Murders this Week: 2
Murders this Year: 168

The man found shot to death in the 1500 block of East 29th Street on Oct. 14has been identified as Christopher McMillion, a 23-year-old African-American.

Monday, Oct. 17

1:29 a.m. A Baltimore Police patrol officer was in East Baltimore when he heard gunshots coming from Harford Road. The officer went to the intersection of Harford Road and Bonaparte Avenue and saw a white car crash into several construction barriers. Antoinne Pratt, a 23-year-old African-American man, was slumped over in the driver’s seat. He had been shot repeatedly and died at an area hospital two hours later. Pratt was actually shot in 1700 block of Harford Road and managed to drive four blocks north before crashing.

Friday, Oct. 21

8:05 p.m. Officers on patrol in the Parkview/Woodbrook neighborhood near Druid Hill Park saw two people run south in the 2800 block of Woodbrook Avenue. The officers then saw an as yet unidentified man lying in the middle of the street, shot in the torso. He died at an area hospital less than an hour later. Police did not catch the two people running from the scene.

Updates

Kevin Pushia, a 35-year-old African-American man, was sentenced to life in prison on Oct. 17. Pushia pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder on Aug. 27, 2010, for the death of Lemuel Wallace, a 37-year-old African-American man. Wallace was discovered on Feb. 4, 2009, on the floor of a Gwynns Falls Park public bathroom. Wallace was legally blind, had mental limitations, and lived in a group home for people with special needs. Wallace had been shot several times and was dead. The Baltimore Sun reported that Pushia worked at Arc of Baltimore, an organization that helps people with developmental disabilities. While working there, Pushia convinced Wallace to make him the beneficiary of his life-insurance policy. Pushia took out as many as six policies on Wallace, worth $1.4 million according to the Sun. Pushia wrote “LW project complete” on his day planner for the day of Wallace’s murder. Pushia said he hired a hit man, but James Clea III, a 33-year-old African-American man, and Kareem Clea, a 28-year-old African-American man, who were also charged with Wallace’s murder, were acquitted on Sept. 7. According to the Sun, Pushia testified against the men but his testimony was “erratic and often contradictory.”

On Oct. 21, John Wagner, a 38-year-old African-American man, was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years for the murder of Stephen Pitcairn, a 23-year-old Caucasian man. Pitcairn, a research technologist at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine, was robbed and stabbed on July 25, 2010, while walking home from Penn Station in the 2600 block of St. Paul Street. Wagner’s co-defendant and wife Lavelva Merritt, a 25-year-old African-American woman, was found guilty of robber and conspiracy to commit armed robbery on May 11 but has not yet been sentenced.

Also on Oct. 21, Lendelle Sanchez, a 28-year-old African-American man, was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Thomas Mouzon Jr., a 23-year-old African-American man. Mouzon and nine other people were being escorted by security officers between an East Baltimore school basketball court and Dismas House East, the halfway house where they lived, on May 7, 2007. The group was in the 1400 block of North Caroline Street when Sanchez and a still unidentified man shot Mouzon several times. Mouzon yelled “It wasn’t me!” before he was shot. Sanchez turned himself in on June 17, 2009, and confessed to taking part in the murder.

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