Two Boys

Last month, Dawn Feick and her family planned a funeral for her 72-year-old mother. Friday, they planned two more funerals, choosing caskets for 10-year-old Charles and 5-year-old Joshua, her sons.The two, half of the boys Dawn and her husband, Charles, were raising, died Thursday in a fire touched off by a candle in their Gambrills home."They lost everything -- the house, two boys," said Frank Tilley, a relative of the family. "I can't imagine the grief that they're going through. It hasn't been an easy summer."

A motorcyclist was killed last night in West Baltimore when he lost control of his vehicle and struck a car and two children before he slammed into a tree, police said.Police did not release the name of the victim, but said that the man was operating a Honda motorcycle at high speed about 6: 45 p.m in the 2100 block of W. Lexington St. when he hit a 1997 Kia that was traveling west on Lexington.The motorcycle bounced off the car and onto the sidewalk, where it struck two boys, 6 and 7, and then crashed into a tree, police said.

JONESBORO, Ark. -- Just before a judge remanded 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 12-year-old Andrew Golden into juvenile detention for a middle school shooting that killed a teacher and four girls, the older boy offered a childlike excuse.He said he did not mean to do it."I thought we were going to shoot over their heads," said the trembling Johnson youth, who pleaded guilty in an adjudication hearing -- the juvenile court equivalent of a trial -- in the Craighead County Courthouse yesterday, on his 14th birthday.

A Millersville ninth-grader who said he was annoyed with a classmate for talking too much offered another student $100 to kill him, Anne Arundel police said yesterday.Instead of carrying out the task, the classmate returned the next day threatening to tell authorities at Old Mill Senior High School in Millersville unless he was paid $500, police spokeswoman Carol Frye said.School officials, sensitive after shootings at an Arkansas school last week, called police when they heard of the threat, and the two boys, both 14, were arrested Monday.

CHICAGO -- After dropping murder charges against two boys, ages 7 and 8, in the brutal slaying of an 11-year-old girl, police officials say they are taking a closer look at how they treat juvenile offenders.The police charged the boys on Aug. 9 after saying they had confessed to the murder of Ryan Harris. No lawyer or parent was present during the questioning.Police spokesman Pat Camden said the department was talking with the state's attorney's office about requiring officers and prosecutors to videotape interviews with suspects younger than 12 and having a parent or guardian present at such questioning.

A 3-year-old Woodbine boy was in good condition at a Baltimore hospital yesterday, a day after he was hit by a nail accidentally fired from a pellet gun.The boy's 12-year-old brother allegedly fired the shot about 4 p.m. Monday in their bedroom, police said.The mother -- thinking the boy had been hit by a pellet -- drove him to Carroll County General Hospital, the boys' grandmother said. There, X-rays revealed the nail, which had nicked the boy's liver and bowel and damaged his gall bladder.

I HAVE a 7-year-old, who only this year stopped believing in the Easter Bunny, and I couldn't help thinking about her when I heard the horrifying story of two boys, ages 7 and 8, charged with killing an 11-year-old girl in Chicago. These charges surfaced the same day that two boys were sentenced in Jonesboro, Ark., for the killings in that widely publicized school shooting. The stories were instantly linked, possibly suggesting to some that there's been a rise in juvenile crime in America.

Howard County police are investigating the role alcohol may have played in a crash that injured seven teen-age boys in Woodbine early Sunday when their minivan went out of control and flipped, throwing two boys through a window.The Ford Aerostar crashed into a mailbox post about 2 a.m. in the 2900 block of Florence Road, trapping two boys under the overturned van, according to Sgt. Steven Keller, a police spokesman.Two of the boys who were not seriously injured helped lift the van so rescue workers could release those underneath, police said.

County police have identified the body of a man found Thursday in a creek off Marley Neck Road as David L. Smith, 50, of the 7600 block of Spencer Road in Glen Burnie.A passer-by found Smith's body about 3: 30 p.m., face up and fully clothed, in a creek about 25 feet off Marley Neck Road between Chain O Hills Road and Spencer Drive.Police said they found no signs of foul play and are awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death.Two boys were arrested Friday after they allegedly robbed a Papa John's Pizza deliveryman at gunpoint, county police said.

A former state administrative law judge who was convicted in 1995 of sexually abusing two boys -- including his foster son -- was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday for violating his probation.Martin Lee Teal, 48, received five years of supervised probation and a 15-year suspended prison sentence for the assaults at his Ellicott City home as part of an April 1995 plea agreement with Howard County prosecutors.A year later, he sexually abused another boy in Anne Arundel County and is serving 18 months for that offense.

Just a few months after her husband drowned their three children, Amy Castillo found herself standing on top of a mountain during a Christian missionary trip to China, winds whipping, rain pouring down. She asked herself a question: "Can I live with this?" A long time passed before she could honestly answer. The man she once playfully called "sexy thing," who swept her off her feet and quickly became her best friend, had gradually vanished over the past five years. In his place was a manic, suicidal stranger who spent entire nights at Baltimore strip clubs, blew thousands of dollars in wild shopping sprees and accused her of being self-righteous and manipulative.

Whatever drove a 41-year-old Rockville man to apparently kill his three young children in an Inner Harbor hotel last weekend might never be fully understood. But the explanation police say Mark Castillo offered them - that he wanted to punish his estranged wife - is typical in cases of men killing their children, experts say. "Most of the time, when men kill children, it's to get back at the women, sort of out of vengeance," said Dr. Neil Blumberg, a longtime forensic psychiatrist in Baltimore who has testified for the defense and prosecution.

A Wicomico County man drowned yesterday evening near the jetty off the southern edge of Ocean City while trying to save his two sons, who were being washed out to sea by a strong riptide, said the head of the city's beach patrol. The name of the 38-year-old Fruitland man was not released. Shortly before 6 p.m., about 20 minutes after lifeguards left their stations, a 911 call was made by someone reporting that two boys, ages 10 and 13, were being pushed out to sea by a southerly riptide and were heading toward the rocky jetty between the public beach and the inlet, said Capt.

An Overlea High student who said she was raped this week in a school bathroom told police yesterday that her story was not true, police said. Baltimore County police said they had collected evidence contradicting the 15-year-old girl's account of what happened. When they interviewed her yesterday about the inconsistencies, "she admitted that she made the story up," according to a statement issued by the police. Police said they will not file charges against the girl. School system spokesman Charles A. Herndon said the school will investigate whether to take disciplinary action against her. Officer Shawn Vinson, a Police Department spokesman, declined to comment on the girl's motive for naming two boys who she said were her attackers.

One of the three Ellicott City teen-agers cleared of raping a 15-year-old girl at Mount Hebron High School received a 10-day suspension yesterday from the principal for his role in the sex incident, his mother said. Demitris R. Myrick, 18, a sophomore, has not returned to the school since Howard County police arrested him and two other boys April 15 and charged them with raping a 15-year-old girl in a bathroom. Authorities dropped the charges Tuesday after saying the girl had retracted her story.

One of the three Ellicott City teen-agers cleared of raping a 15-year-old girl at Mount Hebron High School received a 10-day suspension yesterday from the principal for his role in the sex incident, his mother said. Demitris R. Myrick, 18, a sophomore, has not returned to the school since Howard County police arrested him and two other boys April 15 and charged them with raping a 15-year-old girl in a bathroom. Authorities dropped the charges Tuesday after saying the girl had retracted her story.

Tim and Tami Davis, the parents of Josh and Jarrod Davis, the two boys playing field hockey for Meade High School, have secured the services of an attorney and plan to appeal the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association's regulation that does not permit boys to participate in the region and state playoffs. "We talked to an attorney on Friday and he's looking into the state's appeal process," said Tami Davis. "We're jumping on it quickly because the season is over in a couple weeks [playoffs start Oct. 21]

Longtime Severna Park field hockey coach Lil Shelton is "fearful of the long-range future" of the sport. Specifically, the winningest coach in state field hockey is concerned about boys playing the sport with girls. On Friday, brothers Josh and Jarrod Davis became the first boys to play in what has traditionally been an all-girls sport in Anne Arundel County. It is not unprecedented statewide, however. Two boys played in Cecil County several years ago but were not allowed to participate in the playoffs, which is the same scenario the Meade boys are looking at unless the State Field Hockey Committee, which meets on Oct. 2, amends the rules.

Two boys from Gymnastics Plus in Columbia are the only qualifiers from Maryland this year to earn trips to a competition in Colorado Springs, Colo., this month in hopes of making the U.S. national junior development boys team. As on any national junior team, participants receive high-level training intended to help them reach for elite-athlete status in the sport, although participation is no guarantee of eventual membership on a national team. The two are Mario West, 10, of North Laurel and Johnny Schell Jr., 12, of Laytonsville, Montgomery County.

PENSACOLA, Fla. - In a courtroom here today, Judge Frank Bell will preside over a sensational murder trial: 14-year-old Derek King and his 13-year-old brother, Alex, will face first-degree murder charges in the grisly killing of their father late last year. It is a killing that Bell, of Escambia Circuit Court, has already learned a lot about. He just finished presiding over another first-degree murder trial involving the same victim but a different defendant. The testimony of the two boys was the key evidence in the trial that just ended.