Valley Brook

Rick and Caroline Kryger are young, have rewarding jobs and lots of interests outside work.But one place you won't find the Ellicott City couple is in church."

A 37-year-old Glen Burnie man partying with family members in August made one mistake that cost him his life, a prosecutor told a Circuit Court jury yesterday.James W. Helphenstine decided in the morning hours of Aug. 22 to buy some crack cocaine, "a decision that basically killed him," Assistant State's Attorney Robert J. Bittman said.In opening statements in the trial of Rodney Lawrence Conyer, Mr. Bittman told jurors that the defendant shot Mr. Helphenstine in the back during a robbery at Valley Brook Apartments, where the victim had gone to buy drugs.

Man charged in theft from Glen Burnie storeA Baltimore man was charged with theft and carrying a handgun Monday after store employees at Glen Burnie Mall reported a shoplifting.Gary Monroe Smith, 22, of the 2400 block of Wilgrey Court, was charged after he allegedly told police he had a 9mm handgun in a diaper bag.According to the police report, officers were called to the Montgomery Ward store at Glen Burnie Mall at 7 p.m., where employees reported that a man, woman and two children had left the store with $125.

Baltimore County police announced yesterday activities that communities in nearly every part of the county have planned for today's National Night Out. The annual event was created in 1984 to encourage community members - along with police officers - to come together to fight crime. Picnics, parades, block parties and foot patrols are among the planned events. Eighteen communities in the county will be participating in local versions of National Night Out, which runs 7 to 10 o'clock. Outreach officers assigned to the precincts worked with community members to plan events.

Panel dismisses complaint against Waterbury InnA neighbor's complaint about noise and traffic at the Waterbury Inn in Magothy Beach was dismissed yesterday by the county Board of Appeals.Victor Birdsong had objected to the inn's use of a parking lot across the street that once was used by the Magothy-Chelsea Beach Democratic Club.He complained that the property was zoned for residential use and could not be used for a commercial operation.Mr. Birdsong turned to the appeals board after the county Office of Planning and Zoning rejected a similar complaint by the Magothy Beach Improvement Association last summer.

A Glen Burnie man was jumped and beaten Tuesday night by three youths who tried to steal his mountain bicycle, county police said yesterday.Patrick Darrell Docherty, 20, was treated by paramedics for cuts and bruises after the incident but did not go to the hospital, police said.Mr. Docherty told police he was riding his blue, 26-inch bicycle on the B&A Trail near Marley Station about 10 p.m. when three youths approached him.One of them said he wanted the bicycle and began punching him, Mr. Docherty told police.

A 22-year-old Glen Burnie man pleaded guilty yesterday to kidnappingtwo women in separate incidents last summer, raping one and sexuallyassaulting the other.Lathaniel Spencer, of the 300 block of Addison Drive, was arrested July 27 in his home after police said both women identified him from a series of photographs. His fingerprints also matched those taken from the victims' cars, police said.In the first case, Spencer, who is scheduled to be sentenced March 27, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping a 19-year-old woman June 16.The woman was using a pay phone outside a 7-Eleven store at about 3 a.m., court documents say, when she was forced back into her car and ordered to drive to a secluded driveway off Solley Road, where she was raped.

The brassy theme from "Perry Mason" blared as the players took the stage: the judge and lawyers for the defendant, God, and the plaintiffs, humanity.The plaintiffs had sued God for being unfair and uncaring, and the 220 people in the audience at Howard Community College last Sunday were the jury.Those 220 jurors also comprised the congregation of the Valley Brook Community Church, an innovative, non-denominational church that began services in Columbia last week and plan to eventually build a 600-seat church on 17 acres on Hall Shop Road in Clarksville.

It's a dream that eludes many small religious congregations in Howard County: worshiping in a building they can call their own.Red tape, expensive land and high construction costs in the growing area have forced many new and small congregations to rent space at local schools or other secular settings while they struggle to put together financing for their own buildings, ministers say."It's frustrating, in a word," said the Rev. Terry J. Stockman Sr., pastor at Hope Baptist Church in North Laurel, whose 175-member congregation spends $14,000 a year to rent space at Forest Ridge Elementary School.

A Baltimore City schoolteacher has been charged with committing sex acts with a 15-year-old after Harford County police say they found him and the teenager in a parked car in a Bel Air neighborhood over the weekend. Mark Allen Hyzer, 25, a teacher at Beechfield Elementary/Middle School in Irvington, is being held at the Harford County Detention Center on sex offense charges and has been placed on leave by city schools. Hyzer, a resident of the 1200 block of Valley Brook Court in Baltimore, has been charged with third- and fourth-degreee sex offenses, sexual abuse of a minor and second-degree assault.