January 3

The County's first murder was the fatal stabbing of 48-year old Arthur G. Brown Jr. in Landsdowne.

Got a babydaddy in jail and want to show off his mug shot? There's a place on the "Prison Talk" forum.

And ANOTHER shooting: a juvenile shot in the head on Belnord Avenue near Patterson Park in the southeastern has died (homicde number four).
1. Leon Nelson, 17, China Garden
2. Man, early 20's at Windsor Forest apt. complex, 4900 Challedon Road
3. Woman in 2000 W. North Avenue Rowhouse (see link above)
4. Another 17-year-old on Belnord, SE

A man shot in April who died in November became 2006's homicide #275 (and police still haven't called his family).
Two-seventy-five for the City, 350 for the Metro Area in '06-- such tidy numbers!

Dick Irwin reports on the juvenile shot in the head and also an unID'd man in the Eastern shot in the chest. And a carjacking in the Central, and lots of theft.

The 20-year-old man found shot dead in the Edgewood flowerbed was ID'd as Walter Antonio Overton.

Hamm: let's spend state $ treating cracky.

Your tax $ at work: An ongoing ACLU lawsuit against the city and the federal government on behalf of black public-housing residents has cost the city $6.6 million so far.

Harold Singfield Jr., 22, got a new trial when a judge ruled another judge should have asked potential jurors if they could be fair. Why this warrants a whole story is beyond me. I guess procedural slip-ups like that are usually frosted over, but this time an appeals judge put his foot down?
Update: Wrote someone from Luke Broadwater's mailbox,

There's a growing amount of case law that says judges must ask jurors direct questions about certain types of cases to determine whether the very nature of those cases elicit strong feelings, thereby resulting in bias.

Maybe it's only an interesting story to me -- I don't know. But, at least to some degree, I think it illustrates the difficulty prosecutors face in successfully convicting accused murderers.

Gregory Kane reveals that his cousin, Uncle George Floyd's boy Louis, was a bit of a black sheep; advocates "good" prisoners beating down the "dangerous" ones.
Er, wouldn't that make the good prisoners into dangerous ones by definition?

Hate those hit-and-run drivers! Eg. Jason Dehn, 24, who drunkenly killed two dialysis patients.

Phony $20s are showing up in Somerset County (sub req.).

"Meet the New Boss"-- CP has a Q & A with Ms. Dixon.
On Crime:

"I'm not making any bold promises as relates to a number [of murders] and reducing crime. What I want to see is that the State's Attorney's office and the police department have a better working relationship."

About as modest a goal as it gets, as it's all uphill from here!

A hypothetical question to Mrs. J and the BPD:

"Are we all in the business for reducing crime? ... what is it going to take from your department and what is it going to take from the police department? We need to have a frank, honest conversation, because there are weaknesses on both sides."

On fingers:

"Instead of pointing the fingers, recognizing that and really asking--like at the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council I asked that question, as City Council president. I ask that every time I go to the meeting, to the judges and parole and probation office, the governor's office, etc. I ask: Are we really in this to reduce crime or are we just here because of your titles and it's a job? Because that's kind of the sense I have from some of the individuals who serve."

But she's not pointing any fingers!
Meet the New Old Status Quo!
(Wonder whappened to that Urban Blight project of hers?)

Dan Rodricks' column reminds me of a lady I saw wailing on her kid at the mall, screaming, "you know better than to hit your brother!"
Like it would help anything to try to have a parenting discussion with a bitch crazy enough to take toddlers to the mall!
(How should a concerned citizen handle the public-child-abuse spectacle? WWJM*D?
(*Judith Martin)

January 2 Afternoon

A body was found behind an apartment complex near Leakin Park (2).

Two-thousand-seven rang in with the shooting death of 17-year-old Leon Nelson, who died about three hours after he was shot at the China Garden.

Op Ed du jour: "Where's the outrage over black-on-black killings?"
DeWayne Wickham, USA Today
"The number of blacks killed in 2005 [by a single black assailant] alone approaches the total of all the blacks lynched in this country from 1882 to 1968, according to records maintained by Tuskegee University."

Bédard's lawyer to Mounties: come get my client out of MD!

Can this relationship be saved? Stephen Mujerm, 40, of Lanham proposed to his woman, Victorine Taboh of Laurel. An hour later, he knocked her out with a steering-wheel lock and found himself in a PA jail.

What's old is new again dept: Is policing by private security firms the wave of the future?

January 2 - The Party's Over

A man's body was found squashing daisies on Meadowood Drive in Edgewood, HafCo.

An 18-year-old was shot, a 20-year-old was stabbed, a 15-year-old had bleach thrown in his face and an 18-year-old raped at a party in the Blotter.

Three people were shot at the China Garden restaurant between Dru Hill and Leakin Parks.

The Amber-Alert kids and their murder-suspect dad were found unhurt by an eagle-eyed motorist in Olney.

A Baltimore church has a service annually for the city's youngest homicide victims.

Care to define "metro area," Luke Broadwater? Is AAC in it? Harford County?

The Post Office is closed for Gerald Ford's funeral.

The Holidays are officially over ... good news to the 7 readers who contemplated suicide, the 13 who drank too much, and the two with no shoes on their feet (at the airport).
And no one had terducken for Xmas-- though five readers enjoyed the charms of Chinese.
Ps. The Chinese Delight on 41st and Falls has the best dumplings in town, plus they take Amex -- and that corner attracts the most interesting of Hampden's Falls Rd. ho's.

Chief Judge John Prevas will preside over a brief ceremony this morning at 8:30 a.m. as State's Attorney Patricia C Jessamy begins her third elected term and receives the Oath of Office. Following the Installation Ceremony, many of the 200 Assistant State's Attorneys who serve in the District and Circuit Courts, at Central Booking and in the Juvenile Courts Division will also receive the Oath of Office. Dockets will be called at 10 a.m. following the ceremony, juice and cookies.

Year in Review continued

April
The year's most lurid political scandal broke: that would be Charles Boutin, chief sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act, using his state-issued computer to find a hooker specializing in domination ... then issuing a press release blaming "ED" for his behavior.

Pat Jessamy was livid at what she called a "rouge database" of inaccurate data.
She was also featured on the CBS national news, calling Baltimore the "epicenter of witness intimidation."

Hobbit-like Judge John Glynn was in a peppery mood, calling Jessamy a "liar" (regarding Amanda Johnson's plea) in the Daily Record and opining to the Sun that city police have a "sloppy and unprofessional" approch to search warrants.

Jayne Miller uncovered a story in which a man's death was re-classified by the ME at the behest of the police from 'homicide' to death by 'natural causes'-- even though a homicide trial was pending.

Oprah came to town to pay a visit to her old colleague Richard Sher and raise funds for Beth Tfiloh, and told WBAL, "I think the state of education in Baltimore is an atrocity, an atrocity. What is going on is a crime to the children of the city. It's a crime that people can't figure it out."

Our first link to the Examiner: a story about police helping convicts find jobs.

...to be continued...

January 1

Gus Sentementes puts 2006's homicide total at 274-- actually one fewer than the city's 2005 number as per the Medical Examiner's office.
Meanwhile, murder is down 15 percent in the District.

AMBER ALERT!
Police are looking for black dad Kelechi Charles Emeruwa and his three kids.
Their mother Chidiebere Omenihu Ochulo was found murdered in Burtonsville, MoCo, and Emeruwa and the children, (left to right) Antinnoe, 6, (a girl), Elijah, 4, and Jachi, an 8-year-old boy, are missing, as is their blue Honda Civic, plate MKZ-237.

Is the burning body found in a house near Greenmount Cemetery* number 27-something? We'll never know for sure...

What the?!-- someone removed a dead woman's gravestone and put it on her father's Glen Burnie lawn.

*This weekend took the husband on a Creepy Drive through the Northern and Eastern on the way to Canton-- from Greenmount and 33rd, South on Greenmount (check the nauseating flashy blue lights!), left (East) on E. North Avenue, view the Big Weird building (shown left), go South on Patterson Park Ave. to get out... or keep going East to see all the streets you read about in the blotter!
Hey Burg, I'll bet you have some good suggestions for Scenic drives through town...!

Year in Review

January
The first posts of '06 were made by Chuck.
Said a non, "damn my boi ronny aka butch was killed new years day butch we love u and we here holdin it down r.i.p"

Soon after the ball dropped, police had begun to look for Graham Buckmaster's GMC after he killed his live-in partner Lisa Moore.

The Northwest was outraged at the murder of Warren Fleming by 21-year-old career criminal Brian Keith Rose.

O'Malley's Catholic father died, causing the future governor to miss a Planned Parenthood event.

By Jan 21 there had been 18 murders. The "Flex Squad" scandal blew up, and Warren Brown called Jemini Jones' accuser a "big fat liar."
A redacted report suggested fixes to Central Booking.. and was promptly sent to the "round" file by the MD Dept of Public Safety and Correctional Services -- the very agency that commissioned it.
And you can't forget that Keith Mills story!

February
The Feds began to hand out hefty sentences in the McAbier firebombing case.

The strange murder of Natasha Bacchus Magee was recollected for a jury in HoCo.

"Big thick" John C. Gaumer admitted to killing Hampden's Josie Brown in Arbutus (and a reader was outraged that I wrote "poor thing" about Brown: "she was a person, not a thing!").

Vernon Evans Jr. was scheduled to die on the 5th, but didn't.

WBAL noted that the ME's office had 275 homicides down for '06, even with the justifieds and whatnot taken out. The police reported 269.
Commented a reader Feb. 23,

"the police xagerate details, ricky wilkins a.k.a Noodles is not a cold blooded killer...and hopefully at his trial in june that will show! we just went 2 south beach right b4 the murder.....look up the murdered guys backround Terrance j. williams, he is no saint! shout out to noodles hold it down in city jail and if u get off we gone back 2 florida! holla murdaland records all day every day!"

Before the white couple was arrested for asking directions in Cherry Hill, David Ervin, 57, was arrested after reporting being carjacked.

March
After we got our paws on the city homicide book, we tried to do math. Remarkable: 47 of '05's homicides were John Does.

Stories of police-on-police activity ....Dan Ostrovsky of the Daily Record described a lawsuit in which Baltimore Detective Cassidy Kampfhammer and her partner, an officer Donato, falsely claimed to have bought drugs at an address, not realizing the house belonged to two police officers. When she realized her mistake she called her husband, Lt. Sean Kampfhammer, and the couple cooked up a scheme...

And another [auxiliary] officer, Winnie Gibson Watts, claimed police barged into her home and arrested her and her children, claiming to be looking for a suspect.

Lax coach Greg Raymond (left) didn't get charged with vehicular manslaughter after his choice to drink (a ton) and drive ended with his friend's skull impaled on a pole.

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?

Police officer Dante Hemingway was shot multiple times. Jobrea Lodge was arrested and went on to throw pee on an officer in Central Booking in the heat of August.

Hamm gave a two-part interview to WYPR.

"Let me tell you about Leonard Hamm. Leonard Hamm don't need to be police commissioner. Leonard Hamm was doing very well as a retired citizen of Baltimore. And could very easily go back and do that again, if, in fact, I had that kind of interference that everybody was talking about. Secondly, the mayor and I have a relationship where he is my boss. He's in charge of the city. And what the mayor wants is a safe city; he don't tell me how to go about doing it and making it safe. He just wants results. All he wants to know is, 'What happened with this thing? How're we doing with this? What's coming along with that?' So that, when reporters, such as yourself, come and stick a microphone in his face, he'll be prepared."

..to be continued...

December 30

Says NPR's Laura Sullivan in, "New Crime Data Has Experts Concerned," the federal budget for crime fighting is now a little more than one-third of what it was 10 years ago, and violent crime is up 4 percent nationwide.
Thanks, Republicans!

Three correctional officers were stabbed at Jessup.

Kenneth Megginson, wanted for murdering a Baltimorean in October,* was arrested in Berks County, PA. (Like the site's typo disclaimer!)

The Sun's Gregory Kane celebrates Festivus late, enumerating the (rather surprising) people who disappointed him most this year, including Rod J. Rosenstein and the Court of Special Appeals.
(No word yet on who gets '06's "Negro, Please")

Burglary, robbery, assault, etc. in the Blotter.

* Searching the archive for this guy, I found a comment I hadn't read! Good stuff!

Anonymous said...
If you've ever investigated a murder in the city, or talked to people in some of the f-ed neigbhorhoods where they occur, you'll soon realize how, in many cases, few want to talk to police or reporters about the gangbanger/drug dealer who just got his brains blown out. Please, I implore some bloggers/posters here to pick a murder in, say, the heart of the eastern district, and just show up at the address and start talking to people. don't just plot it out on your makeshift computer map and think you got some real handle or insight into city crime. Next, while you're out in the 'hood, imagine you're a homicide detective: you need to get people to cooperate, first by persuasion or by appealing to whatever compassion for their fellow man that they might have. Sometimes, there just isn't much compassion, so detectives break out the good cop/bad cop routine and act like pricks. Or if you're a reporter, you need to come back to your editor with on-the-record interviews from people who knew this dead gangbanger/drug dealer, or it's hard to put them on TV or quote anonymous sources. Try to get people in this neighborhood, who knew the victim, to give you their real, full name so you can quote them on how this dead gangbanger/drug dealer had some problems, but he was, at heart, "a good man." sure, right, of course he was... but even if he wasn't a good man, he still deserves justice for his murder. it's incredible to see how many, many cops doggedly pursue that justice, for someone who they knew nothing about, and who did little with their life except to cause a lot of problems in other peoples' lives and neighborhoods. talk about thankless work.

In many neighborhoods, residents, neighbors and obvious witnesses won't even acknowledge your presence or your questions; they'll just turn around and walk away. Like you have the plague. I shit you not. They don't want to talk to you, nor do they want to be seen talking to you. Of course, when someone does talk, they are thinking, or asking you: "will i be subpoenad? you gonna make me go down to homicide now? will i be quoted? will you show my face on tv? do you have to? i have young children who live here...please don't quote me."

Don't just imagine doing this while sitting at your computer and clickety clacking away in cyber/blog land, with your cop/media critic hat on. Unless you've tried to do it, you have no idea. So, go out and do it for a day. Give yourself a deadline later that day, and when that deadline comes, figure out how much you can really say about the life and death of someone, when virtually NO ONE wants to talk about him or her. And you'll get just a taste of what the police, prosecutors, The Sun, The CityPaper, The Examiner, and WMAR, WBAL, WJZ and WBFF/Fox get when they try to report on the "average" homicide in B-more. You can blame that general dearth of information, in no particular order, on: witness intimidation, general callousness, revenge motives, and the sad and pervasive belief that police, prosecutors, and the city, state and Feds can't be trusted to protect witnesses who cooperate. This blog might be kinda new, but this climate -- this landscape that police and local media operate in -- is not new. It's been around for years in charming Charm City. The murders have thrived in this twisted conspiracy of silence.

If people in certain neighborhoods are angry about the murders, or how they don't get covered in the media, then they need to pick up the phone and call the police and help them solve them. Start Snitching. DROP A DIME. Also, pick up the phone and call the media and cry and lament about the gangbanger/drug dealer who was just killed on the corner, who was wanted for murder or attempted murder or robbery.

TESTIFY. TALK ON THE RECORD.

But ya know something? most people don't call about the murders of such people. They don't call police. They don't call the media. They don't talk. They just endure it. And that's the general shittiness of Baltimore Crime, circa 2006.

Signed,
Anon.

Going outside? Lamenting on the phone? As if!
We have all the "idea" we can handle as it is, thank you!
But thanks for the comment, non! In honor of you I'm going to turn 'non comments back on!

December 29

Ehrlich granted 17 16 pardons (and one medical commutation). Ed Norris' was not one.

morning

If you're into tawk radio between 10 a.m. and noon EST, give a listen to Ed Norris today and Monday... Troy Johnson is great, John Bou-shay is ok, Ed comes back Tuesday.

"Three men arrested early Wednesday in a house in the 3300 block of Noble St. have been charged with the fatal shooting Tuesday night of a man whose identity has not been confirmed." [271]
Homicide 272 was 46-year-old Willie Lewis, shot during a home invasion Wednesday.
Also, a 17-year-old shot in the shoulder on Norf Abnue.

The Justice Department says that Domestic Violence is half of what it was in 1993.

"Bricky" Bykowicz covers the Jamaicain-themed double funeral of Roy and Cliffy Holder of Maroon Town.
Said Jablow, a "person connected to the Holders was being protected by officers."

The woman shot by a suicide in Glyndon is Candace Treadway, 44.

The Post's "Being a Black Man" goes bowling.

Kane makes a good point, kind of: "With no death penalty, just how will [murdered prison guard David] McGuinn's murderers be punished?"

Salisbury police are looking for gangbangers Dominic Damar Barkley, 17, and Derrien Brett Douglas, 16, who shot two bystanders at a condo complex.

In PGC, Richard Rose, 26, was charged with child abuse resulting in death and is being held on $1 million bond.
Police say Rose is responsible for the death of six-year-old Tyrell Hannibal of Fayetteville, N.C.

In Pasadena, police say Steven Ray Ellison, 24, died of "excited delirium" which led to a heart attack.

Lock your doors, Joe! A wild police chase in Mt. Airy followed a Wal-Mart shoplifting incident, and a suspect is still on the loose!

Carjacker Rudy Alfredo Carpio-Vasquez, 31, was arrested (he might be Hispanic).

Sheesh, handing off Bédard the Québécoise could take months! Hope the ladies show her a good time at Jessup!

December 28

He used to love her, but Robert Bush Wolfe Jr., 48, is accused of killing and then burying his girlfriend behind her home in Osprey, FL, and he's now at the Sarasota County Jail after being extradited from our fair city, where he was hiding out.

December 28

The city's 272th murder was a 46-year-old man, killed in a home invasion in that neighborhood between 25th street and the Alameda.

Murder 271 was a man shot on the pavement in the first block of North Clinton street.

A man's in shock trauma after being shot in the head in the 2100 Block of W. Fairmount in the Western.
Also an arrest for the murder of 69-year-old Freddie Thornton, found in Leakin Park.

A police chase from a Shell station in the County gets mired in a barricade situation in the City.

Yuck, an attempted murder-suicide in Glyndon in the County.

The seven homicides of the apocalypse? Annapolis has had seven murders in '06, as has HarfCo.

A man died after struggling with police in AAC.

See, it does happen! A woman in a Chevy Malibu with a red light on the dashboard pulled a man over, took $15.

Another Baltimore Show?

Slate adds fuel to rumors there will be a Season Six of The Wire, focused on the Central American population.
David Simon, meet the other Simon!
I'm sure he could help you write a great script-- cheap!

December 27

The Ink is brief and goes to 267.
The Un-ID'd woman was Annette Bradney, 31, 800 block of North Stricker Street.
That's reassuring: "Bradney is the 26th woman murdered this year in Baltimore City."
Wonder how many white women?

How do you find the fruit-flush, Mr. Sherman?
WBAL reviews the "Top Stories of '06".

Dr. Nelson Hendler, accused of trading pain pills for sex at the Mensana clinic, is now being sued for $50k.

AAC: "Man Punches Officer, Yells 'You'll Never Catch Me'"

Retiring County SA Sandy O'Connor talks to Dave Durian.

Dec 26 nite

In Leonardtown, an army reservist named James E. Dean who served in Afghanistan and didn't want to go to Iraq was fatally shot by police after a standoff which began yesterday.

The Court of Special Appeals upheld the search and seizure of a van containing evidence used against Sonya M. Daniels, (left, William J. Hennessy Jr. for The Post) sentenced to life in 2005 for the double murder of 16-year-old Deanna Marie Prichard and her 5-week-old daughter Makayla Ann Frost in Frederick County in 2002. Daniels was, police say, jealous of Prichard's relationship with the baby's father, Tracy Frost, 32.

Fascinating Visitors from the North: AP QT Brian Witte says Olympic-champ Québécoise and alleged abductress Myriam Bédard will have a hearing on Friday ... and that her current husband is a low-level art thief. Interesting footnote: two years ago Bédard blew the whistle on a big Canadian government no-show-job scam.

JZ Headline Writers Playing it Safe: "Baltimore's Murder Rate is Not Decreasing."

Like stories about ammo? NPR's Elsa Heidorn reports on the Springfield thirty-aught-six cartridge, which turns 100 today.

morning

"The city has recorded 270 homicides, one more than in 2005 ... The most recent victim was Stephen Brunson, 37, whose body was found shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday ... Yesterday, police announced they had identified a body found in Leakin Park on Saturday as Freddie Thornton, a 69-year-old city resident. He had been stabbed repeatedly..."

A article on Christmas in confinement: "The Single Hardest Day Of the Year: Inmates Mark the Yuletide With Reflection and Regret"

File under human trafficking, prostitution: Jair Francis, age 33, of Wheaton, Maryland was convicted of conspiracy to transport hundreds of women for prostitution purposes to Montgomery and Prince George's Counties.
Elsy and Eliazor Aparicio and their mother, Olinda Aparicio (age 65), Dorinalda Aparicio, Manuel and Rosibel Jandres have pled guilty to their involvement in the prostitution ring.

Eight weapons indictments from the feds.

Racketeering conspirator and ex-Sen. Bromwell is stepping down as head of IWIF. Update: What the?! IWIF agreed "to pay former state Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell $400,000 to step down in advance of his trial on federal corruption charges." Crazy!!

Gift horse dept.:
Mrs. J's theory on her $83k pay raise (as told to Laura Vozzella) is that Kitty wants the job in 2010!

December 25

National: Tempe, AZ: COP WHO MADE BLACK MEN RAP CLEARED

morning

A man was found stabbed to death in Leakin Park.

And, "The body of a missing 74-year-old Dundalk man was found late Saturday in a stream less than a half-mile from where his partially submerged rental car was discovered that morning."

Wow, some schools have taken my advice and added Mandarin! (nothing to do with crime, we know)

RIP, Grandma Ginny. You'd be sorry to hear that the estate tax probably won't be repealed [<-MD TDR sub.]-- though of course you already knew that was never going to happen! You were right all along-- as usual. And yes, Christmas is a good time to remember to rack up deductions.

Merry Christmas, galt, eeb, Snay, Cynic, hocoJoe burger and all my invisible friends!

December 24

"For the first time in decades, Congress is poised to pass a bill that aims to make the lives of prisoners and ex-prisoners easier, not more difficult."

Radio Jamaica: Matt Jablow "tightlipped" on Holder brothers' murder.

It's Christmas in the HoHoHoCo Hotel and Boxing Day extradition for Quebecoise Olympian, child-custody-order violator Myriam Bedard, caught by local police in conjunction with the Mounties at the behest of babydaddy Jean Paquet.

MD in the National spotlight: first the gays, then the jail sex, now today's most-exported story is Executions and the "broad shift in dynamics that has sprung from a narrow ruling."

• A group you don't think about very often: relatives of the executed.
• A mini-profile of the chief of Vernon Evans Jr.'s defense team, Stephen Hut.
• "The worst physical pain being the prick of a needle." A history of executions in MD from the DPSCS.

In Being a Black Man, the Post profiles one of the FBI's top-ranking Negro agents.

A "bandit shot" on Perring Parkway and Hillen right over the County line in the NE.

Hagtown prison is going to start raising drug dogs.

If you think the city's young offenders have it bad, what with being forced to attend classes and all... check out African juvie.

Prosecutors in the Duke lax case had DNA proof back in April-- six months ago-- that the boys (including MD's David Evans, right) could not have been involved.

December 23

How did it get to that? Dept
Former Olympic biathlon gold-medalist and Canada's sweetheart Myriam Bedard was held in Jessup on child abduction charges after U.S. marshals found her and her daughter on the girl's 12th birthday at a hotel.

Andrew Cawthorne, wanted for the County SuperFresh robbery, was arrested.

A man was shot Tuesday afternoon in the leg in the hallway of an apartment building in the 800 block of N. Fulton Avenue, theft and a White Marsh purse-snatching in the blotter.

Samuel Acquah of Bowie got 3 1/2 years in the federal pen for operating a "marriage fraud mill" for Ghanaian immigrants.

Now it's getting interesting!
No doubt inspired by her good showing in the BCrime poll, Del. Jill Carter is jumping in the Mayor's race!
Here's a Jill story from April (with a much better picture). Jill's a nice half-decade above (the royal) us, and we've been shopping for a new Role Model, so Merry Xmas, Jill, you're it! You could not have come at a better time, what with the Britney clam, the Dixon scandals, the arrests, etc. Thanks for stepping up. We suggest Carter rag-doll kits fox X-mas, with pretzel MOM-bashing pintata snack bags...

Hey, Mfume might run, so let's reset and repost the Mayor Poll... that's right, you can vote again!

Dec. 22 nite

Tiffany Gwen Weaver of Resiterstown has become "News of the Weird" fodder in 111 papers worldwide so far, including the NYT, IHTrib and papers in Australia and India, for faking her way into prison with documents using the name of a lawyer out on maternity leave ... all to have full-on relations in front of guards with one Jason Moody, the first-degree murderer (02/03/1975), baby momma to one LaToyrea Thompson, and more (search him on this site or offender search, bookmarked right...)

NIH researcher "Trey" Sunderland III "was ordered to forfeit $300,000 and perform 400 hours of community service but will not have to pay a fine for failing to disclose lucrative consulting work with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer."

Rape charges have been dropped against three Duke Lax players, including David Evans of Annapolis and Bethesda (right). Here's more...

Family Recovery, Part V: "Parents Surmount Temptations in Bid to Get Clean for Keyona"