Maryland man’s criminal charges include first-degree murder

What police are calling a domestic violence and murder investigation revolves around the alleged actions of a 63-year-old Maryland man who purportedly shot his wife. The man, who was later arrested, faces a range of criminal charges including first-degree murder. The investigation began with a phone call to the Baltimore police at 3:45 a.m. on a Saturday morning, reporting that a woman had been shot.

According to a police detective, officers arrived at the home of the alleged shooter and found the man’s wife dead of gunshot wounds. Based on the testimony of a key witness who purportedly was the man’s girlfriend, she received a phone call from him late Friday night on the last weekend of June inviting her over to his home. After she got there, according to the police report, he aimed a gun at her and made her go upstairs where he tied her to a bed. He then left her there and went back downstairs.

While she was tied to the bed upstairs, the woman claims she heard the man make a phone call and ask the person he was speaking with to come over. The police report goes on to describe how the woman tied to the bed upstairs heard someone arrive at the door, followed by the sound of a gunshot. According to the statement of the witness, the man then returned upstairs, untied her, and brought her downstairs where he showed her the fatally wounded body of his wife. He was later found and arrested after he allegedly retied the woman to the upstairs bed and left the home. Authorities claim the woman had managed to chew her way through her bonds and was able to make the call to the police.

A neighbor described the alleged shooter as ‘a nice man’ who gave no indication of being capable of the violence described in the police report. The criminal charges faced by the Maryland man are, however, serious enough to warrant some of the severest of penalties should a conviction ultimately be secured. Regardless of the nature of the alleged crimes, the man is fully entitled to the same legal protections as anyone else who has been accused of a crime. Maryland prosecutors must present competent and relevant evidence that meets an exacting measure of proof before a conviction of first-degree murder is possible.

Source: wbal.com, “Police: Man arrested in fatal shooting of wife,” July 2, 2013