Motel Room

County police arrested an Annapolis man on assault charges Monday after a fight in a Laurel motel room.Police said the man and a woman believed to be his girlfriend had been drinking in a room of the Laurel East Motel, 3700 block of Laurel Fort Meade Road. When the woman tried to leave shortly before 8 p.m., the man became angry and began beating her, tried to strangle her and threatened to kill her, police said.The man fled when police arrived. A half-hour later, an officer on routine patrol saw a couple outside the Starting Gate Lounge in the 3400 block of Laurel Fort Meade Road, police said.

Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties police have arrested two brothers wanted in connection with burglaries in Howard and Montgomery counties, police said.Prince George's detectives received a tip that the two suspects were staying at the Motel 6 in the 3500 block of Fort Meade Road in the northwest part of the county, police said.One of the suspects ran when police entered the motel about 9:35 p.m. Wednesday, but was caught after a brief chase, the police report said.The second man, trying to free the struggling suspect, bit a Prince George's police lieutenant on the left arm, the report said.

Anne Arundel County police surrounded a Motel 6 in North Linthicum late yesterday morning after a housekeeper noticed wires, batteries and switches that appeared to be a bomb on a bed in a room.County police arrived at the motel in the 5100 block of Raynor Ave. about 11:30 a.m. and evacuated guests in rooms near the third-floor corner room. They tried unsuccessfully to contact the man staying in the room.The man, whom police would not identify, took the telephone in the room off the hook.

A man who was found strangled in a Jessup motel room early Thursday has been identified as a 74-year-old self-employed Silver Spring accountant.Howard County police said Shelton Woodrow Thigpen of the 8100 block of Piney Branch Road was identified by his wife yesterday afternoon. The woman, who last saw her husband Wednesday, noticed a police sketch in a local newspaper and contacted police.Mr. Thigpen's identity was verified through military fingerprint records, said Howard County police spokesman Lt. Tim Branning.

The body of an unidentified man was found in a Jessup motel room early yesterday, moments after a manager confronted someone in the victim's car, Howard County police said.Police searched the room at the Cedar Motel in the 8000 block of Washington Blvd. for about six hours after arriving at 4:45 a.m. yesterday.Police would not say whether a weapon was found in the room. It did not appear that there had been a struggle, and the motive for the killing was unclear, said Cpl. Kevin Costello, a county police department spokesman.

Howard County drug detectives arrested four people on cocaine charges during a raid on a Laurel motel room Friday night.The search and seizure warrant served at the Turf Motel in the 9800 block of Washington Blvd. at 8:15 p.m. turned up one-fourth of an ounce of crack cocaine and various drug paraphernalia, police said. The four motel room occupants were arrested on possession of cocaine and other related charges.Rickey Lee Cole, 37, of no fixed address, was being held at the Howard County Detention Center on $20,000 bond yesterday.

A 24-year-old man and his dog and cat died yesterday morning in a fire in an Elkridge motel room, Howard County fire officials reported.When firefighters opened the door of a ground-floor room at Hall's Motel in the 6700 block of Washington Blvd. about 10:50 a.m., they found Michael Woods Jr. on the floor behind the door, said Sgt. Robert Wiseman, a Fire Department spokesman.Mr. Woods was pronounced dead at the scene.The fire was confined to Mr. Woods' room, but officials said they did not know where or how it started.

A parolee wanted in the execution-style murders of two men last week at a Northwest Baltimore house was found dead of gunshot wounds yesterday in an Arlington, Va., motel room.Police found a suicide note in the Pentagon City Motel room where Kevin Derand Flight's body was found, but preliminary indications are that he suffered two gunshot wounds to the head and another to the chest, Baltimore homicide detectives said.Although investigators said it is unlikely that a person committing suicide would shoot himself three times, there is no evidence that anyone else was in the room with Flight.

Couple facing trial arrested on PCP chargesCounty police detectives arrested a couple in a North County motel room Tuesday night and charged them with dealing PCP for the second time this year.Police said they received tips that two people were selling PCP in the northern and eastern areas of the county out of the motel room. Detectives said they searched the room Tuesday and found more than $3,000 in cash and an estimated $9,000 worth of liquid PCP. Police said the couple was counting the money when they arrived.