Montgomery County

POTOMAC -- A handyman hired to help paint a stately home in this wealthy Washington suburb was charged yesterday with killing the podiatrist who owned it, the doctor's three daughters and another house painter, leaving friends and fellow doctors traumatized.Each of the victims was beaten -- their bodies found bound and gagged in separate rooms of the $700,000 home on Twining Lane, say investigators and court documents filed last night.Police identified the dead as Dr. David Marc Goff, 46, and his daughters Andrea Robyn Goff, 22; Sheri Helene Goff, 19; and Alyse Renee Goff, 14. The dead painter was identified as Mark Richard Aldridge, 30, of Wheaton.

Maryland's counties and Baltimore face a collective loss of more than $40 million a year and some taxpayers could get refunds if a decision by the state's highest court isn't reversed on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The state Court of Appeals ruled in January that Maryland must offer a credit to taxpayers with some types of out-of-state income to offset the local piggyback tax. Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler asked the court to reconsider that decision, but it rejected that request last week.

After less than a year on the job, Larry Tolliver is calling it quits as chief of the troubled Anne Arundel County Police Department. Tolliver, 67, said his resignation — or "return to retirement," as he called it — will take effect May 21. "I am resigning today because the department needs a chief who can focus solely on the department's mission, something that is challenging to do in the current environment," Tolliver wrote in a statement...

The gas tax increase Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law Thursday will pay for weekend MARC service between Baltimore and D.C., roads and bridges throughout the state and construction on the Red and Purple lines to begin as soon as 2015. The first phase of the tax increase - 4 cents per gallon - will arrive in July, but officials already decided how to spend an $1.2 billion it will generate over the next six years. The tax is expected to increase at least three more times until July 2016, bringing the total tax increase to as much as 19.5 cents per gallon, according to state estimates released Thursday.  Here is the list of 10 projects officials announced immediately after the gas tax bill was signed:  $100 million to add weekend service to the MARC Penn line beginning this winter, two more round-trips on the Camden line during the week by next spring and new locomotives this summer.

A retired history teacher from Montgomery County has surrendered the touch-screen voting machine that stymied Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski last weekend, but not before an expert hired by the television show 60 Minutes was allowed to examine it and a judge ordered its return. Stan Boyd, 63, appeared in Montgomery County Circuit Court yesterday to explain why he did not immediately give back the borrowed Diebold AccuVote TS machine after election officials asked for it. After two days of wrangling, county elections supervisors recovered the voting unit at the Takoma Park home of Linda Schade, a co-founder of the Campaign for Verifiable Voting and the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking greater protections in the state's new voting system.

A 41-year-old Wheaton man now charged with four Montgomery County murders and a Catonsville carjacking was convicted of trying to choke his ex-girlfriend and stabbing her companion with two butcher knives after lying in wait under her bed for an hour in 1982.The portrait of Alan Patterson Newman that emerges from the record in Montgomery County Circuit Court is of a disturbed, suicidal and sometimes violent man, whose jealousy erupted into rage 10 years ago, when he tangled with the criminal justice system and received probation and an order to continue seeing a psychiatrist.

The Maryland swimming community welcomed Montgomery County schools to their first state Class 4A-3A championships on Saturday. The new teams proved to be up to the task, sweeping all 22 of the events. The newcomers also set 4A-3A state championship records in 16 events. The meet's top individual finisher was Walter Johnson's Garrett Powell. The senior won the 500 freestyle (4 minutes, 27.83 seconds), the 100 backstroke (51.79) and the anchor leg of the 400 freestyle relay (3:12.25)

A Washington woman and a Silver Spring man were killed in separate Montgomery County traffic accidents yesterday, one an hour after midnight and the other an hour before dawn, police reported.Investigators said the first accident occurred about 1 a.m. in the 13000 block of River Road in Potomac when a man from Hollywood, Cal., crossed the center line in his 1985 Buick Century and hit a Honda CRX head-on.The driver of the Honda, identified by police as Isabel M. Duarte, 21, of the 2300 block of Tracy Place in Northwest Washington, died from head injuries, investigators said.

In the movies, Gotham City police required a giant spotlight to find Batman. Montgomery County police didn't have to go quite so far, finding him cruising around in a Lamborghini Wednesday in Silver Spring and pulling the unidentified man over for not having proper tags. The bizarre picture was posted to the department's official Twitter page today, followed by a note clarifying that the "Batmobile" wasn't towed.  Officer Janelle Smith, a police spokeswoman, said the driver is a Good Samaritan who dresses up as Batman and visits sick children at local hospitals.

The Fox News network published an opinion article entitled "An Illegal Alien's Guide to the Top Five Best Places to Live In America". As an introduction, the author (Bob Dane) stated, "When 'relocating' to the United States, it's best to avoid states that have selfishly put the interests of their legal residents ahead of yours with laws that hinder your access to jobs and benefits. But many attractive destinations remain, endorsed by millions of illegal aliens already living in each.

After less than a year on the job, Larry Tolliver is calling it quits as chief of the troubled Anne Arundel County Police Department. Tolliver, 67, said his resignation — or "return to retirement," as he called it — will take effect May 21. "I am resigning today because the department needs a chief who can focus solely on the department's mission, something that is challenging to do in the current environment," Tolliver wrote in a statement...

Anne Arundel County Executive Laura Neuman is asking law enforcement professionals from other jurisdictions to examine the county's troubled police department. Since she took over in February from disgraced former executive John R. Leopold, Neuman said Friday, her office has received a steady stream of anonymous notes alleging problems in the agency. Leopold was convicted of criminal misconduct in office for directing his police protection detail to perform political and personal tasks.

A compromise in the General Assembly over legislation to undo a court ruling that declared pit bulls inherently dangerous has unraveled, turning what had appeared to be a settled issue into a dogfight between two veteran legislators. The breakdown in the understanding between Sen. Brian E. Frosh and Del Luiz R.S. Simmons — both Montgomery County Democrats — raises the chances that owners of the breed will continue to face heightened liability and the possibility of eviction. "I am extremely disappointed in Brian Frosh," said Simmons.

Lawyers for the man convicted of killing Phylicia Barnes are again seeking to undermine the credibility of a small-time criminal who provided key state testimony in his trial, citing a letter from Montgomery County prosecutors detailing James McCray's removal as a witness in a separate murder case. The information, sent to Baltimore prosecutors on the day after Michael Maurice Johnson was found guilty of killing the visiting North Carolina teen, contains statements that the defense says shows McCray — whom they described at trial as a "jailhouse snitch" — is not reliable.

COLLEGE PARK - The C. Milton Wright girls swimming team's nearly two-year unbeaten streak came to an end Saturday, as the defending class Class 3A-2A-1A champs came up short at the state finals, finishing second to Poolesville. The Mustangs finished the meet at the University of Maryland's Eppley Swimming Center with 221 points. Poolesville earned 273.5 points, and third-place Oakdale scored 178. Fallston's boys took third place with 122 points. Poolesville (287) also won the boys meet, and Damascus took second with 132 points.

Montgomery County on Monday filed a federal class action lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleging the mortgage finance firms wrongly avoided paying transfer taxes in Maryland. In some instances, the companies have said they are exempt from the taxes (required to record documents, including deeds, at land records offices throughout the state) "because they are governmental entities or agencies," according to the county's complaint. But that's not true, claims the county.

AFTER READING the April 2 editorial, ''Destructive rivalry in Maryland,'' I feel compelled to respond to the charges of parochialism being levied against Montgomery County representatives in Annapolis.For many years, Montgomery County has been the primary source of funds going into the state's budget, yet every year, Montgomery gets the short end of the stick when the budget is finalized.To suggest that Montgomery lawmakers are unwilling to champion projects in other regions is not only untrue, it is completely ridiculous.

FOR YEARS, the politicians of Baltimore City have lived in the faith that any fiscal problems the city confronts can be solved in Annapolis. Their state counterparts, in turn, have not been afraid to be generous, on the assumption that Montgomery County would continue to provide a virtually inexhaustible source of state revenue. It was, after all, one of America's three or four wealthiest counties. The growing centralization of American government would continue to benefit the county, as would its scientific institutions.

Former Montgomery County executive Doug Duncan's decision to run for his old seat after a six-year hiatus has changed the political landscape of the state's largest county even as critics argue that new demographics could present a big hurdle to his comeback. Duncan, 57, a Democrat who ended his 2006 campaign for governor abruptly after he was diagnosed with depression, told supporters last week that he will run for county executive in 2014 — setting the stage for a possible showdown with incumbent Isiah "Ike" Leggett that would have statewide political implications.

As Alan Gross neared his third anniversary behind bars in Cuba, his wife gave new details of his deteriorating health and issued an impassioned plea to officials in Washington and Havana to negotiate his release immediately. Judy Gross, who visited her husband in September, said the Montgomery County man has lost 110 pounds since his arrest in December 2009, is suffering chronic pain from degenerative arthritis and now has a mass behind one shoulder. She said their American radiologist has told her the growth could be cancerous and should be assumed to be malignant until tested and proved otherwise.