Tuesday, March 21, 2006

March 21

James Earl Murphy, 30, was indicted for contempt of court for his refusal to testify in a murder trial. Murphy and Martin Morgan, 18, were indicted for the murder of Wade Walker on March 12, 2004. In January of last year, Murphy pled guilty to second-degree murder and received a 30-year sentence from Judge David Mitchell. On February 3, Murphy refused to testify in Morgan's trial and was held in Direct Contempt of Court by Judge Shirley Watts. Nevertheless, the jury convicted Morgan of first-degree murder and he will be sentenced next week. Murphy is scheduled for arraignment on April 20 before Judge Welch.

The trial of officers King and Murray grinds on. Sounds like the pair was sleazy and lazy: "King told [the informant] that the officers didn't want information about ... young people who would be apt to run from the detectives and require a chase."

Blotter: A woman was shot in the chest by her fiancee and lived. James Best, who was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Two men were arrested for attempted murder and armed robbery in the northeastern. The man shot near Reisterstown Road was identified as Aaron Godbolt, 23.

Sisters are doing it for themselves: robbing sick and old people, that is.

The Mars grocery store in Reisterstown was robbed.

Kenneth Hankins, a big greasy-looking fat guy, flashed a boy and a girl at Glen Ridge apartments in Glen Burnie.

MattCStoffelGreg Raymond, former JHU lax Blue Jay and now the assistant men's coach at Princeton, pled guilty on February 10 to Driving Under the Influence as a result of the gory drunk-driving accident that killed his friend Matthew "Stoff" Stoffel (left) Dec. 11. He will be sentenced Thursday the 23rd at 2 p.m. at Wabash district court. He faces a maximum penalty of one-year in jail and/or $1,000 fine. Some excerpts from the charging documents:
Officers recieved a call to respond ... the accident was located at I83 North and the Charles Street Bridge ... officers found a green/black Jeep Sahara on the right shoulder with damage to the same ... found the driver a Mr. Gregory P. Raymond in the driver seat holding/stabilizing the passenger a Mr. Matthew C. Stoffel. The passenger had a pole impaled to his face through his mouth and throat area. The pole was approx. 3 feet in length. The pole extend (sic) through the windshield. Mr. Raymond stated that they had been drinking... that he had five beers and two shots. Raymond also stated that he was not the driver of the Jeep ... later he recanted ... Raymond agreed to take the brethilizer test. Mr. Raymond blew a .20 ....
So boozehounds, take note: contrary to what I thought, driving drunk and killing someone is not enough to be charged with vehicular manslaughter. Said my source, "you ALSO need more negligence, such as reckless driving, speeding, etc IN ADDITION to the drinking. And that evidence was not there, hence the decision to not go forward. Also, the victim's family's wishes were also taken into consideration."

Speaking of drunks, students at Towson U. are fighting for their right to party... "your out of you mind if you think banning (college) nights would help anyone." Meanwhile, the JHU News-Letter bemoans that the school can't stop CV residents from calling the police with noise complaints.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

so if dude wasn't driving "recklessly" why did he crash? this is pretty ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

Cybrarian,
Just wondering if you've heard/can find out about a missing persons poster that is plastered all over the Inner Harbor. Apparently a young woman named Kristina "Tina" Wolfe is supposed to have gone missing after leaving Iguana Cantina at 2a.m., according to the poster.

Would have emailed you but I didn't see an address.

-Sutton

Anonymous said...

2 a.m. on Friday night, that is.

Anonymous said...

god, hopkins kids are fucking insufferable. and that's coming from a former hopkins kid.

if you don't want your neighbors to call the police, stop being such loud, obnoxious assholes!

Maurice Bradbury said...

Sutton-
Wow, that was shockingly difficult. I called Central and the man I spoke to said he'd seen the flier and gave me a number for missing persons. I called missing persons, where I was interrogated like a criminal ("who are you? Who do you write for?") before the guy told me that he had no information and that anyway missing persons just deals with people under 18 and mentally impaired adults. He said that every District has a missing persons liason. So he sent me back to Central, where I got a different guy who said "I don't know why they sent you back here. Who are you? Are you the mother?"

Saying I was a reporter got me back to the first guy I talked to, who said that the district did not have a missing-persons liason and thay they had no information about this person and could neither confirm or deny that she was missing. I asked if he could just read what it said on the flier but he said now the poster had been taken down from the bulletin board, so maybe she was found, or maybe not. So bottom line, I wasn't able to even verify if she's missing, much less get a picture or any helpful information. Her poor parents must be out their minds.

The number for the Central District is (410) 396-2411. If you get a flier, send me one and I will post it: chococatsanrio@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

DC, the Stokes shooting was in Better Waverly, not Carney.

Maurice Bradbury said...

Is there another Matthews Drive? The map shows it off of Old Harford Road, North of Joppa.

Anonymous said...

It's Mathews Street, two blocks east of Greenmount. It's in a BCPD district.

Anonymous said...

For 25 years, ill-behaved JHU students have told responding police officers "Yo, dude, you can't arrest me. My Dad's a surgeon. Laws are for these other people."

InsiderOut said...

yeah, I would think the crash was evidence of reckless driving. Very lame.

Maurice Bradbury said...

Thanks galt. I'd fix it but blogger is having technical difficulties right now.

Maurice Bradbury said...

..and it's driving me crazy because there's a pervert on the loose in Glen Burnie. BCrime diet plan: read that story before every meal.

Si Fitz said...

reisterstown road was misidentified in your column as reisterstown "riad"
for whatever that is worth

Maurice Bradbury said...

What I can't get over is the pole. Unless there was a pole bent horizontally and south on the exit ramp (and who knows, maybe the pole thieves did a sloppy job), how did it go through the passenger windshield at that height and angle? All I can imagine is that Raymond must have been travelling at such a high rate of speed that the Jeep hit the wall, flew up in the air and landed ass-up on the pole. But it doesn't seem like there's enough road there (I'm assuming the on-ramp to 83 by the train station) to work up that kind of speed, even if one wanted to, especially in a Jeep.

InsiderOut said...

unfortunately, cy, we'll probably never know b/c the prosecutors didn't have the balls to charge him with vehicular manslaughter

Maurice Bradbury said...

Maybe as part of his community service he'll be forced to retell the tale to Princeton freshmen.

Maurice Bradbury said...

ps. forgot to add that tomorrow Raymond will be facing a sentence from scot-free to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Maurice Bradbury said...

ps. Raymond's case was postponed until May.

Anonymous said...

As someone who knew Matt why don't you all consider this: Raymond was Matt's best friend. He isn't being charged with anything because Matt's parents did not want to prosecute him. Did you know he was driving because Matt asked him too? Do you think accidently taking the life of your best friend in accident isn't punishment? So, why don't all rid yourself of your holier than thou attitude. Ever heard of the saying, "But for the grace of God there go I..." People make mistakes and this was a mistake with horrible consequnces. But before you say the prosecution has "no balls" know the facts. What's more important: someone being prosecuted so you can feel like justice is being done or the wishes of a family who just lost their youngest son being honored?