Tickles

In a surprise move and against his defense attorney's advice, a Baltimore man accused of killing an Elkridge woman in 1998 pleaded guilty yesterday to her murder in Howard County Circuit Court. Ardale D. Tickles, 20, said he was sure he wanted to plead guilty to first-degree murder in the slaying of Sara J. Williamson Raras, a 35-year-old mother, in November 1998. The trial was scheduled to begin yesterday with jury selection. "I'm entering a plea of guilty because I'm remorseful for what I did," Tickles said.

The automobile industry took its licks along with most other sectors of the economy during the recession, with only 10.4 million new vehicle sales in 2009 - a big drop from the peak of 17 million in 2005. In Laurel, many dealerships, such as Henry Gay, did not survive the recession, or like Fox, were bought out by larger conglomerates. But not only did Fred Frederick, owner of Laurel's oldest automobile dealership, survive the recession, but he's expanded his operation at a time when others are still recovering.

Ardale D. Tickles will be punished for the murder of an Elkridge woman, but not as severely as the woman who hired him to kill her daughter-in-law. Howard County Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney sentenced Tickles yesterday to life in prison, but he did not impose the "without the possibility of parole" clause that prosecutors were seeking. Tickles, 20, will serve that sentence after completing the 25-year sentence he received in Baltimore County on unrelated attempted murder charges. The earliest Tickles could possibly be eligible for parole is 2024.

Members of the Francis Scott Key High School field hockey team embraced the mission of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month and hosted events and fundraisers to increase awareness and raise money for cancer research. According to field hockey coach Danielle Unflat, the team collected donations at school-related sporting events - both home and away - collected change during lunches and accepted other donations online and in-person. Part of the month included a "challenge" from the school's girls soccer team - which was also raising money through a special "Kick Cancer" event.

A Baltimore County jury convicted Ardale D. Tickles yesterday of attempted murder and armed robbery in the shooting of a McDonald's restaurant manager, hours after deputy sheriffs and police subdued Tickles in the courtroom as he walked away from the trial table.The jury deliberated less than an hour before convicting Tickles, 19, who was arrested in the shooting in January after police found a pager rented by Tickles outside the Joppa Road restaurant.Tickles, a resident of the 1600 block of E. Northern Parkway, is awaiting trial in an unrelated murder-for-hire scheme in Howard County.

The Parkville woman accused of hiring a hit man to kill her daughter-in-law in Elkridge in late 1998 won a victory in court yesterday when a judge ruled that key evidence apparently linking her to the crime could not be used at her trial. Howard County Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney ruled that statements implicating Emilia D. Raras, 63, on an informant's tape recording could be "devastating" because her attorneys would not be able to cross-examine the accused hit man, Ardale D. Tickles of Baltimore.

A Baltimore County judge sentenced a city man yesterday to 25 years in prison for what he called a "harrowing" shooting during a robbery in January at a McDonald's restaurant.Ardale D. Tickles, 20, had been convicted of attempted murder, armed robbery and using a handgun during a robbery. Police said he shot Raymond Gotha three times while Gotha, the manager of a McDonald's on Joppa Road near Loch Raven Boulevard, was trying to open the safe.Circuit Judge Alexander Wright Jr. called Tickles, of the 1600 block of E. Northern Parkway, "a clear and present danger to the community.

A key witness in the case against a Baltimore County woman accused of hiring a hit man to kill her daughter-in-law testified yesterday that a friend told her he had been paid to carry out the plot. Tanisha Hodge, 26, testified under a grant of immunity from Howard County prosecutors in the trial of Emilia D. Raras, 63. She is expected to testify in the trial of the friend, Ardale D. Tickles, 20. Raras is accused of hiring Tickles for $3,000 to kill her daughter-in-law, Sara J. Williamson Raras of Elkridge.

The Parkville woman accused of hiring a hit man to kill her daughter-in-law in Elkridge in late 1998 won a victory in court yesterday when a judge ruled that key evidence apparently linking her to the crime could not be used at her trial. Howard County Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney ruled that statements implicating Emilia D. Raras, 63, on an informant's tape recording could be "devastating" because her attorneys would not be able to cross-examine the accused hit man, Ardale D. Tickles of Baltimore.

A Baltimore County woman accused of hiring a hit man to kill her daughter-in-law withdrew $2,500 in cash from her checking account a few days after the slaying, according to banking records disclosed during her trial yesterday. Howard County prosecutors then tried to link the withdrawal to the man accused of killing the 35-year-old Elkridge mother, contending the cash was deposited into his bank account within weeks of the killing on Nov. 14, 1998. The defense attorney for Emilia D. Raras, 63, of Parkville attacked the alleged connection, and an investigator with the state's attorneys office acknowledged that he could not say whether Raras gave cash to Ardale D. Tickles, the man accused in the killing of Sara J. Williamson Raras of Meadowfield Court.

It's 11 p.m. when Dean Pees arrives at his Reisterstown home, after 16 hours of hatching game plans as the Ravens' new defensive coordinator. Tired? You bet. Sleep? Not yet. Pees, 63, heads for the study, sits at the digital piano, dims the lights and tickles the ivories. The music - mostly self-penned, easy-listening stuff - could calm a manic Ray Lewis. Not Pees. Each note fires his football imagination. "Oftentimes, this is when he does his best thinking and scheming of defenses," said Melody Pees, his wife.

IndyCar chief executive officer Randy Bernard seemed to be picking up positive vibes at the Grand Prix of Baltimore. "I'm very tickled with the way it's going," Bernard said during a meeting with a small gathering of media Sunday morning. "The Andretti group has done a good job organizing the event and J.P. Grant has stepped up. All the venders have been taken care of, eliminating any embarrassment. " Bernard also said he was pleased with the Saturday crowd for the American Le Mans Series race Saturday and expects to see even a bigger crowd today.

When thinking ahead to retirement, some couples choose a house in the mountains or at the beach, while others prefer a retirement community. Rich and Susan Walther didn't take either. Instead, the couple, who spent nearly four decades living all around the country and in Korea, decided they would spend retirement in Baltimore. "We both knew we wanted to live in the city," said Susan Walther, a 63-year-old retiree from the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, who along with her husband relocated to Baltimore from their home in Montgomery County.

Nervously typing out this week's sports media notes while hoping that soon the leaves will be falling faster than the Dow: * Monday night's Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers game didn't hit the heights nationally in the ratings that the Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles did this season. Ravens-Steelers got 8.8 percent of the national audience, about 8.6 million homes, compared with the 13.3/13 million for Cowboys-Eagles. (Then again, the latter game did set a record for biggest cable television audience.

Famous Dave's Fireside Inn 7400 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie -- 410-761-8815 Hours --11 a.m.-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturdays; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays Restaurant's estimate --15 minutes Ready in --10 minutes Here, we were given the choice between several sauces and sides with our order, $9.44. At the server's recommendation, we went with bourbon sauce and a side of straight fries. But neither the fries nor the ribs were that noteworthy. Know of a good carryout place?

Sure, it would have been a boon to the local film industry and the city economy for the musical Hairspray to be filmed where it's set, in Baltimore. But now that the producers have announced their intention to shoot entirely in Toronto, it shouldn't affect how Baltimore boosters, fans of John Waters generally or that Broadway smash specifically react to the finished movie. After all, the same team that's doing Hairspray mounted the Oscar-winning Chicago on Toronto soundstages - and that movie's critical and popular success is what continues to make movies like Dreamgirls (directed and written by Chicago screenwriter Bill Condon)

A Howard County grand jury indicted a Baltimore man and the mother-in-law of a slain Elkridge woman on murder charges yesterday, authorities said.Sara J. Williamson Raras, 33, mother of a then 1-year-old child, was stabbed to death at her home on Meadowfield Court in November.On Aug. 24, Howard County police arrested and charged Raras' mother-in-law, Emilia Raras, 63, of Parkville, and Ardale D. Tickles, 19, in the slaying.Yesterday, the grand jury indicted Raras and Tickles on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

A Baltimore man charged in the 1998 death of an Elkridge woman describes in grisly detail in a secretly tape-recorded conversation how he killed a woman in Howard County that year. That conversation with a police informant exposed a plot allegedly launched by the woman's mother-in-law, a 63-year-old Parkville woman, and led to two arrests in a case that had been stalled for months. Prosecutors played the tape yesterday during a court hearing and are hoping to use it during the trial this month of the mother-in-law, Emilia D. Raras, who has been charged with first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

For a moment in history, the tiny Dutch Republic was the greatest European maritime power and the most prosperous society the world had ever seen. And those who could, reveled in it. Any well-appointed home was a proud repository for fabulous bling bling from the four corners of the earth - paintings, sculpture, porcelains, gemstones, clocks, carpets, swords and knickknacks by the cartload that trumpeted its owner's good fortune and virtue. Even in neighboring Southern Netherlands, exhausted by war and sectarian strife, the wealthy enjoyed an ambience of opulence and magnificent display.

A movie date, it turns out, can be more than a picture show. A psychologist at the University of Michigan has found that certain movies can crank up our hormone levels and perhaps alter our behavior. A romantic flick such as The Bridges of Madison County can increase our biochemical readiness to cuddle. But a violent The Godfather II can fire up a guy's testosterone, unleashing his assertive instincts and his libido. "Movies, like good books, arouse our emotions," said Oliver C. Schultheiss, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.