In July, Felicia Spratley, 22, confronted her boyfriend as he walked into their Halethorpe home after a night out.
She hadn?t seen him in hours. She was emotional. She pressed him on where he had been.
Emory Lewis, 24, responded violently.
The 270-pound man hauled back and punched the mother of his child with a closed fist, Baltimore County police say.
In a police report, an officer wrote he arrested Lewis after observing “a knot under the victim?s eye where the suspect had punched her,” but Lewis was released by a court commissioner the same day on his own recognizance.
A month later, police say, Lewis returned home with a gun. He chased Spratley down on a sidewalk outside the house and shot her fatally.
Then he vanished.
Police have obtained a warrant for his arrest on murder charges.
On Thursday, a Baltimore County district judge in Catonsville issued a second warrant for his arrest, after Lewis failed to appear on a previous charge of second-degree assault against Spratley.
There?s a note written on the arrest warrant: “Victim murdered.”
“He?s still out there,” Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said.
But eluding detectives for nearly two months isn?t Lewis? first ? or even second ? run-in with the law.
In 2002, Lewis admitted to illegally possessing a handgun.
He was sentenced to three years — but all except four months were suspended.
He pleaded guilty again in 2006 to second-degree assault in connection with a homicide by stabbing.
In that case, prosecutors dropped a first-degree murder charge against him and Baltimore City Circuit Judge Wanda Heard sentenced him to time-served.
“After a thorough review of this case, the evidence against Lewis did not support a first-degree murder charge,” said Baltimore City State?s Attorney?s Office spokesman Joseph Sviatko. “It was clear he was involved in a fight, but that he was not the actual stabber so therefore, in the interest of justice, a plea to a lesser charge was accepted.”
