The Carroll County woman charged with hiring a friend to kill her trucker husband this month was ordered held without bail yesterday, after she told a judge she had no involvement in the slaying.
"I would like to have a chance to prove that I had nothing to do with this, so I would like to set bail," Melissa Lynn Baumgardner Shipley told a judge via closed-circuit television from the county detention center.
But Carroll Senior Assistant State's Attorney David P. Daggett argued that the 32-year-old Silver Run woman should remain jailed while awaiting trial.
Daggett said the evidence against Shipley includes her statement admitting involvement in the killing.
He described her as "a convicted and registered sex offender ... who has every reason to flee."
Shipley received a suspended one-year sentence and two years of probation in August 2000 for a fourth-degree sex offense involving a 15-year-old boy, court records show.
She is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and the use of a handgun in a felony in the death of 27-year-old Scott E. Shipley.
Scott Shipley's boss found him shot to death about 5 a.m. Nov. 15, lying by his cement-tanker truck at Gross Trucking company near Westminster.
Similarly charged in the slaying is Butchie Junior Stemple, 28, of Taneytown. Stemple, accused as the gunman in the killing, remained behind bars after giving up his right to a bail review.
Before ordering Shipley held without bail, Carroll District Judge Marc G. Rasinsky advised the woman to get a lawyer, pointing out that the charges appear to carry the potential for the death penalty. Carroll State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes said yesterday that no decision has been made about whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in the case.
When the judge asked Shipley whether she had anything to say about bail, she said, "I don't know. I ... ," shrugging her shoulders and biting her lip. She then proclaimed her innocence in a clear voice.
Stemple appeared in District Court yesterday morning, where Rasinsky sentenced him to six months in jail for violating probation. Stemple had pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor theft for running up more than $2,000 in cell phone charges on a woman's phone. He received a suspended six-month sentence, court files show. He had been warned that if he didn't reimburse the woman he could be jailed.
During the hearing yesterday, Stemple stood quietly in a jail-issue jumpsuit.
State police said Shipley had agreed to pay Stemple $5,000 for killing her husband, but they did not know of any motive.
Charging documents yesterday gave more details about the investigation, which traced a forensic path that began with shell casings and bullets found at the scene, and led to the murder weapon -- which police said they found Tuesday in Stemple's toolbox at the lawn care business where he worked. The gun had been reported stolen from the lawn care company, police said.
From the evidence at the scene, state police investigators identified the type of handgun and the brand of ammunition they were seeking. They reviewed recent burglaries in the county and found the reported theft of such a gun -- listing Stemple as a suspect, according to charging documents. Interviews revealed that Stemple was a friend of Melissa Shipley, although police did not know if he knew her husband.
Police obtained search warrants Tuesday for the suspects' homes. According to charging documents, Stemple confessed to the killing in a police interview and implicated Shipley as the person who agreed to pay him. Police then obtained a search warrant for Stemple's toolbox and found the handgun and the victim's money clip, according to the documents. Police would not describe the gun, but documents said it was the same weapon used to shoot the victim.
When police interviewed Shipley, she admitted to conspiring with Stemple and said she gave him the location and time that her husband would arrive at work, according to the charging documents.