Gwynns Falls parks.If everything goes as planned, that new walking, bicycling and line skating path will eventually stretch nearly 15 miles, connecting Dickeyville and Windsor Hills to the Inner Harbor and Middle Branch.Today's ceremony is cause for jubilation. For the first time since the two parks were devastated by Tropical Storm Agnes in the summer of 1972, they are about to become accessible to the public.

A 44-year-old Northwest Baltimore man was abducted, forced into the trunk of his car and shot Monday night after he offered to give a man a ride home and was accosted by him and two armed men, police said.Police said after Gregory Hamlett, 50, of the 4000 block of Kathland Ave. offered a man a ride about 9 p.m. in the 4200 block of Frederick Ave., two other men got into his gray 1984 Cadillac with tags EBM 058 and ordered him to drive to an unknown location, where they forced him into the trunk.

Since we have big park-related events coming up, I read Timothy Wheeler's recent article on Baltimore's parks with particular interest ("Baltimore's parks ranked 15 t h in U.S.," May 24). For the second year, Nature Art in the Park is sponsoring the installation of several site-specific artworks that celebrate nature in Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park. The artworks will be on view throughout the summer on the trails between the Carrie Murray Nature Center and Orianda House, off Windsor Mill Road.

A person was fatally shot Wednesday night in the 4700 block of Windsor Mill Road, in Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park, police said. Police were notified of the shooting at 9:05 p.m. No other information, including the sex or age of the victim, was immediately available from police. steve.kilar@baltsun.com twitter.com/stevekilar

Baltimore police have made an arrest in the fatal shooting of a 40-year-old Linthicum woman whose body was found in Leakin Park last month, charging her boyfriend with first-degree murder. Police said Lois Smyth had left her home to meet with boyfriend Kenneth Brunetti and attend a picnic on the afternoon of May 29. Court records show that police believe Smyth was "lured to the Gwynns Falls Trail" in the 3900 block of Windsor Mill Road and down a wooded path, where she was shot in the head.

A seventh person was convicted Friday in Baltimore Circuit Court in what police and prosecutors say was a gang-related killing of a man who was beaten, wrapped in a blanket, stabbed and set on fire for failing to carry out a task. With his trial about to begin — in which several co-defendants were expected to testify — 25-year-old Anthony O. Williams entered an Alford plea, maintaining his innocence but acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him in the murder of Petro Taylor in December 2008.

Baltimore police confirmed that homicide detectives have made an arrest in the Dec. 12 killing of a 25-year-old mother and dancer on The Block who was found shot to death near Leakin Park. Hassan Muhammed, 32, of the 1600 block of Guilford Ave., is charged with first-degree murder and related charges in the killing of Cherrie Gammon, online court records show. He was arrested on Jan. 17 at 5:30 a.m., police said. Gammon's body was found on the side of the road in the 1400 block of N. Franklintown Road.

Baltimore police on Tuesday launched an extensive search and investigation into the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl, involving an elite FBI team and more than 100 officers who scoured a secluded city park for hours. Authorities all but ended their search in Leakin Park around dusk, having found no signs of a body or clues to the whereabouts of Phylicia Simone Barnes of North Carolina, who had been visiting her older sister in Northwest Baltimore when she apparently vanished the afternoon of Dec. 28. Detectives suspect foul play and have said it's a possible the teen was abducted and taken out of state.

Hikers and bikers will be able to complete a 14-mile trail journey from Leakin Park to the Baltimore waterfront thanks to a $1 million grant announced yesterday. Gov. Parris N. Glendening announced the funding for the third and last phase of the Gwynns Falls Trail as part of a $2 million infusion of federal dollars to expand the state's network of foot and bike paths. The governor appeared at Charles Carroll Barrister Elementary School in Baltimore and praised the Gwynns Falls Trail as part of his environmental strategy.

With police reporting no leads in the case of the 8-year-old Northwood girl missing since Tuesday, dozens of volunteers took up her cause yesterday, searching two city parks for any sign of her. After hours of sliding down snow banks, crossing streams and fighting through brambles, the volunteers ended their searches of Leakin Park and Chinquapin Run Park by midafternoon without finding Marciana Monia Ringo, who disappeared Tuesday. The boyfriend of the girl's mother, Jamaal Kenneth Abeokuto, has told police he last saw Marciana after dropping off the honors pupil at Northwood Elementary School on Tuesday morning.

Within minutes Wednesday night, three people were shot in three separate incidents in the neighborhoods around Baltimore's Leakin Park, killing one. Police commanders were notified between 8:05 p.m. and 8:09 p.m. of shootings, with the locations causing initial confusion. In the first, police found a 21-year-old male suffering from a gunshot wound to the back in the 700 block of Woodington Road, in the Edmondson Village neighborhood. But the victim said he had actually been shot nearby in the 4100 block of Cranston Ave. at about 7:50 p.m. Around the same time, police found a 39-year-old woman lying on her back in a driveway in the 4400 block of Wakefield Road, north of the park.

The body of a man who was fatally shot in the head was found Monday afternoon in Leakin Park, city police said. The body was initially labeled a "suspicious death," but the medical examiner determined that the death was a homicide, police said. Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman, said police were notified of the discovery, at Eagle Drive and Windsor Mill Road, about 1:15 p.m. That intersection is the location of children's program Outward Bound, a trail office and a city police substation where officers keep off-road vehicles.