Murder

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

A Baltimore teenager pleaded guilty to murder Monday as his trial was set to begin, following a failed attempt last week to have a confession withheld from jurors in the case. Markell Shelton Jones, 18, shot and killed Freddie Jones Jr. at the Yau Brothers Chinese carryout on Greenmount Avenue on Halloween 2011 during a bungled robbery attempt. The attack was captured on surveillance cameras and police released the footage to the press. After Markell Jones' family recognized him on television, his grandfather called police to have him taken into custody, according to testimony at a motions hearing last week.

A prominent Ellicott City blogger and businessman was stabbed to death by his daughter's 19-year-old boyfriend, who plotted with the 14-year-old girl to kill him so the two could run away together, Howard County police said Friday. Dennis Lane, 58, was found before dawn in his Winding Ross Way home. Police charged Jason Anthony Bulmer and Morgan Lane Arnold, both students at Mount Hebron High School, as adults in his killing; they both face conspiracy and murder counts. Both were held without bail, according to online court records.

An off-duty Baltimore police officer gave himself up late Tuesday after barricading himself in a home with a toddler in a six-hour standoff that began when he fatally shot a woman, authorities said. Officer James Smith, a 20-year veteran and member of the motorcycle unit, was taken into custody before 9:30 p.m. and was charged with first-degree murder on Wednesday morning, among other charges, according to court records. Police had evacuated residents in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood from their homes during the incident.

The 19-year-old man charged with fatally stabbing Dennis Lane allegedly told investigators that his girlfriend had instructed him to kill her father and his fiancee, specifying the number of times each was to be stabbed in the throat - 10 for him and 15 for her. Jason Anthony Bulmer charging documents In a conversation at school hours before the Ellicott City blogger and businessman was killed, Jason Anthony Bulmer said, 14-year-old Morgan...

Baltimore actor Charles S. Dutton said the murder of John Wood, a retired city sanitation worker who was the inspiration behind the character Dutton played on the 1990s show “Roc,” was difficult to digest. “I wasn't expecting ever in a lifetime that John would go out that way,” Dutton told the Sun on Thursday. Wood, 80, was killed Monday after police said he was in argument that resulted with him taking a punch that caused Wood to fall back and hit his head on a concrete step, which killed him. Police on Wednesday charged Lorenzo Thornton, 25, with second-degree murder.

I am shocked and saddened that a newspaper would classify the horrific acts that this man has been accused of doing as an example of "medical malpractice, lax government regulation and dearth of decent health care" ("Kermit Gosnell and the 'liberal media,'" April 16). Really, that's all you can say? You think that is what the "heart of the case" is here? Not the lives of the unborn? What is at the heart of the case is murder plain and simple, and none of the other things you listed concern me one whit when talking about the murder of innocent children.

Imagine a world where people drank tea or water or an occasional glass of wine…. Where teenagers, college students and their elders went out for dinner or conversation instead of going "out to drink…" Where drivers were sober and dates weren't passed out, not even knowing they were being raped…. Where jealousies might incite passions but wouldn't be fueled into murderous rages by alcohol… Will people ever learn to avoid drinking and its frequent escalation into being drunk, irresponsible, dangerous, unconscious, dead?

The jury has returned guilty verdicts on all counts against Jerome Williams, 17, and Charles McGaney, 22, two of three men who were on trial for the murder of former Baltimore City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris. A third defendant, Gary Collins, 22, was found not guilty of murder, but was found guilty of assault and weapons charges. More to come...

Former Baltimore pastor Kevin Pushia took the witness stand Thursday and outlined how he and two other men — one his occasional lover — conspired to kill a disabled man to collect the insurance money. Attorneys said he also discussed plans to attack a former boyfriend and claimed that a hired hit man, whom he paid $50,000 in church funds, came looking for other jobs shortly after killing a legally blind group-home resident named Lemuel Wallace in February 2009. The testimony, which is expected to continue Friday, came during the trial of Pushia's alleged conspirators: brothers Kareem Clea, who's accused of being the shooter, and James Omar Clea, who is accused of serving as a middle man in the arrangement.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge ruled that a jury will be able to hear the taped confession of a teenage defendant in a murder case, rejecting his lawyers' claim that the police had coerced the statement from him. Markell Shelton Jones and his mother, Lakisha Jones, testified Monday that they had been influenced by police, an argument Robert Linthicum, Jones' attorney, made again Tuesday. "The whole thing basically reeks of coercion," he said. But Judge M. Brooke Murdock said police had done nothing improper in the way they conducted the interviews and said she did not find the defendant's mother credible.

Baltimore police are investigating the shooting death of a man in East Baltimore early Thursday. Responding to a shooting in the 600 block of Cokesbury Ave. in the East Baltimore Midway neighborhood at 12:39 a.m., police said they found a man with gunshot wounds. Paramedics took him to an area hospital but he was pronounced dead Thursday morning, police said. Police have no suspects or motives and did not release the victim's identity. The murder was Baltimore's 71 s t homicide this year, following the shooting death of Dominic Hicks, 19, whose identity police released on Thursday.

A woman who prosecutors said brought a rifle to the shooting of a Reisterstown teen pleaded guilty Monday to attempted first-degree murder and use of a gun, according to a spokesman for Howard County prosecutors. Howard County Circuit Court Judge Richard S. Bernhardt set a sentencing date of July 5, when prosecutors are expected to seek a 25-year sentence for Chiquita Sketers, 22, of Randallstown, according to spokesman T. Wayne Kirwan. The plea stems from a June 19, 2012, incident in which Sterling Randolph Watts, 15, was shot in the back of the head, but survived life-threatening injuries.

Beginning this Saturday, the Tremont Grand Historic Venue will host a murder mystery dinner on the last Saturday of every month. The interactive mysteries will be staged by Do or Die Mysteries, which has been producing murder mystery events for the past 20 years in the Baltimore-Washington area. The kick-off production is titled Art of Murder , and the story line will change at each event. Reservations are required. Admission includes dinner, the show and non-alcoholic beverages.

Robert Jarrett Jr. was convicted Tuesday of murdering his wife, following a trial in which prosecutors described him as a "cold-blooded killer" who allowed his sons to walk over her body buried beneath their backyard shed for two decades. Howard County jurors handed down a guilty verdict on one count of second-degree murder after deliberating into the night, bringing an end to a years-long investigation. Prosecutors, who had pushed for a first-degree murder conviction, said they would seek the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison at Jarrett's sentencing, scheduled in August.

I am shocked and saddened that a newspaper would classify the horrific acts that this man has been accused of doing as an example of "medical malpractice, lax government regulation and dearth of decent health care" ("Kermit Gosnell and the 'liberal media,'" April 16). Really, that's all you can say? You think that is what the "heart of the case" is here? Not the lives of the unborn? What is at the heart of the case is murder plain and simple, and none of the other things you listed concern me one whit when talking about the murder of innocent children.

After a 25-year-old man was shot and wounded in Northeast Baltimore, police said residents pointed the arriving officers to an apartment building where they said two or three men had gone after the gunfire. Heavily armed members of the Police Department's tactical team went into the building in the 5900 block of Radecke Ave., in Cedonia. Police said the officers not only found the men hiding in a woman's apartment, but found a gun hidden in an air vent in a bathroom. One of the men was arrested in the shooting, which occurred on Friday.

A Randallstown man has been arrested and charged in connection with the fatal shooting Monday of a 19-year-old during what Baltimore County police said was an attempt to steal drugs. Sterling Gregory Lewis, 21, of the 3900 block of Nemo Road was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center. According to police, the victim, Willie Cedric Jackson, and a witness met with Lewis about 11:47 p.m. Monday in Randallstown to sell him drugs.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court jury on Thursday convicted a 22-year-old man of second-degree murder in a shooting in Southwest Baltimore that killed a bystander and left two others injured in 2010. Harry Davis, 22, faces a maximum sentence of 108 years. He was also convicted of two counts of second-degree assault and two weapons violations, the Baltimore City State's Attorney's office said. Sentencing is scheduled for July 2. Prosecutors said Davis approached four men on the 500 block of Eastlynn Ave. on Sept.

Lawyers for a Harford County teen accused of killing his father last year attempted to convince a judge Friday that it would be unconstitutional to try the 17-year-old as an adult. Robert C. Richardson III's attorneys also said the boy is suffering from the effects of isolation at the county jail, asking at a motions hearing for their client to be transferred to a facility for juveniles. They said he is being held in solitary confinement at the Harford County Detention Center. "The jail in Harford County does not have the capability to address the needs of juvenile offenders and juvenile inmates," lawyer Kay Beehler said at a hearing Friday in Harford County Circuit Court.