From The Aegis dated Aug. 16, 1989:
Two women were strangled to death, stuffed in garbage cans and discarded in the trash of a Joppatowne grocery store 25 years ago this week.
Police were trying to determine who the two women were, though they were suspected to be a mother and daughter. The bodies were wrapped in bedding and sealed in containers with green plastic garbage bags.
Maryland State troopers said the women could have been killed the previous Thursday or Friday night, and not put in the Dumpsters behind Superfresh on Joppa Farm Road until sometime Saturday night.
A murder conviction 25 years ago this week of a 21-year-old woman was called "inconsistent" by the defense and prosecution. The verdict was handed down after 20 hours of deliberation, including 10 straight, by a Harford jury.
The woman was convicted of murder and accessory after the fact, though the accessory charge meant she wasn't necessarily part of the murder.
Four people believed to be dealing cocaine were arrested in a motel in Havre de Grace 25 years ago this week. Police were responding to a noise complaint in the room, where they also found heroin and crack cocaine.
"Basically, they were talking loud and there was heavy traffic back and forth," a Havre de Grace police officer said. "It's not normal to have people going in and out of a motel room."
Police seized an ounce of cocaine, 20 vials of crack and 15 packets of heroin, with a total estimated street value of about $6,000.
With the start of the 1989-1990 school year just weeks away, Harford schools leaders said they had no intention of requiring uniforms in public schools, despite such a move by at least one nearby jurisdiction.
As they prepared to go back to school, students at 71 Baltimore City schools would have to be wearing uniforms, up from 42 the year before.
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Harford Superintendent Ray Keech said there was "no thought and no interest" in encouraging uniforms locally.
"We can't violate students' constitutional rights," Keech said. "As long as the clothes they wear are not disruptive to the school program, we fee it is best to leave it to the students and the parents the decision on what they will wear."
While there was no uniform, the school system did have general rules: no clothing with obscene statements, nothing that advertises beer or other products inappropriate for students, no short shorts, halter tops or bathing suits.
Individual schools could determine if students could wear shorts.
Beginning on Labor Day 25 years ago, skateboarding was banned in downtown Bel Air. The commissioners voted at a meeting 25 years ago this week to fine people using skateboards or push scooters $5 for the first offense and $10 for each subsequent offense.
"There has been a dramatic increase in pedestrians, businesses and motorists," Bel Air Police Chief Thomas Broumel said. "They've been seen riding down the middle of Baltimore Pike and they are using the sidewalks on Main Street, competing with pedestrians."
An invitation was extended 25 years ago to the original "39ers," American co-workers who helped start the Bata factory in the United States, as well as Bata employees and friends, to remember the 50th anniversary of 100 Bata Shoe Company employees coming to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia. The plant not only employed thousands of Harford and Cecil residents, it supplied the U.S. military with footwear during World War II and in subsequent years.