Photo by Maryland Route 5>> A woman who was stabbed outside a Maryland Target is angry that her attacker was recently released from a mental health facility. Mary Anne Appling was loading groceries into her car when she was attacked by 55-year-old Antoinette Starks, who stabbed her in the back and the head. Starks had been admitted to Clifton Perkins Hospital Center, because she stabbed two women in a Bethesda Nordstrom in 2005.
>> A judge ruled that a video of Brittany Norwood — accused of killing Jayna Murray, her coworker at the Bethesda Row Lululemon Athletica store — can be used as evidence in the homicide trial. In the video, taken before Norwood was charged, her brother asks her if Murray had accused her of shoplifting. While the sound is difficult to hear, it is reported that the video does reveal that Norwood knew that Murray was going to make sure the store manager knew she was shoplifting.
>> Hiawatha Henry, 19, of D.C. was sentenced to three years in prison for the death of his infant son. Henry dropped the baby and his head hit a metal futon frame. He then ignored his son’s crying and did not seek immediate medical attention. The boy died from abusive head injuries three days after his first trip to the hospital. Henry has also been ordered “to take vocational training and special education classes; to attend anger management, life skills and conflict resolution classes and to receive psychiatric treatment as necessary.”
>> Raymond Williams, 37, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Azin Naimi, a world-renowned restorer of Russian art. Williams was a handyman at the art center where Naimi worked. He attacked her for reasons that are still unclear.
>> More than a dozen people in the Washington region exonerated by DNA evidence had been convicted based on mistaken eyewitnesses, which is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. These cases and other like it have triggered policy changes to improve identification procedures. The Washington Examiner reports that this year, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a bill that requires local police departments to create policies for conducting lineups and orders the state’s Department of Criminal Justice Services to develop a model policy.
>> Kevin Kuesters, a candidate for Loudoun County School Board who was running unopposed, was arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife. Now, another candidate, Joy Maloney, has launched a write-in campaign.
