Sentenced To Life

Described by a prosecutor as a Jack the Ripper who slit a Dundalk woman's throat for pleasure, Ronald Edward Keihl was sentenced to life without parole plus 30 years yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court.Keihl, 28, was convicted in November of murder, armed robbery and housebreaking in the August 1992 death of Patricia Jane Kaczynski, 44, whose head was nearly severed as she slept on the couch at her home on Liberty Parkway.Long a suspect in the killing, Keihl was convicted because he boasted to a cellmate, said Assistant State's Attorney Jason G. League.

J. Miller Leavy, 89, a former deputy district attorney who successfully prosecuted Caryl Chessman, the notorious "Red PTC Light Bandit" who terrorized Los Angeles in the 1940s, died Sunday. In 1957, he successfully prosecuted L. Ewing Scott in California's first "no body" case. Although the body of Scott's wife was never found, he was convicted of murdering her and sentenced to life in prison.Sherry Stetson Mannix, 44, a retired Air Force Reserve officer and chief U.S. negotiator for the 1990 chemical weapons treaty reached in Geneva, died of cancer Tuesday in Washington.

UPPER MARLBORO -- A bicyclist who gunned down a young motorist after he was accidentally bumped by her car has been sentenced to life in prison without parole."

A 22-year-old Odenton man has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the August 1988 drug-related murder of a Severn man.Christopher Anthony Lee on Friday became the second man sentenced for arole in the Aug. 21, 1988, shooting death of Richard Oneil Grisby.Olu Basil Carter, 19, of Severn, was sentenced in August 1990 to 30 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in Grisby's death.Grisby, 26, of Severn, was found dead with two gunshot wounds to the back of his head on a wooded pathway connecting Lake Village and Meade Village.

Nearly 15 years after Albert Givens was initially suspected of bludgeoning, stabbing and sexually assaulting his friend's mother in her Arnold home, he is on trial for her killing a fifth time. As the trial of the former handyman began yesterday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, longtime prosecutors said they could not recall another case that had earned the dubious five-time distinction. "The fifth? Wow," said Byron L. Warnken, a University of Baltimore law professor and expert in criminal law. He said multiple retrials can be complicated by challenges to witnesses' credibility: The more times a person gives an account, the greater the likelihood that it isn't exactly the same each time.

While Maryland's children are not considered responsible enough to buy cigarettes, vote, or sign an apartment lease, they can be sentenced to live until their dying day in prison. Legislators and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich must cooperate to repeal this illogical, unforgiving section of the legal system. The argument against kids' driving, smoking, signing leases and the like is that they are not mature enough or competent enough to decide such matters on their own. The argument for throwing them away - into adult prison to serve a mandatory life sentence - is the opposite, that they do know what they are doing.

A 20-year-old woman was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to stabbing and bludgeoning her mother to death in their Hampstead townhouse in March.The sentence was met with loud protests and hysterical sobbing from a half-dozen members of the family of Doris A. Ziemski, the 52-year-old victim.Kristi Lynn Ziemski will be eligible for parole on the first-degree murder conviction in 15 years, said Carroll County Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., referring to a law that took effect Oct. 1."

The unapologetic, crack-using killer of a 75-year-ol Northwest Baltimore woman was sentenced yesterday to life in prison."He has no remorse, no regret, not as many feelings as a beast would have for killing its prey," Baltimore Circuit Judge Elsbeth L. Bothe said while sentencing Donald Gene Davis, 33, of the 3200 block of W. Belvedere Ave."I don't believe in the death penalty for various reasons," the judge said, "but if I did, this is the case for its imposition."In exchange for a guilty plea to first-degree murder in the stabbing and strangling last Nov. 30 of Jeanette Friedman, prosecutors dropped their request that Davis be sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.

In Baltimore Taxi driver identified as victim of tanker crash Maryland Transportation Authority Police have confirmed the identity of the fourth victim killed when a tanker truck plunged onto the northbound lanes of Interstate 95. Marc G. Baladi, of the 3000 block of Berkshire Road in Hamilton, was identified as a driver involved in the accident. Authorities had found the charred remains of Baladi's taxi at the scene and used DNA evidence to confirm his identity. Also killed in the Jan. 14 crash were Jackie Frost of Carroll County, who was driving the tanker; Maurice Durschlag, 62, of Glen Burnie; and Rita Gall, 42, of Lansing, Mich.

On trial for the fifth time in the killing of his friend's mother in her Arnold home, handyman Albert Givens was convicted again yesterday of first-degree murder. "I'm hopeful that this verdict will be the verdict that will stay with us," said Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee. He said "there would be no reason" his office would not seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole -- which Givens had received twice before, for convictions that were later thrown out -- when the former Annapolis resident is sentenced Jan. 8 for the 1992 killing of Marlene Kilpatrick, 55. During this most recent trial, which began Nov. 27, the defense unsuccessfully sought a mistrial, pointing to publicity and the fainting by a juror when shown bloody photos.