CRIME WATCH

Two are fatally shot in Arbutus apartment

A man and woman were found fatally shot in an Arbutus apartment Sunday night, Baltimore County police said yesterday.

Family members unable to reach the man and woman went to the apartment in the 4800 block of Westland Blvd. and found them dead, police said. Police were called to the apartment about 10 p.m.

Police said they were awaiting the results of autopsies. A gun believed to have been used in the shootings was found in the apartment, and there were no signs of forced entry, a police spokesman said.

Police identified the victims as Donta Antwon Gross, 30, and Tashema Tameka Fitzgerald, 21.

Coach charged in abuse of girl

This article was updated to reflect that Alan Merritt Arrowsmith was acquitted of all charges.

A 32-year-old Baltimore County man has been charged with sexually abusing a student whom he coached at a Timonium fencing school, police said.

Alan Merritt Arrowsmith of the first block of Sylvan Oak Way in Perry Hall, charged with sexual abuse of a minor, is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl whom he began coaching last summer at Baltimore Fencing Center on West Aylesbury Road, Baltimore County police said.

The man befriended the girl at the fencing school and began a relationship with her that eventually became sexual, police said. The girl's parents learned of the relationship in March, police said, and police began investigating Arrowsmith in May when they and the county Department of Social Services were told about the relationship.

Arrowsmith was charged in a summons last week but has not been arrested, police said. According to court documents, Arrowsmith was acquitted on March 12, 2008 and the charges have been expunged from court records.

Julie Scharper

Man charged in father's death

State police have charged a 30-year-old Elkton man with homicide in the death of his 69-year-old father, authorities said.

Shortly after midnight yesterday, police were called to a single-car crash on Nottingham Road in Cecil County. While attending to the driver, Eugene F. Pritchard of the 100 block of Old Bay View Road in North East, police noticed a man running from the scene and took him into custody, officials said.

Witnesses told police that Pritchard and the man, later identified as his son, Eugene F. Pritchard Jr. of the first block of Oak Drive, were fighting in the van before and after it crashed into a tree. The elder Pritchard was taken to Elkton Union Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. Investigators did not release the nature of the victim's injuries.

"There was a physical altercation during which the son assaulted his father," said Sgt. Arthur Betts, a state police spokesman.

Mary Gail Hare

Police seek man in 'up-skirting'

Howard County police are searching for a man accused of following two women through The Mall in Columbia and then "up-skirting" them in the parking lot, the department said yesterday.

A 16-year-old girl and her mother reported last month that a man approached the girl from behind in the parking lot and reached under her skirt.

Police reviewed surveillance video from the mall that showed the man following the girl with what appeared to be a camera concealed under a jacket or bag.

Police received a similar report May 26 from a 26-year-old woman. A man had followed her from the mall to the parking lot, grabbed her from behind and reached under her skirt.

The victim hit the man, and he fled. Police also obtained video footage in this incident and believe that the same man committed both crimes.

Anyone with information is asked to call 410-313-3200.

Melissa Harris

Inmate indicted in prison killing

A Washington man serving a 40-year sentence for a Prince George's County murder has been indicted on charges that he fatally stabbed another prisoner last year at the House of Correction.

Micah Elliott Hill, 38, was charged Friday in Anne Arundel County with first-degree murder and carrying a homemade knife in the May 22, 2006, killing of James Murphy, 29.

Murphy was killed in a dormitory housing general population prisoners. He and two other inmates were attacked by three others wielding homemade knives.

A Sunni Muslim, Murphy was killed amid violence at the Jessup prison that claimed the lives of a correctional officer and three prisoners - including a popular Sunni Muslim leader - last year. At the time, prison officials said they had no evidence tying the violence to religious or gang affiliation.

Spokeswomen for the state prisons and the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office said they could not discuss the Murphy killing because of the pending criminal case.

The House of Correction in Jessup was shut in March, amid rampant violence. Opened in 1879, the maximum-security prison is antiquated, and officials said its design made controlling the inmates difficult.

Prisoners were moved to prisons in Maryland and elsewhere. Online records say Hill, who was convicted of first-degree murder and handgun charges in 1989 in Prince George's County, is at the Maryland Correctional Institute in Hagerstown.

Andrea F. Siegel

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