October 10, 2008
Hearing delayed in killing of family
A Baltimore County judge has postponed until July a hearing that had been scheduled for next week to determine whether the Cockeysville teenager accused of killing his parents and two younger brothers should be tried in the juvenile system or remain in adult court.
Attorneys for Nicholas W. Browning, 16, asked the judge to reschedule the hearing to give mental health experts more time to review hundreds of pages of school and medical records and to finish their assessments of the boy.
This month, the lawyers also arranged for Browning to be taken from the Baltimore County Detention Center, where he is being held without bail, to a medical office for an MRI, court records show.
Browning, a sophomore at Dulaney High School, is accused of fatally shooting his parents, John W. Browning and Tamara Browning, and his brothers, Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11, as they slept in their Cockeysville home.
The deaths in February occurred a week before the defendant's 16th birthday. Had Browning been 16 at the time of the killings, the case could not be considered for a transfer to juvenile court.
Circuit Judge Thomas J. Bollinger also granted a request from the representatives of the Browning parents' estate to retrieve "certain personal and sentimental items" that police seized during their investigation.
"I fully understand that many of the items will need to be kept by you and possibly not even disclosed at this time, until the prosecution has been completed," one attorney for the estate wrote to prosecutors. He added, however, that family members were eager for the return of the couple's wedding rings and a collection of family photos that authorities had developed and printed.
The images, the attorney wrote, are "the most recent and last known photos of the family together."
JENNIFER MCMENAMIN
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