The Towson teenager accused of beating his mother to death with a baseball bat told police he planned to flee the country after the killing, a homicide detective testified.
“He told me he had considered murdering his mother previously,” Baltimore County homicide Detective Al Barton said Friday at a motions hearing for 16-year-old Lewin Powell III, who is charged with killing his mother and trying to kill his father. “… He told me he planned on fleeing the country with a passport in the house.”
Barton said Powell, who was a sophomore at the McDonogh School, gave him a full confession in the hours after the May 13 killing of Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell, 39, a Baltimore County government employee.
“I interviewed him and he was quite forthcoming in the events that occurred and how he committed the crime,” Barton said.
Defense attorney Shanell Harleston tried to have Barton’s statements barred from Powell’s upcoming trial because video equipment malfunctioned during the interview, leaving no visual or audio record of Powell’s confession.
“I was under the impression it was being videotaped at the time,” Barton said.
But Baltimore County Circuit Judge Kathleen Cox ruled that Barton’s testimony recalling the confession will be allowed at trial, because the teen was properly read his Miranda rights.
Cox allowed into evidence statements the teen made to Officer Erik Scott, who found Donna Campbell-Powell’s body.
Scott testified he and fellow Officer Hector Pomales arrived at the 1600 block of Alston Road in Towson after Campbell-Powell’s coworkers at the Baltimore County budget office became concerned when she did not show up for work that morning.
The officers noticed blood smear on the door of the family’s house and went around back where Scott saw Lewin Powell Jr., Powell’s father, bleeding from the head.
“His head was split open,” Scott said, adding that the elder Powell told him: “Oh my God. Oh my God. Thank God you’re here. My son killed my wife.”
The officers searched for Campbell-Powell’s body in the house’s garage, but couldn’t find her, until her son told them, “I put her there; I covered her up with boxes and stuff,” Scott testified.
Though the judge allowed those statements, Cox said she would not allow statements Powell made to two other officers — Kenneth Stetson and Pomales — to be introduced at trial, because they occurred before the student was read his rights.
Stetson testified that while he was standing near a handcuffed Powell, who was seated outside his Alston Road home, the teen asked the officer: “We have the death penalty?”
Stetson said he asked Powell, “Why?” and the teen responded: “I killed my mom last night.”
Pomales testified he asked a handcuffed Powell if he had used any weapons in the crime, causing Powell to reply: “No, just a bat.”
Prosecutors on Friday said they are seeking life without the possibility of parole against Powell, who had argued with his mother about lowering grades in school before the killing.
Prosecutor Charles Gayle said Powell had a 3.7 grade-point-average as a freshman at McDonogh, and was taking advanced placement and honors courses before his “grades started slipping during winter session.”
Police said that after Powell killed his mother and hid her body in the garage, he attacked his father, who came home from work at about midnight and fell asleep on the sofa, police said.
The trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 20.
