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Officers dig up mountain site for missing Maryland sisters
Armed with what one official described as new information, federal and state authorities searched a site on a Virginia mountain Monday for the remains of two Maryland sisters who disappeared 40 years ago.
Cold-case trials come at a price for victims, families
A cost of cold-case trials leads news roundup that includes a brief that wasn't, the writings of juvenile offenders and a questionable Pentagon program.
Cold case: Police hope sketch will help identify victim of 1986 homicide
LITTLE ORLEANS — Maryland State Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the victim of a homicide in 1986. Troopers say the body of a man was found on March 21, 1986, in a shallow grave in Little Orleans in Allegany County. It was estimated then that the body had been there a […]
Elkridge man convicted in 1991 death of his wife
A Howard County jury has convicted an Elkridge man of second-degree murder in the death of his wife in 1991, whose body was found last year buried in the family’s back yard. Robert Jarrett Jr. was convicted Tuesday evening in the death of 34-year-old Christine Jarrett. He had reported her missing in 1991, saying she […]
U.S. appeals court takes up DNA sampling
SAN FRANCISCO — A California deputy attorney general, defending a state law requiring everyone arrested for a felony to provide a genetic sample, endured tough questioning Wednesday from members of an 11-judge federal appeals court panel. At least three of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges deciding the case made it clear they […]
Calif. prisoner pleads guilty to 3 Md. rapes
ROCKVILLE — A man in prison in California for several rapes has pleaded guilty to three unsolved rapes in Maryland, extending an already long sentence. Prosecutors in Montgomery County say 54-year-old Gerald Smith pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of first-degree rape and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He is already serving an […]
Elkridge man accused in 1991 murder indicted
A Howard County grand jury has indicted an Elkridge man accused in the 1991 killing of his wife. Robert Arnold Jarrett was indicted this week after being arrested last month. The 57-year-old is facing a first-degree murder charge and is being held without bail at the Howard County Detention Center. Robert Jarrett reported his wife, […]
Outreach campaign to solve D.C.-area rapes, killing
WASHINGTON — The FBI has launched a website to draw attention to a series of unsolved rapes and a murder in the Washington area that investigators believe are related. Local and federal authorities unveiled a public outreach campaign Thursday in hopes of catching a man suspected in nine attacks on women in the 1990s. Seven […]
1965 shooting shows pitfalls of closing old cases
PELAHATCHIE, Miss. — On a late-fall evening 46 years ago, gunfire shattered the revelry at a nameless juke joint in this rural crossroads. When the smoke cleared, Joseph Robert McNair, a black father of six, lay at the feet of the community’s white constable. That McNair was dead, and that Constable Luther Steverson killed him […]
Court of Appeals overturns Charles County cold-case rape conviction
Citing a case decided in June by the Supreme Court, Maryland’s highest court held Thursday that a lab analyst who testifies at a criminal trial must be the one who conducted or supervised the DNA tests being offered into evidence. The Court of Appeals’ overturned Norman Bruce Derr’s 2006 conviction for a 1984 rape, saying […]
