The city's escalating homicide count rose again last night as three more people were killed in unrelated incidents.
One victim was a woman who had been fatally shot and left in a house that later was set ablaze in an apparent attempt to cover up the crime, police said.
Another victim was a man police said was beaten by six to eight men. The third victim was a man shot to death.
The violence raised the total number of people killed in the city this year to 303. At the same time last year, the total was 330. In fact, 1993 ended with a record 353 slayings.
As of today, 14 people have been killed this month.
In the latest slaying, firefighters battling a house fire in the 800 block of N. Rose St. found the body of Cynthia Brown, 32, at the foot of the stairs in the basement when they went downstairs to turn off utilities.
After carrying the woman outside, firefighters discovered she had been shot in the face, said Detective Vernon Holley, of the homicide unit.
Police said they knew of no motive for the shooting.
Detective Holley said he suspects someone set the fire in the dining room in a failed attempt to cover up evidence of the shooting. The fire was confined to the dining room and kitchen and never reached the basement.
Earlier last night, police found an injured 36-year-old man in the 2900 block of Reisterstown Road. The man, whose identity was not released pending notification of relatives, had been beaten, police said.
Witnesses told investigators that six to eight men were involved in the attack, which occurred about 8:40 p.m. The man was pronounced dead at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center at 2:45 a.m. today.
About 9 p.m. last night, police found Montrell Evans, 20, of the 1500 block Ingleside Ave., lying in the 1800 block of N. Longwood St. Police said he had been shot several times. He was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Between last Friday and Sunday, nine people -- one of them a 12-year-old girl -- were killed.
But the early December burst of homicides is not without precedent, even this year. Ten people were slain over a four-day period in July, including five on one day.
Police say the pattern is familiar -- violence brought on primarily .. by drug dealers and their enforcers, who use high-powered weapons.
"There are 50,000 addicts in this city," Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier said after the weekend violence. "There is such a tremendous demand that the amount of money that transacts each day to keep up with that demand is astronomical."
At one point this summer, the city was 46 slayings behind last year's pace. Now that gap has narrowed to 27.
Police have pledged even more drug raids to combat the violence.
"Drug dealers need to know that when they employ violence, they will go to the top of the list," said Col. Ronald L. Daniel, chief of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. "Those are the people we are going to go after first."