Murder

I hope everyone has taken a few moments to collect themselves after that spectacular finale. Midway through, I was a bit worried as the episode was beginning to seem more like a series finale than a season finale. However, the last 15 minutes provided everything a good finale should: suspense, murder, a love triangle (quadrangle!), a drug overdose, break-ups (bonus points for calling off an engagement), a conniving friend, heart break, a parent finding their child unconscious, unplanned pregnancy, a declaration of “never speak to me again” followed by a quick hang up, an engagement, a serious accident (plane instead of car, way to go big!

An inmate serving a 10-year prison sentence for second-degree murder walked out of a Baltimore detention facility on Friday morning, never reported to his scheduled work-release job and was considered escaped by Friday afternoon, according to Maryland State Police. Jermaine Jeter, 30, left the Baltimore Pre-Release Unit at about 10:30 a.m., and was supposed to arrive for work at an area Checkers restaurant at 12:30 p.m., according to police. He never did, nor did he arrive back at the unit at 3 p.m., as he was scheduled to do, police said.

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 judge on Wednesday sentenced serial robber William Carr to life in prison plus 30 years, the maximum terms allowed, for the armed robbery and murder last year of a Korean businessman at the Erdman Shopping Center in Belair-Edison. “Had he not been arrested… he would have continued his violent conduct,” said Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein, who prosecuted the case alongside Assistant State's Attorney Josh Felsen. Carr, who was released from a 20-year prison term in 2010, was convicted of at least two other armed robberies before he was incarcerated and is facing trial next month in a separate incident that occurred just days before he killed Chong Wan Yim on June 28th.

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.

Baltimore Police have charged a 30-year-old man in a killing from October in East Baltimore. Russell Carrington is being held without bond in the fatal shooting of Antoinne Pratt, 23, who was found dead inside a vehicle in the 2100 block of Harford Rd. on Oct. 17, 2011.  I've posted the charging document below to give you a glimpse of the information police disclose - and don't disclose - when filing such charges. Spoiler: If you are looking for a motive, don't read on. [Update: Having a bit of technical trouble embedding the document.

A 50-year-old man was convicted Friday by a Baltimore Circuit Court jury of robbing and murdering a beverage delivery man last June. William Carr faces life in prison plus 45 years. His sentencing is scheduled for May. The jury, which deliberated for less than three hours, found Carr guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery and related charges for killing Chong Wan Yim, 55. Officials said Carr approached Yim at the Erdman Shopping Center in the 3900 block of Erdman Avenue at about 3 p.m. on June 28, 2011 with a handgun and demanded money.

Three members of the Black Guerilla Family gang were sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the 2009 robbery, kidnapping and murder of Qonta Waddell, a convicted drug dealer who was hogtied and removed, screaming, from his mother's home in Southwest Baltimore as she watched. Peter "Petey" Miller, Derrell "Snags" Johnson and William "Jim Dog" Rhodes were each convicted of conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, robbery and weapons crimes. Miller, 20, was sentenced to life plus 60 years.

A 43-year-old man who police say was stabbed more than 20 times last month by his stepson during an argument over money died late last week from his injuries, according to police and court records. Police say George Stevenson was able to call for help, and responding officers found him bleeding profusely in the living room of his apartment in the 1400 block of Limit Ave., suffering from stab wounds to his arm, chest and back. Stevenson said he had been stabbed with an unknown object by his stepson, 16-year-old Galen Stevenson, who then fled on foot, police said.

A Baltimore man serving a 60-year murder sentence now faces life without parole in an unrelated homicide in Glen Burnie, after he was convicted Monday of the first-degree murder of Dr. Albert Woonho Ro. Dante Jeter, 25, is scheduled to be sentenced July 24 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for his role in the fatal beating, stabbing and robbery on Sept. 26, 2006, of Ro, 51, a dentist well-known in the area's Korean-American community. Prosecutor Anne Colt Leitess said she intends to seek life without parole for the murder, plus another life sentence for Jeter's conviction of conspiring with his cousin, Shontay Joyner Hickman, 37, also of Baltimore, and possibly additional time for a robbery conviction.

A Baltimore grand jury indicted a 29-year-old woman Monday on attempted murder and seven other charges in connection with the brutal stabbing of her 8-month-old daughter during a supervised visit at a city social services office in April. Kenisha Thomas, who is being held without bail in the incident, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in district court Tuesday, but the indictment will move the felony case into circuit court. An arraignment on the new charges is set for July 17. According to police, Thomas smuggled a large kitchen knife into a Baltimore social services office April 24 and repeatedly stabbed the infant, named Pretty Diamond, in the head and neck as office staff fought back, with one man throwing a chair at her. The baby, who previously was removed from Thomas' care, survived.

George Huguely V sits in the corner of a narrow, white room, at the end of a long wooden table, looking every bit the college athlete who just rolled out of bed after a normal night out — but for the bloody scratches ringing his right ankle. Hours earlier, he had used that leg to drunkenly kick in his girlfriend's bedroom door, he tells Charlottesville detectives, during a 64-minute recorded interrogation into the fatal beating of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love. The public got its first look at the video Tuesday, two years after it was made, on the morning of May 3, 2010, and nearly three months after Huguely was convicted of second-degree murder in Love's death at her University of Virginia off-campus apartment.

A 31-year-old Baltimore man, who stole a gun from one girlfriend to murder another, was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison Wednesday, the city prosecutors' office announced. Shortly before sentencing, on the same day, a jury convicted Daniel Sullivan, of the 700 block of West Vine Street, of shooting Keenya Jordan to death. He “had a history of attacking Sullivan,” the prosecutors' office said in a statement. Sullivan took the murder weapon from another woman with whom he was romantically involved.

The death of Phylicia Barnes has been added to the city's murder total for 2011, officials said.  The move is merely an administrative issue, though it does bump up the city's first murder count under 200 since the 1970s. Phylicia went missing from Northwest Baltimore in December 2010 and her body was found floating in the Susquehanna River between Harford and Cecil counties in April 2011. State police and Baltimore detectives worked the case together. Last month, authorities charged the ex-boyfriend of Phylicia's older half-sister in her death, indicting him through a grand jury in Baltimore.

Your article "Man slain downtown; 3 hurt in Westport," May 12) noted the killing "broke a streak of nearly 12 days without a homicide in Baltimore, one of the longest stretches in years. " I don't know whether to snicker or cry regarding that tidbit. Should we be proud that the city went almost two weeks without a murder? Have we become so inured to homicide that we come to expect it almost on a daily basis? The way I interpreted it, your paper was almost boastful in stating the city was murder-free for 12 consecutive days.

As completely disheartened and enraged as many of us still are over the senseless, tragic, brutal murder of Stephen Pitcairn last year, this week's article about Lavelva Merritt's trial ("Woman who helped rob Hopkins' Pitcairn sentenced to 15 years," Nov. 8) opens the floodgates for an equally strong reaction. Ms. Merritt is quoted as having said, "I punched him in the head and took his phone. " She described herself as, "just as guilty as John," referring to the now convicted murderer, John Wagner, Ms. Merritt's boyfriend.

City police say they have made an arrest in the killing of a 44-year-old woman found handcuffed and bound by the feet in her bedroom at the McCulloh Homes housing project.  Cheryl Thomas was found May 3 in the 400 block of Cummings Court at about 5 p.m. after police received a call for an assault, according to police spokesman Sgt. Anthony Smith. Officers found Thomas dead in her bed, the victim of an apparent asphyxiation. She was partially clothed, and was handcuffed with her feet bound, police said.

Six weeks after Scott M. Greenberg was found shot to death in his parents' house in Owings Mills in August, 2009, police arrested Gerald E. Sears and charged him with murder, robbery and drug-dealing. Police never found the murder weapon, or the wallet, bank card and cell phone they claim Sears took from Greenberg. Nor did they find Sears' fingerprints or DNA in the house. What they did get were cell phone records, Sears' admission that he'd been in the house to sell crack cocaine, and no sign the house on Velvet Valley Way had been ransacked by a burglar.