A woman who was nearly killed by her former boyfriend refused to hear his apology yesterday after he pleaded guilty in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to attempted murder for slashing her throat during an argument in June.

Carolyn A. Brown, 48, cried "no" and waved dismissively when the man's lawyer told her his client wanted to tell her he was sorry.

Brown almost bled to death in the street near her Odenton home June 23. The attack occurred in front of horrified neighbors buying ice cream at a truck; they tried to rescue her as her boyfriend, Enoch A. Brown, 40, of the 3700 block of Seventh St. in Baltimore, warned them off.

"This is the ultimate in domestic violence, this case -- 'If you don't want me, then you can't be alive,' " said Assistant State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess. She said she will seek the maximum term of life imprisonment when Judge Pamela L. North sentences Brown May 25.

Brown pleaded guilty to attempted murder in exchange for prosecutors' dropping two lesser charges.

Defense lawyers Arthur Alperstein and Robert Wolf said their client was so upset hearing Leitess' account of the attack that he felt a "great deal of remorse" and wanted to apologize. The victim, scarred and suffering nerve damage, wanted no part of it.

Brown's lawyers said their client was drunk and had cocaine in his system at the time of the assault and has been treated at three psychiatric institutions.

The defendant and the victim had been romantically involved since about 1990. In May, she told him the relationship was over. By mid-June, he had made at least 80 threatening telephone calls to her, Leitess said.

In the calls, he said he would kill her, himself and her sick, elderly godfather, whom she lived with and took care of. On June 18, she filed telephone harassment charges, which were dropped yesterday.

Five days later, he followed her into her garage and house, extending the blade of his box cutter as he made more threats. Leitess said the victim stalled, pretending to give medicine to her godfather. As she spoke to her mother on the telephone, Brown cut the cord.

Brown later told police that he attacked his former girlfriend because "he wanted to show her how desperate he was," Leitess said.

He tried to trap his victim in the garage, but she escaped to the driveway as the automatic door was descending. He cut the left side of her neck, then chased her onto Queen Anne Avenue, where she ran toward people gathered at an ice cream truck. He slashed at her, cutting her in several places, Leitess said. Brown warned off people who offered to help her, including an off-duty emergency medical technician.

At one point, the victim grabbed the box cutter and threw it. Brown let go of her and ran for the weapon. She tried to run away, but he tackled her as sirens warned that police were approaching, .

Brown slit his ex-girlfriend's throat from ear to ear and, with police watching, then cut his throat and collapsed on her.

Had the off-duty emergency medical technician not rushed to stop the woman's bleeding, she would have died before ambulances arrived, Leitess said.

The victim was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Brown was taken to Prince George's County Hospital Center.

The crying victim was led out of the courtroom yesterday by two people as Brown, turning toward her, was shackled.

Pub Date: 3/24/99