Wife

A 25-year-old northeast Baltimore man was to appear today at a bail review hearing in District Court on charges that he killed his wife by strangling her with a necktie.City police said Robert Logan Jr., of the 5200 block of Bowley's Lane, was arrested inside his apartment about 8:30 a.m. yesterday by Northeastern District officers after he called police and said his wife had been killed.Police found Logan's wife, Gwendolynn Ann, 30, dead in the apartment. A preliminary investigation indicated the woman had been strangled with a necktie.

A former Baltimore police officer and his wife were sentenced to federal prison yesterday for reporting crimes that never occurred so they could receive more than $10,000 in insurance payments, the U.S. attorney's office said. Michael B. Nelson, 26, will spend one year and one day in prison followed by two years of supervised release, prosecutors said. His wife, Tierra Spencer Nelson, 24, was sentenced to five months in prison followed by five months of home detention and three years supervised release, prosecutors said.

Composed but clearly anguished, the estranged wife of former Baltimore Raven Michael C. McCrary told a judge Monday that he has become increasingly violent and verbally abusive, at one point punching a hole in a wall next to her head. "I don't want him near me," Mary Haley McCrary, 40, married to the retired defensive end since 2005, told the judge. "I don't want him near my daughter," referring to their 6-year-old child. Judge Jan Marshall Alexander of Baltimore County District Court granted the woman's request for a temporary protective order that bars the 6-foot-4-inch, 270-pound former Pro Bowler and defensive end from the couple's home in Timonium.

Sometimes on football Saturdays, Randy Edsall's wife will slip into the Gossett Team House auditorium, barely noticed by the media assembled to hear the Maryland coach's post-game remarks. Thirteen years after her husband first became a head coach, Eileen Edsall is as passionate as ever about his career, but is practiced at fading into her football surroundings so as not to become part of the story. With all eyes fixed on the lectern where her husband is standing, the former basketball and volleyball standout -- who was once named the top female athlete at Syracuse University -- will position herself near the back of the room, silently sharing his good moments and enduring the bad. Being a head coach's wife is a little like being the first lady.

A Randallstown man shot and killed his wife in the basement of the couple's home in the 4200 block of Mary Ridge Drive before turning the gun on himself yesterday, Baltimore County police said. The man called 911 about 7:30 a.m. and told the dispatcher that he had just killed his wife, police said. The man then said, "I'm going down to [the basement] to join her," police said. Police dispatched a SWAT team to the house. The unit entered the home and found both bodies in the basement, according to Cpl. George Erhardt of the county police.

For weeks, Kevin Gates lived with the fear that his wife was trying to have him killed. But he feigned ignorance. "I did my very best to make her think I had no clue, because I wanted to catch her in this," said Gates, 43, of Westminster. "Any fear that I would have had was just [overridden] by anger." The pretense ended Tuesday, when state police arrested Mary L. Gates, 46, saying she offered to pay an undercover trooper $6,000 to kill her husband. She had provided a photograph of Kevin Gates, as well as a handwritten note with the UPS deliveryman's schedule and route to work, according to court documents.

A 55-year-old Westminster man was sentenced yesterday to three years in the Carroll County Detention Center for sexually assaulting his wife and videotaping the attack when she passed out after he got her drunk.The man's wife, daughter and minister asked Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. for leniency, saying they were convinced that the defendant has reformed and that he has been going to counseling with his wife.Judge Burns answered their pleas by saying he would not send the man to state prison. Instead, the man will serve his term on work release.

The murder conviction of William L. Snyder Sr., who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1986 Valentine's Day beating death of his wife, was overturned yesterday by the state Court of Special Appeals.The court ruled that police speculation had been entered improperly as evidence during the trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court in August 1993, when a jury convicted Mr. Snyder of first-degree murder.During the trial, police officers testified they had interviewed people who said the victim, Frances Kay Snyder, 43, was terrified of her husband and that they had "enough proof" of what happened.

A Severn man who allegedly beat his wife twice in less than a week was arrested after the second incident and charged with assault, county police reported.Margaret Nelka, 36, drove to the Western District police station about 6: 30 p.m. Thursday and told officers her husband started to beat her while she was cooking.As she ran outside to her truck to leave, he followed her, reached into the truck and punched her, Nelka told police.Officer Robert John Hanlon Jr. asked the woman about a bruise on her eye, and she said her husband caused it June 7.Officers had been called to the house that day, but Nelka had refused to press charges, police said.

A 32-year-old Severn, Anne Arundel County, woman is scheduled to appear at a bail review hearing tomorrow following charges that she stabbed her husband to death during a quarrel yesterday evening in their home in the 1800 block of Arwell Court, county police said.The accused, Merle Denise Thomas, was arrested without incident at the scene, the Warfield Condominiums, shortly after the 6 p.m. incident. The wife was uninjured, police said.Police said the couple, married for nine years, was arguing yesterday evening when the woman allegedly retrieved a knife from the kitchen sink and stabbed her husband, Steven Bernard Thomas, 32, in the chest.