One of two area men accused in the fatal stabbing of a University of Maryland sophomore has been indicted on murder charges.
A Prince George's County grand jury returned an indictment Thursday for common law murder, common law riot and assault against John Ryan Schlamp, 24, of Columbia in the death last month of Brandon James Malstrom, 20, during an off-campus party in College Park.
The indictment moves the case, which had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing yesterday in Prince George's District Court, to Circuit Court.
A preliminary hearing in the case against the second man, Quan Lewayne Davis, 23, of Hanover, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed 30 days.
The indictment was a disappointment for Schlamp and his lawyer, who had hoped the grand jury would decide that the young man's actions the night of the party warranted a felony assault charge at most.
"They indicted him for the whole nine yards. What surprises me is that as [the police] investigation went through, it was pretty clear that Ryan didn't have a knife," said Henry L. McRobie, who represents the Columbia man. Schlamp "was sort of letdown," he said.
Ramon V. Korionoff, a spokesman for the Prince George's state's attorney's office, said he could not comment on the details of the case but that proclamations of innocence or lesser roles in a crime are not uncommon when a defendant could receive significant jail time.
"Let the facts be shown, and let the jury decide," he said. The riot charge stems from the fact that three or more people were at an incident where there was the potential for "mayhem," he said.
Schlamp, of the 8500 block of Winter Pasture Way, was being held without bail yesterday in the Prince George's County Detention Center.
According to police and charging documents, Schlamp, Davis and Malstrom, a Dulaney High School graduate who grew up in Phoenix in Baltimore County, were attending the same party Nov. 10 to celebrate a Maryland football victory.
The incident started when Schlamp asked that Malstrom give him the cell phone that he was holding and then told him, "I am gonna kill you," according to court papers.
Schlamp hit Malstrom, and witnesses saw Davis pulling an "unknown object from his waistband and striking the victim in the torso," according to charging documents.
Malstrom was stabbed in the chest and "staggered away," according to court papers. He was pronounced dead a few hours later at Prince George's Hospital Center.
Neither Schlamp nor Davis attended College Park, authorities said.
McRobie and Schlamp's father, John Randolph Schlamp, have said that the two men had not gone to the party together and were not close.
Davis' lawyer Timothy Maloney, could not be reached for comment yesterday.