'We got to think outside the box to get this done'

Another woman murdered, another "domestic-related" situation. Today's victim is Rachel Curtis, age 31 and the mother of five children,* dead from "undisclosed trauma" in the 2600 block of Wegworth Lane.


From City Paper contributing photographer J.M. Giordano:
All this year, I'll be teaming up with the Nether Bmore on a year-long project. The Cost is a series of portraits of those affected by the city's homicide rate. I'll be taking formal portraits of families of the victims while Nether will bring his amazing style of street art to portraits of the victims. Memorials that, space allowing, will be pasted at or near the scene of the crime. If ANYONE knows a family who in 2013 has been affected by the city's murder rate, PLEASE put them in touch with me. I can be reached at jmgiordano2006@gmail.com.


Well, here's some shit: officer Kendell Richburg pleaded to charges on Monday related to planting drugs and guns on people, setting victims up and claiming in court that he witnessed transactions he didn't* while he was part of the VCIS (Violent Crimes Impact Section, now renamed the "Zone Enforcement Section") Perhaps the strangest part, Richburg apparently did it not for monetary gain but to impress higher-ups in the BPD. Claimed Richburg's lawyer Warren Brown,* "the majority of Richburg's contacts with the informant were about making low-level drug arrests, and that such arrests are a big part of the Police Department's enforcement strategy. 'The department will deny that they have quotas, but they do,' Brown said. 'They grab these guys with one bag of weed, and the quality of the arrest is never scrutinized.'"

It's been almost nine years* since the triple child murder at the Fallstaff apartments, and after all these years the motive has remained a mystery. Finally at the third trial, the mother of two of the decapitated children, Noemi Quezada, has testified to a possible motive: the fury of Guadalupe Hernandez over her husband Victor's romantic interests in her niece, Espejo Quezada, who lived with Noemi and her children with her son, Alexis,* who was also killed. Hernandez is in a Mexican prison for trying to have Victor killed in 2009.

Meet the K-Mart disturber, Clifton Duncan Jr. No word on what he did that was so disturbing.

Ian Baron: Honduran by birth, Jewish by adoption, anti-Semetic hate crime convict because alcohol?

Khakis were sullied

One Clifton Rodney Duncan Jr. caused a "disturbance" at the Rosedale K-Mart, then broke into a house, then barricaded himself at Winner Distributing and was taken into custody at about 7 p.m.

Rodney Pridget,
photo Tweeted by Fenton

More than two years after Rodney Pridget was murdered outside of Towson Town Center in what evidence indicates was a Black Guerrilla Family-ordered hit, the accused triggerman and final, youngest defendant, Tyrone Brown, was found guilty.

A water bottle was hurled, khakis were sullied, major defense lawyer Ivan Bates was retained and now Bernstein's Major Investigations Unit is now poring through the nuances of the case of two financial analysts and a venture capitalist who got into a Harbor East slugfest.*

@justin_fenton have you heard anything about the ridiculous amount of car break ins that have been happening by Riverside Park in S. Bmore?
— Steve Beck (@stevembeck) March 12, 2013

Sweet, sweet romance: John Leopold's girlfriend Jane Miller-- not to be confused with the girlfriend who subjected him to oral sodomy in the bowling alley parking lot, or the gimlet-eyed reporter-- testified at his sentencing down in AAC yesterday that Leopold is "remorseful and contrite" and that he referred to his taxpayer-funded pee-bag-dumping employee as "Dr. Patti."

Erin Thorne

More dirty from AAC: a 28-year-old teacher Erin Nicole Thorne is facing serious trouble following allegations from an 18-year-old student that she sent him sexts, texts and "obscene matter" and "engaged in sexual activity" with him after he turned 18 but while he was still a student at Broadneck High.

Nicholas Vargas, 24, of the Windsor Mill area drove up to Pottsville, PA, punched a man in the face at the Coney Island restaurant.

Ten years is a long time to go away for "criminal threats," no?

Damn, Dundalk, $1.5 million worth of counterfeit goods at the flea market*? (But is that the goods' actual value, or what it would have been if the goods were really the brand they were supposed to be?)

So the nefarious Koch brothers reportedly aspire to buy the Tribune-- the newspaper group or the whole sorry mess. But only if baby-eating dingo Rupert Murdoch or cracker-faced capitalist Lee Mitchell lose their bids.

Finally, have a sobering .gif in which you can watch Baltimore's middle-class neighborhoods disappear.