A 20-year-old Laurel woman has pleaded guilty to the Jan. 23, 2014, murder of a Laurel man. Amanda Nicole McAdoo of the 9500 block of Park Ave., entered a guilty plea to a single count of first-degree murder in Howard County Circuit Court.
Police responded to the 9400 block of Sewall Ave. in Laurel on the evening of Jan. 23, 2014. They discovered Russell Ebert Rowe, 24, of Main Street, at the wheel of a pickup truck that had collided with a tree. Rowe was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and was evacuated to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he subsequently died.
Howard County Assistant State's Attorney Devora Kirschner said police recovered Rowe's cell phone that logged scores of text messages exchanged between Rowe and McAdoo shortly before the crash occurred.
Kirschner told the court that the shooting of Rowe was drug related and that McAdoo contacted Rowe to arrange a meeting to purchase Oxycodone pills, but that she and her co-defendants planned to rob him. In addition to a cell phone, police recovered a plastic bag containing Oxycodone pills from Rowe's truck. Phone records for McAdoo indicated additional calls to Taylor King Pepe, Desmick Jermario Lewis and Lauren Elizabeth Maready, who, along with McAdoo, were also indicted on first-degree murder charges.
The prosecutor said that had the case gone to trial, a witness would testify that he saw a man and woman standing in the roadway and that it appeared that Rowe was attempting to speed away from a man holding a handgun.
Kirschner said McAdoo and Maready were arrested by a Pennsylvania state trooper at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Somerset County, Pa. In a post-Miranda-rights interview with a Howard County detective, McAdoo stated that, as planned, she walked up to Rowe's truck and opened the passenger door to speak with him, but that Lewis moved her aside shortly before shots were fired.
McAddo's sentencing hearing is set for Nov. 5. At that time prosecutors will recommend a life sentence, suspending all but 30 years.
Last June, Maready pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence; she will be sentenced on Oct. 15. Lewis' trial is slated for Sept. 24. Pepe was indicted on federal charges and is being detained, pending trial, according to a spokesman for the State's Attorney's office.