Second Degree Murder

A 22-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend's 14-month-old daughter, city officials said Friday. Police found the child, identified as Desmare Braxton, shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday in a home in the 800 block of N. Stricker St. in Harlem Park. Her mother's boyfriend, Sharmell Thomas, had called 911 to report the child had a seizure and was unresponsive, said Det. Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman. There were visible bruises on the child's body, and she was taken to University of Maryland Medical Center, where she later died, police said.

A former Anne Arundel County police informant who confessed to stabbing another woman in a fit of anger was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison for the murder.Emily Marie Fulcher, 35, described by county prosecutors as "somewhat of a pathetic character" and by her defense lawyers as a mentally ailing cocaine addict, said nothing to Circuit Judge Eugene M. Lerner other than that she was sorry "it had to happen at all." The victim's family had hoped for words of remorse.Fulcher had pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder in the death April 23, 1997, of Linda Sue Dickey, 43, from the Curtis Bay area of Baltimore.

Attorneys for the man convicted of killing 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes have asked a judge for a new trial, arguing that prosecutors made improper statements to the jury and withheld information. Michael Maurice Johnson was convicted this month of second-degree murder in the death of Barnes, a North Carolina high school student, who was visiting relatives in Baltimore when she disappeared in December 2010. Most of the arguments made by Johnson's attorneys center on a crucial witness named James McCray, who testified that Johnson contacted him for help in disposing of Barnes' body.

Brian M. Savage, convicted of killing his girlfriend's 15-month-old baby during what prosecutors said was a vicious beating, has been sentenced to the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. Savage, who will turn 23 Wednesday, was watching his girlfriend's toddler Nov. 1, 2009, when the assault occurred. The child was later pronounced dead of what doctors called "severe internal injuries and heavy bruising from blunt-force trauma. " In December, a Baltimore County jury found Savage guilty of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.

Police in Anne Arundel County were looking for a 19-year-old man in connection with a stabbing Monday evening at a Taco Bell restaurant in Edgewater. A girl, 17, who police say was with him at the time of the incident, was arrested shortly afterward. Detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Tyrell Markell Dailey of the 100 block of Tydings Drive in Edgewater. The warrant charges Dailey with attempted second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment.

A 19-year-old man charged in a Monday evening stabbing at an Edgewater Taco Bell turned himself in Tuesday to the Anne Arundel County Police Southern District, officials said. Tyrell Markell Dailey of the 100 block of Tydings Drive in Edgewater faces attempted second-degree murder and related charges in the stabbing of a 21-year-old Annapolis man. Officers were called at about 7:45 p.m. Monday for a reported stabbing at a Taco Bell at 3091 Solomons Island Road in Edgewater, where, on the parking lot, they found a man wounded in the torso.

Prosecutors fought claims Friday that George Huguely V — convicted of second-degree murder in the beating death of Yeardley Love, his University of Virginia girlfriend — received an unfair trial, filing a pointed response to a recent request for a new proceeding that said the defense "misses the mark. " The 37-page document, filed in the Charlottesville, Va., Circuit Court by Commonwealth Attorney Warner "Dave" Chapman, also addressed new allegations made by Huguely's attorneys earlier this week, claiming that Love's Cockeysville-based family considers her murder two years ago an accident.

For five years, Dennis J. Tetso has steadfastly maintained that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of his wife, who vanished without a trace in March 2005 on her way to a Motley Crue concert in Washington and who has yet to be found. "I never laid a hand on her," Tetso said from the witness stand last month during his trial on a charge of second-degree murder in the presumed death of Tracey Leigh Gardner. The jury did not believe him, handing down a guilty verdict after four days' deliberation in the first Baltimore County conviction for a killing in which no body was found.

A 28-year-old Columbia man sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering two people in Howard County in 2007 was found dead and bloodied in his Allegany County prison cell early Thursday morning, according to Maryland State Police. Charles David Richardson IV, who was known as "Face" when he was arrested in May 2007 in the murders of an acquaintance and a 7-Eleven clerk, was found about 5 a.m. under a blanket in his cell bed with trauma to his head, police said. Guards at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cresaptown rushed into his cell after observing his cellmate "in possession of clothing that appeared to be bloodstained" outside the cell on an upper-level tier, police said.

A 20-year-old man has been charged in the death of his infant son, police confirmed Wednesday. Police have accused Dion Ware of lying about the circumstances surrounding the death Monday of Kearri Dion Ware, who was born in October. Ware, of the 300 block of E. 22nd St., first told detectives that the boy was asleep and making strange noises, and that he realized he was not breathing and performed CPR before calling 911, according to charging documents. A doctor at Johns Hopkins Children's Center told detectives, however, that there were signs of bruising on the boy, as well as fractured ribs, the records show.