Howard County Police Det. Daniel Lenick was only hours removed from the end of a 10-hour shift when he got the call at about 10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 12: A woman had been shot and killed at a condominium complex in the Columbia village of Long Reach.
Lenick left immediately for the scene of the crime; he didn't return home or sleep again until the following Wednesday.
"I am not given many facts at that point — just the basics, and told to show up," said Lenick of the moment a homicide call comes in. "My mind starts racing with hundreds of questions."
Homicides don't happen often in Howard County. But when they do, Lenick and seven other detectives in the department's violent crimes section are there, leading the investigation.
From 2001 through 2010, Howard County police investigated 46 homicides; they have handled four so far in 2011. (Other agencies do handle some homicides in the county: Maryland State Police, for example, are investigating two other county homicides from this year, both of which occurred at a state mental hospital in Jessup.)
The Anne Arundel County Police Department, in contrast, had 129 homicides from 2001 through 2010; the Baltimore County Police Department had 311; and, the Montgomery County Police Department handled 193.
Police say Howard County's relatively few homicides don't mean their skills get rusty. The violent crimes section detectives "are sharp to begin with due to who we are and the background and experience we bring to the table," said Det. Lt. Brook Donovan, commander of the department's criminal investigation division.
Detectives also attend training and conferences, keeping up to date with the latest investigative trends, techniques and technology, he said.
Of the 46 homicides the Howard County Police Department handled between 2001 and 2010, only eight remain open, an 82.6 percent closure rate. The Montgomery County Police Department closed 163 of 193 homicides during the same time period, or 84.5 percent. The Baltimore County Police Department, from 2004 through 2010, closed 183 of 221 criminal homicides, or 82.8 percent.
In the Sept. 12 slaying, it took police two days to make an arrest. On Sept. 14, they charged 21-year-old Dominique Davon McDonald, of Columbia, with killing Nichole Bernadette McNair, 42, a Baltimore-based bail bondswoman. McDonald was a client of McNair's.
In fact, the McDonald arrest was one of three homicide arrests the violent crimes section would make in the span of about 24 hours. Two suspects were charged in two deaths in two days that week; the third suspect was accused in a murder dating back to 2007.
County police supervisors say the string of arrests in September was not merely the product of tireless lead detectives. Rather, they described a team effort that starts with the 911 call takers and police dispatchers, continues with the patrol officers who first arrive on the scene and then assist in the investigation, and other detectives helping out both on and behind the scenes.
"It's very nice to know that there's a whole network of people doing these tasks behind the scene," Lenick said. "It's something that's not sexy. It's just good old-fashioned police work, getting the grimy little things that need to get accomplished, accomplished."
Lenick is one of eight detectives in the violent crimes section, a group of seven men and one woman with a combined 144 years of investigative experience between them.
'The voice of the victim'
The violent crimes section doesn't just handle homicides; detectives are also called to suicides, overdoses and other suspicious or unattended deaths, as well as missing persons cases, significant assaults, abductions, abuse cases involving vulnerable adults, death threats, and other high-profile crimes.
But as Det. Edward Upton put it, "I don't think you're going to receive any greater reward than solving a homicide, at least from a police perspective. It's the ultimate crime."
Upton became the newest member of the section in June after 10 years in the department, including six years working arson cases and a year-and-a-half investigating robberies
He joined Det. Sgt. Justin Baker, the violent crime section supervisor, Det. Dave Chesno, Det. Cpl. Clay Davis, Special Investigator Nick DeCarlo, who handles cold cases, Det. Donald J. Guevara, Lenick, and Det. Vickie Shaffer.
"They're the voice of the victim. The victims can't talk anymore," Donovan said. "They put their personal lives on hold, work 12 or 24 or 36 hours without seeing their families, then go home, take a shower and come back."
That's because the first 48 hours after a homicide are crucial, the detectives said.
"If you don't run these leads down right there, it's gone," said DeCarlo, a veteran of more than three decades of police work. "You have a very limited opportunity to turn up evidence, turn up leads, turn up witnesses and put that together. You have to run with this for a day or two straight. If you take a break at a critical juncture, you lose it."
As time passes, suspects have more opportunity to get rid of evidence or meet up with other people involved in the case and get their stories straight, Lenick said.
"The quicker we can identify the people and get to them, the better chance we have of actually getting as close to the truth of what happened as possible," he said.
Two days, two murders
Police moved quickly in mid-September.
Less than 24 hours after McNair's death, detectives were called at about 4:30 p.m. Sept. 13 to a parking lot in Harper's Choice, where Phillip Edward Wise had been fatally stabbed. By afternoon on Sept. 14, they had an arrest warrant for Anthony Patrick Parker. By that evening, Parker, 53, had turned himself in.
Parker is being held without bail at the Howard County Detention Center on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree assault. McDonald is also at the Jessup jail on charges of first-degree murder, using a handgun in a felony violent crime and possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony.
"It's good to be good, but it's better to be lucky," Baker said. "It comes down to that sometimes. Sometimes that piece of evidence is there. You may have to look for it, but it's there."
It was what Donovan called "good old police work" that led to the arrests.
Detectives were reticent to say whether one witness or one piece of evidence was the proverbial smoking gun in either case. Charging documents, however, help reveal some of what led them to their suspects.
In the Harper's Choice stabbing, police talked to witnesses who had seen Wise, Parker and others gathered in and around a large silver van in the 5500 block of Harpers Farm Road. They described an altercation between Wise and Parker and the van subsequently driving away with Parker inside.
Detectives learned the name of one of Wise's acquaintances and found out that he owned a silver van, which one witness told police was the same van at the scene. Police talked to the van's owner and other witnesses and were told that it was Parker who had the altercation with Wise.
Davis credited "all the different units assisting the case, staying out there past the initial couple hours. Once the crime scene tape was gone, we still had four or five detectives out there and an additional five to six patrol officers that were still canvassing the area, coming up with names and people in the community and talking to them."
Links to McDonald
In the Long Reach shooting, McNair's BMW had been left running after she was shot in the 8800 block of Hayshed Lane. Investigators found a receipt book inside, with one receipt noting that McDonald had paid McNair $350 just that day.
A number of police units worked on the case throughout the night.
"There's so many times where people are kind of the unsung heroes that are, for instance, knocking on doors at 3 o'clock in the morning," Lenick said.
A witness told police about a black male in a dark, hooded jacket who had been seen running away from the BMW and between buildings. Police searched that area and discovered part of one cell phone, as well as another cell phone they later learned was McNair's. And bail bonds paperwork inside McNair's car listed McDonald's name and a telephone number.
Police contacted the telephone company and were given the GPS location of McDonald's phone. They staked out the area, saw him leave a building in the 8800 block of Tamar Drive and then took him into custody. Police searched the basement of that building, finding a hooded jacket matching the witness's description, a cell phone in a refrigerator freezer, and a loaded handgun wedged behind the refrigerator.
The charging documents, written by Lenick, note a couple of the units and sections of the police department that contributed to the case. Other detectives, meanwhile, helped with the less glamorous elements of a case, such as typing up search warrants or logging evidence.
"At the end of the day, one person's getting the credit because they're the lead investigator," Lenick said. "In reality, another person is busting her behind from behind the scene and not asking for any credit for it."