Despite a tearful plea from his mother, a Cockeysville electrician was sentenced in Anne Arundel Circuit Court yesterday to 25 years in prison for the 1993 slaying of a woman he picked up at a party, hit on the head and buried in a secluded spot near his home.
Shane McKinley Merryman, 24, of the 800 block of Warren Road was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder Oct. 3 in the death of Kristin Kathleen Haynes, a McDonald's restaurant worker whose body was found at the Genstar Quarry off Beaver Dam Road about a month after her July 25, 1993, murder.
Merryman's mother, Carol Merryman, pleaded with Judge Martin Wolff for leniency yesterday.
"From the day Shane came into the world he's always been a happy, loving, caring person," she said, choking back tears.
But Ms. Haynes' father and step-mother asked for the 30-year maximum sentence, telling Judge Wolff that their lives have been shattered by the killing of their 20-year-old daughter.
"I wake up in the morning thinking I'm going to get a phone call from my daughter, because I still can't accept the fact that she's dead," said John W. Haynes of Woodbine.
Judge Wolff said he sympathized with the victim's parents, but also had to consider state sentencing guidelines, which recommended an 18- to 25-year sentence.
Merryman's lawyers, Richard Karceski and Thomas Bernier, said they had the case transferred from Baltimore County to Anne Arundel because they were concerned about trying it in Baltimore County, where Circuit Judge Barbara Kerr Howe had refused to set bond in pretrial hearings.
In a weeklong trial, police testified that they focused on Merryman because he was the last person to see Ms. Haynes alive.
On the night she was killed, they had left a party at his house together on his motorcycle about 2 a.m. to drink beer at the quarry, according to testimony. Her body was found by some teen-agers in a secluded spot at the quarry on Aug. 22.
According to testimony, Merryman covered up the body with debris after the killing and asked a friend to lie to police to cover up his involvement. He also tried to frame a former Morgan State University student, by planting the student's identification card near Ms. Haynes' body, according to testimony.
The victim, who died from blows to the head, was found semi-naked. Merryman denied his guilt, insisting that Ms. Haynes fell off his motorcycle and that he panicked and buried her.