Crime Scene - The Washington Post's Blog About Local, National and International Crime and Criminal Justice - July 4, 2010

Arrest made in July 3 homicide

A Fort Washington man was arrested Friday in the July 3 homicide of a 19-year-old District resident, D.C. police said.

By Eric Athas | July 10, 2010; 9:43 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Homicide, The District
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Police seek 2 in D.C. assault

D.C. police are looking for help identifying two men who committed an assault at a sandwich shop in Northwest in June. The men struck around 10:20 p.m. at a shop in the 1400 block of K St. NW, according to...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 4:15 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Crime, Seen, David P. Marino-Nachison, The District
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D.C. man, 19, dies in shooting

A 19-year-old District man died after a double shooting in Southeast D.C. early Friday, authorities said. Stanley Dawson, of Good Hope Rd., was found suffering from gunshot wounds around 12:18 a.m. in the 3500 block of 19th St. SE. He...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 3:41 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The District
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27 years for gang member in pimp's death

A U.S. District Judge in Alexandria Friday sentenced a member of the MS-13 gang to 27 years in prison in connection with the 2009 slaying and robbery of a Northern Virginia pimp. In April, Eris Ramon Arguera, 21, of Alexandria,...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 3:28 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Alexandria, From the Courthouse, Gangs, Keith L. Alexander
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Rape charges for Md. man who met teens

A registered sex offender used a social networking Web site to lure four young girls to an Annapolis home this week, and then raped one of them, Anne Arundel County police said. Police say James Mason III, 28, struck up...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 2:46 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Anne Arundel, Sex Crimes
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Guilty plea in Va. cop's drug dealing

A former Pulaski police officer has pleaded guilty to doing double duty as a drug dealer. Prosecutors say 32-year-old Christopher Franklin Bond admitted in federal court Friday that he bought and sold methamphetamine inside his police car....

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 2:19 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: From the Courthouse, Narcotics, Virginia
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Police have Yeardley Love's T-shirt

A city of Charlottesville spokesman says police have the T-shirt that initially was missing from a slain University of Virginia student's apartment. Ric Barrick said Friday that victim Yeardley Love's family members turned in the T-shirt a couple of days...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 1:24 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Schools, Updates, Virginia
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Va. man dead in Silver Spring shooting

Montgomery County authorities are investigating the shooting death of an Alexandria man Thursday evening in Silver Spring. Police say Joseph Love Kennedy Jr., 20, was fatally shot around 7:40 in the 2300 block of Darrow St. He was found with...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 1:05 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Keith L. Alexander, Montgomery
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Conviction overturned in D.C. killing

A District man’s conviction for murder in the 2004 death of a cab driver was overturned Thursday. The D.C. Court of Appeals overturned Eric R. Gardner’s first-degree murder conviction in the fatal shooting of of Andrew B. Kamara, 50, saying...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 11:08 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: From the Courthouse, Homicide, Keith L. Alexander, The District
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Arrest in D.C. woman's April death

Police have made an arrest in the April killing of a Northwest D.C. woman. Victoria Romaine, 30, is accused of assaulting 32-year-old Juliet Avents on April 4....

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 9:11 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Homicide, The District
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Calvert bank robber still sought

Calvert County authorities are asking for help identifying a man who robbed a Solomons bank in February. The man, described as a white male about 30 years old and 6 feet tall, robbed the Maryland Bank and Trust, according to...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 8:48 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Calvert, David P. Marino-Nachison
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Murder conviction for Md. teacher

A Baltimore County jury has convicted a former English teacher of killing her estranged husband and trying to kill their teenage daughter. Jurors rejected arguments that 60-year-old Mary Koontz was mentally ill when she shot Ronald Koontz at his home...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 8:00 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Baltimore, From the Courthouse, Homicide
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22 years for Va. drug smuggler

A man who spent $127,210 on air fare, hotels and rental cars supplying cocaine from Atlanta to Virginia's Tidewater area has been sentenced to 22 years in prison. The government says 35-year-old David Edward Bragg Jr. was sentenced Thursday in...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 7:57 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: From the Courthouse, Narcotics, Virginia
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Okla. burglar only nabs M&Ms, not drugs

A pharmacy burglar in Oklahoma got away, but the loot they made off with amounted to pill bottles of M&Ms, according to this report: Police arrived on scene, cleared the building and looked for suspect vehicles leaving the area. The...

By Washington Post Editors | July 9, 2010; 7:50 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Offbeat
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2 hurt in crash with Charles officer

The Charles County sheriff's office says a woman and two children have been seriously injured in a crash with an officer. Authorities say the officer was responding to an emergency call Wednesday on Washington Avenue, with his lights and sirens...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 4:32 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Charles, Traffic Accidents
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Police: Serial bank robber in Md.

A man suspected in four bank robberies in Prince George's County struck again Thursday at a Chevy Chase branch in Bowie, police said. Operating as he always does -- entering the bank as a customer and passing a note to...

By Matt Zapotosky | July 8, 2010; 4:00 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Matt Zapotosky, Pr. George's
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Improved juvenile ward education: D.C. report

In a new report filed today, the monitor overseeing a court-ordered reform of the District's juvenile justice agency said the city had has staged a "remarkable" turnaround in how it educates juveniles in long-term detention. Once marked by a lack...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 2:20 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The District
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Police: Huguely knew Love was injured

George Huguely V told Charlottesville police that he "saw blood coming from Yeardley Love's nose," as he banged her head against a wall during a fight May 3 that lead to her death, according to police and court records released Thursday.

By Mary Pat Flaherty | July 8, 2010; 12:50 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (34)
Categories: From the Courthouse, Mary Pat Flaherty, Updates, Virginia
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3 charged in Md. fake credit card case

Three New York men have been charged with creating phony credit cards after police found a stash of them in a vehicle's trunk outside a Glen Burnie convenience store. Anne Arundel County police observed what they considered to be a...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 11:53 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Anne Arundel
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Police seek missing Md. teen

Authorities are looking for a missing 17-year-old Olney girl who went missing Wednesday during her lunch break from her job in Silver Spring. Montgomery County Police are looking for Rosa Lorena Torres, is described as a light-skinned Hispanic youth who...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 11:30 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Keith L. Alexander, Missing Persons, Montgomery
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Marine investigated in Ill. killings: Report

Torrez. (Courtesy of Arlington Police) An ex-Marine charged in the brutal rape of a woman in Prince William County has been linked by DNA evidence to the 2005 deaths of two girls in Zion, Ill, the man's sister told the...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 11:22 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Arlington, Around the Nation, Homicide, Updates
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Love's death from head injury: Report

University of Virginia women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love was killed by blunt force injury to the head, the state medical examiner’s office confirmed Thursday. The office also officially ruled the death of Love, a 22-year-old Cockeysville, Md. native, a homicide....

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 9:10 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (18)
Categories: Schools, Updates, Virginia
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Copper theft attempts turn deadly

The Crime Scene has reported on several area copper thefts in recent weeks and months from downspouts and air conditioners. Another bust charged a man with plans to take copper cables from a company's lot. Now a power company says...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 8:32 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Around the Nation, The Region, Updates
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Split custody of dog in Calvert divorce

Call it the Calvert County Canine Custody Case. As they headed toward divorce, Gayle and Craig Myers had only one bone of contention: Who would have the right to keep Lucky, their 16-pound gray-black Lhasa apso....

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 7:53 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Calvert, From the Courthouse
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Arrest in Iowa lawn mower ride

A middle-of-the-night ride on a lawn mower landed one Iowa man in jail. The Boone County Sheriff's Office says deputies stopped the man on Highway 17 near Madrid around 1 a.m. Wednesday after receiving reports of someone driving a mower...

By Washington Post Editors | July 8, 2010; 7:50 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Offbeat
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FAA: Not liable in Medevac crash

The Federal Aviation Administration has denied liability for injuries to a Waldorf teenager who survived the 2008 crash of a Maryland State Police medical helicopter during a flight in which federal controllers provided hours-old weather reports and “inadequate” handling of...

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 6:30 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Emergencies & Rescues, Mary Pat Flaherty, Pr. George's, Updates
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No extradition in German's Va. slayings

The United States government is refusing to transfer a German diplomat's son from a Virginia prison where he is serving two life terms for murder. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a Tuesday letter to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell that...

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 5:43 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Virginia
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Man sought in four D.C. robberies

D.C. Police are looking for one man in connection with four recent daytime shop robberies. A light-skinned black male between 30 and 40 years old, standing between 5-feet-6 and 6 feet and weighing perhaps 150 to 160 pounds is the...

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 5:33 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: David P. Marino-Nachison, The District
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J. Edgar Hoover trove for new museum

More than 2,000 items from longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover have been donated to the planned National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington. The gift announced Wednesday by the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation makes the museum one of the largest...

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 5:19 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The District
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Arrest in Los Angeles serial killings

Police made an arrest Wednesday in the so-called "Grim Sleeper" serial killings in which a man is believed to have killed 11 people since 1985, a law enforcement official said. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and...

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 3:32 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Around the Nation, Homicide, Unsolved
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Wone civil case goes forward

civil suit against the three housemates

By Washington Post editors | July 7, 2010; 3:04 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: From the Courthouse, Homicide, Keith L. Alexander, The District, Unsolved, Updates
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Pham in video minutes before found

A collection of surveillance videos released by Fairfax County police Wednesday morning shows Vanessa Pham's Scion tC hatchback entering the Fairfax Plaza shopping center on Gallows Road, then leaving about 10 minutes before she was found stabbed to death a short distance away in the Falls Church area. Pham, 19, was found inside the overturned Scion in a ditch near Route 50 and Gallows Road at 3:34 p.m. on June 27. Officer Don Gotthardt said Wednesday that witnesses had last seen Pham inside the JD Nail Salon in the Fairfax Plaza sometime after 3 p.m.

By Tom Jackman | July 7, 2010; 3:03 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (22)
Categories: Fairfax, Falls Church, Homicide, Tom Jackman, Unsolved, Updates
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Suspect named in Damascus shooting

Police in Montgomery County have identified the bank robbery suspect shot and wounded by a police officer Tuesday as 30-year-old Samuel D. Faulk, of Germantown. Faulk remains in serious but stable condition at an area hospital, authorities said....

By Matt Zapotosky | July 7, 2010; 2:18 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Matt Zapotosky, Montgomery, Updates
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211 years for Va. robber

A Chesapeake man who was linked to a dozen robberies or attempted bank robberies in the Hampton Roads area has been sentenced to 221 years in prison. Thirty-nine-year-old Leonard Earl Roulhac also was ordered Tuesday to pay $37,407 in restitution....

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 11:13 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: From the Courthouse, Virginia
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Thieves target landscapers

Thieves in Fairfax County are targeting something new: leaf blowers and other landscaping equipment. Police are investigating a rash of landscaping equipment thefts that have occurred throughout the Franconia area from businesses and directly from the landscaping trucks that park...

By Washington Post editors | July 7, 2010; 10:42 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Fairfax, Unsolved
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Bar hit by fire now reports break-in

A popular H Street hangout that was ravaged by fire last month has been broken into, according to a posting on the tavern’s Web site. A co-owner of Argonaut, Scott Magnuson, arrived at the bar last week to find an...

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 7:36 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The District
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Judge lost job over popcorn: Report

A New York City parking judge who lost his job in 2009 did so because he accepted gifts of popcorn from a person whose tickets he'd dismissed, according to reports.

By Washington Post Editors | July 7, 2010; 5:37 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation, Offbeat
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Power worker severely burned in Va.

A man working on an electric transformer in Alexandria City late Monday night was severely burned when the transformer exploded and shot hot oil on to the man's face and upper body, Alexandria fire officials said Tuesday. The man's injuries were not life-threatening, Battalion Chief John North said. His name was not released.

By Tom Jackman | July 6, 2010; 5:27 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Alexandria, Fires & Fire Safety, Tom Jackman
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Bank robbery suspect shot after chase

A Montgomery County police officer shot and wounded a bank robbery suspect Tuesday after the suspect drove his car at the officer at the end of a chase, authorities said. Police began chasing the suspect at about 10:30 a.m. after...

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 2:33 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Matt Zapotosky, Montgomery
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Call for Richmond jail investigation

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking for a federal investigation into conditions at the Richmond City Jail. ACLU of Virginia made the request in a letter to the Department of Justice on Tuesday, citing the recent deaths of two...

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 12:54 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Prison Beat, Virginia
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New charges for Md. prison gangsters

Members of the notorious Black Guerrilla Family prison gang have now been charged under a federal organized crime law. Thirteen alleged members of the gang had already been charged with drug conspiracy. A new indictment unsealed Tuesday charges 15 people...

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 12:48 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Gangs, Maryland, Narcotics, Prison Beat
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Man stabs brother in Md.: Police

A Millersville, Md., man was arrested and charged with first and second-degree attempted murder in the stabbing of his brother Monday evening after an argument at their home home. Jermaine Carter, 23, of the 200 block of Nathan Way, was...

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 10:15 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Anne Arundel, Keith L. Alexander
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Cop kicked during burglary bust: Police

Manuel Rodriguez. (Courtesy of Prince William police) A man caught during the act of a burglary at a Dale City home kicked an officer in the face, Prince William County police say. Police responded to the residence in the 3800...

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 10:04 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Fires & Fire Safety, Pr. William
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Elvis statue missing from Md. diner

A 7-foot-tall statue of Elvis appears to have been stolen from the roof of a Rosedale, Md., diner. Maria Pigiaditis, owner of the Happy Day Diner, says all that's left of the beloved statue are part of his feet....

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 8:33 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Baltimore
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Va. teen dead in Reston crash

A 17-year-old from Herndon died Saturday after he was hit by a car Thursday, Fairfax County Police said. Jose Antonio Villatoro attempted to cross Reston Parkway around 9 p.m. while not in a crosswalk, police said in a Tuesday press...

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 8:18 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (18)
Categories: David P. Marino-Nachison, Fairfax, Traffic Accidents
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Video: 5 dead in air ambulance crash

Five people have died after an air ambulance crashed shortly after takeoff from a West Texas airport. The crash happened early Sunday about 200 miles southeast of El Paso....

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 7:43 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Around the Nation
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Several hurt, 2 dead in Va. boat accidents

Police are asking prosecutors whether charges should be filed after a woman was killed when a boat piloted by her 7-year-old son hit a pier, according to a report in the Daily Press.

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 7:31 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (31)
Categories: Virginia
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Teen shot dead in Baltimore

Baltimore police are investigating the fatal shooting Monday of a high school basketball star. Seventeen-year-old John Crowder was found lying in the grass in the 2600 block of Garrett Avenue near the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello neighborhood at about 1 a.m....

By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2010; 7:28 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Baltimore, Homicide
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Crime Scene: July 4, 2010 - July 10, 2010