Man gets two years in DUI crash fatalities
A drunken driver was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison yesterday for killing his wife and daughter in a New Year's Eve crash.
Garrett County District Judge H. Jack Price Jr. found John D. Carden Jr., 52, of Swanton guilty of two counts of homicide by motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. Price sentenced Carden to 10 years but suspended eight.
Carden's pickup truck struck a tree along a country road about 1:20 a.m. Jan. 1, killing Georgina M. Alton, 45, and Precious T. Alton, 11, police said.
Carden was not seriously hurt in the wreck.
Associated Press
Western Maryland
: Cumberland
Inmates would build homes
Federal prison inmates would help build low- and moderate-income housing for the Cumberland Housing Authority under a plan under consideration by city officials and the federal Bureau of Prisons, authorities said yesterday.
The arrangement would be similar to Habitat for Humanity projects in which other federal prisons have participated, said Stephen D. Finger, executive assistant at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland. The inmates would volunteer their labor, he said.
Finger said preliminary plans envision medium-security inmates trained in construction skills building wall panels and other modular components in the prison. Minimum-security inmates could volunteer to help put the panels together on the building site, he said.
Paul Moyers, director of asset management and development at the housing authority, said the agency hopes to build as many as 21 two-story, three-bedroom dwellings on two former city playgrounds, starting this fall. Each townhouse would cost the agency about $70,000 in materials and skilled labor and sell for about $100,000, he said. The agency would use the proceeds to pay down debt and finance additional housing projects, Moyers said.
Associated Press
Congress
Ex-mayor to challenge Bartlett
Former Cumberland Mayor Frank Nethken has formally filed to challenge Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett in the Republican primary in Maryland's 6th Congressional District.
Nethken, 76, is pledging to serve one term, if elected. After that, he said, he would challenge Democratic Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin.
Nethken said he also is considering running for president.
Democrat Andrew Duck, who lost to Bartlett last year, has said that he will run again for Bartlett's seat but has not filed as a candidate, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections Web site.
Associated Press
Cecil County
: Port Deposit
Ruling awaited in train death
Investigators are not sure whether the death of a Cecil County man who was killed Tuesday by a train near his house was suicide or an accident.
John Justice III, 28, died about three hours after rescuers found him on the Norfolk Southern train tracks. He was hit about 2 a.m. by a freight train headed from Wilmington, Del., to Enola, Pa.
"I don't believe he committed suicide, but a mother never believes that," Justice's mother, Sheila Simmons, told the Cecil Whig.
Simmons said her son had been depressed recently and might have been drinking Monday night. She also said he had a drug problem.
Police said they are waiting on the state medical examiner's office to complete an autopsy before making a final ruling on Justice's death.
Associated Press