Eight homicides have been recorded in Harford County through the first 11 months of 2014. Several have been classified by police as domestic related and are moving toward closure.
No arrests have been made, however, in two of the homicides that investigators don't believe are domestic related.
Those cases include the June death of a Baltimore man who was found fatally shot on an Edgewood street and the August shooting death of a Street man during what police believe was a home invasion robbery.
Two other 2014 homicides involved police officers shooting suspects, one who fled from a burglary and the other who shot his wife during a hostage situation. Both have been ruled justifiable by Harford State's Attorney Joseph Cassilly, as have two other police-involved fatal shootings that occurred in the county in 2013.
The Sheriff's Office recently stepped up its effort to identify the suspects involved in the Aug. 4 death of Thomas Richardson Anderson, who was fatally shot inside his home in the 1200 block of Trappe Road in Street.
Late last month, rewards were offered of up to $2,000 for qualifying tips leading to an arrest or indictment and up to $6,132 upon a conviction. Sheriff's Office spokesperson Kyle Andersen said the reward funds were raised by relatives of the victim.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Andrew Lane at 410-836-5431 or Detective Aaron Huch at 410-836-5003. Tips may also be submitted through Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7LOCKUP or text CRIMES (274637) or through Harford Crime Solvers at 1-888-540-8477.
Investigators say three men entered Anderson's home in an attempted robbery. While police have said other family members were in the home, they have not made public other details of the crime.
No arrests have been made in connection with the death of Delmonta Deemonyae Leon Young, 19, of the 800 block of St. George Court in Edgewood, who was found lying on a sidewalk in the 400 block of Meadowood Drive in Edgewood by sheriff's deputies responding to a call for shots fired on the evening of June 25. Young was pronounced dead at a local hospital an hour later.
The shooting occurred during several days of violence in Edgewood in late June but, in addition to not releasing any information about potential suspects, the Sheriff's Office has not made public any possible motive for the shooting.
Sheriff's Office spokesperson Cristie Kahler said investigations continue in the Young case, as well as in two other fatal shootings in Edgewood from 2013. She declined to say if there are any leads or suspects in any of the cases.
Kahler did say, however, she does not expect the pace of those investigations to slow with this week's change in the leadership of the Sheriff's Office following the inauguration of new Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler.
County residents, she said, "expect us to run a 24-hour operation and they deserve that, regardless of whether there is a transition of administration."
Suspects charged in three domestic-related homicide cases, two from this year and one from 2013, have trials scheduled after the first of the new year.
Isaac Anya Ojiabo Jr., 20, of Forest Hill, is scheduled for trial in Harford Circuit Court on Jan. 9. Ojiabo is accused of first-degree murder and carrying a dangerous weapon with intent to injure after allegedly stabbing to death his mother, Joy Ojiabo, 51, in their Forest Hill home on Jan. 29.
Quecelia Yvette Baldeo, now 21, of Joppatowne, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault and first-degree child abuse in the 2013 death of her 9-month-old daughter, Selena Olivia Weber. Baldeo has a trial set in Circuit Court for March 2, 2015.
Tanasha Siena, 35, is scheduled for trial in Circuit Court on April 9, 2015, after it was postponed from Nov. 13. Siena is accused of fatally shooting her boyfriend, 37-year-old George Moore, of Edgewood, on June 2, 2014, during an altercation in which Siena told police she allegedly was being physically assaulted.
Not yet scheduled for trial is the most recent 2014 homicide, the stabbing death of Melay Hernandez, 15, inside her Edgewood home on the evening of Nov. 15.
Ivan Enrique Molina Bustamante, 21, of Bel Air, is charged with first degree murder in the death of Melay and faces attempted murder and related charges in the wounding of the girl's twin sister and their mother. Investigators say Bustamante's father and the girls' mother had a relationship and the younger Bustamanate was considered a "relative" by the Hernandez family.
Bustamante is being held without bail at the Harford County Detention Center. He was indicted by a county grand jury on Nov. 25, according to online court records, and has an arraignment set for Dec. 15 at 1 p.m. in Circuit Court in Bel Air.
Cases closed
One of the 2014 homicides that has been closed is the August death of Sandra Marie Kerner, 40, who was shot to death inside a home, in the 1500 block of Robinson Mill Road in Street, that she shared with her boyfriend, Brian Wesley Gordon, 34, who police say fatally shot Ms. Kerner before shooting himself to death.
Harford police and prosecutors also have made strides this year in closing homicides from previous years.
In early November, Colin Wolf, 20, of Forest Hill, who was charged with the beating death of his 2-month-old niece in April 2013, was found incompetent by a judge to stand trial and committed to the state mental health system, prosecutors said.
The December 2012 murder of Rodney Holmes Smith, 52, a Connecticut man found dead with stab and blunt force trauma wounds in a Bel Air apartment, also ended with an incompetency ruling on July 23 for Victor Levi Colbert, now 33, who was charged with first-degree murder and carrying a dangerous weapon with intent to injure, according to court records.
Another 2012 homicide was closed with a guilty plea to lesser charges on Jan. 9, when Robert C. Richardson III, of Bel Air, now 19, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and use of a firearm in a felony or violent crime in connection with the Jan. 15, 2012 shooting death of his father, Robert C. Richardson Jr. The son was sentenced to 18 years.
Still open
The fatal shooting of Quinton Stokes, 24, on Grempler Way in Edgewood on June 22, 2013, remains unsolved, Kahler of the Sheriff's Office said last month.
Also open is the Jan. 31, 2013 shooting death of Michael Kearins, 17, at the Cunion Field recreation complex in Edgewood that police say occurred during a marijuana deal. A 19-year-old man also was wounded.
The Sheriff's Office charged Garfield Smith III, then 21, with first degree murder and several other related charges in connection with Kearins' death. In February 2014, a Harford Circuit Court jury found Smith not guilty of all charges.
No other arrests have been made in connection with the Kearins killing.
Police-involved homicides
Harford State's Attorney Cassilly investigated the two fatal police involved shootings this year and the two in 2013 and said last month he determined all four were justifiable.
Luis Arturo Hernandez Jr., 37, of Perry Hall, was shot to death by members of the Sheriff's Office's Special Response Team on May 20, 2014, following a 12-hour standoff on a dirt road near the Cedar Lane Regional Park in Creswell, where police said he was holding his wife hostage in a vehicle, threatening to kill both of them.
Deputies fatally shot Hernandez after he shot his wife in abdomen. She was airlifted to a regional trauma center and survived. Citing a policy not to make public the names of deputies assigned to specialized units, the Sheriff's Office did not identify the deputies involved in the shooting of Hernandez, nor has it said how many fired their weapons.
Rajsaun McCray, 29, of Washington, D.C., a burglary suspect, was shot to death in his car on the southbound entrance ramp to the Maryland House travel plaza, on I-95 south of Aberdeen, on the morning of March 21, 2014, after leading Maryland State Police troopers and Aberdeen Police Department officers on a high speed chase. Three troopers and one Aberdeen officer discharged their weapons at McCoy's vehicle as he drove it toward a police roadblock, a State Police spokesperson said at the time.
Sheriff's Deputy David Feeney was cleared by Cassilly in the Aug. 17, 2013 shooting death of Seth Jacob Beckman, 19, of Bel Air, who the Sheriff's Office said had broken into a snowball stand on the parking lot of the Rock Spring BP station on Route 24 north of Bel Air and then charged at Feeney when the deputy ordered Beckman to come out of the building. Beckman was unarmed.
Also cleared by Cassilly was a Sheriff's Office deputy who fatally shot Austin Francis Jones, 34, of Havre de Grace, during a hostage and barricade situation in a Havre de Grace apartment on Sept. 28, 2013, in which Jones allegedly pointed a black object at police that had been fashioned to look like a handgun. The Sheriff's Office, which since has acknowledged the object was not a firearm, declined to identify the deputy because he was a member of its Special Response Team.