Dalion Stanley and Utish McFadden were in a domestic-abuse brawl so violent, police said, Stanley kicked McFadden?s head through a wall.
McFadden, 38, responded by stabbing Stanley, 45, in the chest, leaving him dead and her charged with murder. According to Baltimore homicide detective John Riddick?s report, McFadden said Stanley “had beaten her in the past, and on the morning of the stabbing he continued to attack her.”
The March 4 homicide was a brutal crime in a month marked by brutal crimes, including the drownings of three Montgomery County children by their father in a Baltimore hotel bathroom and the death of Zach Sowers, 28, who succumbed to injuries suffered 10 months ago during a vicious street robbery near Patterson Park.
“Zach is now at peace after a long and treacherous battle,” Sowers? friends wrote on a Web site, zachsowers.com, dedicated to the Johns Hopkins Hospital employee. “He was so strong and fought until the very end, but it provides comfort for us all to know that he is now in heaven, watching over his friends and family.”
In all, 22 people were killed in Baltimore City during March, with police solving six of the cases immediately. Last year, there were 26 people slain in Baltimore during March.
But through the bloodshed, police see signs of hope. The 50 homicides in the first three months of 2008 are the fewest in Baltimore City since 1985.
Police spokesman Sterling Clifford said the city is starting to see the benefits of “long-term strategies” put in place by Mayor Sheila Dixon and Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, which include better monitoring of juvenile offenders.
Devona Robinson, whose son, Teon White, 25, was shot and killed last July, said most of Baltimore?s homicides are senseless.
“Somebody just didn?t like him,” Robinson said. “I never even found out why? The guy who did it, he was in the neighborhood bragging that he killed my son, so that?s how they caught him.”
The loneliness of losing her son has been almost unbearable.
“I didn?t have anybody to talk to,” Robinson said. “I couldn?t talk to my mother, because she would cry. I couldn?t talk to my sister, because she would cry. And friends don?t always want to hear it.”
She said the city is hurting with a lack of jobs for teenagers and young men.
“There are no jobs out here for young blacks,” she said. “That?s the main thing: No jobs. They got to find another way to support their family [drugs]. That don?t make it right, but that?s the way it is.”
March homicide victims
» March 1: Anthony Underwood, 29, shooting *
» March 3: D?Andre Jackson, 35, shooting
» March 4: Dalion Stanley, 45, stabbing *
» March 6: Latasha Harris, 31, shooting
» March 8: Marcus Hughes, 36, shooting
» March 9: Levette Johnson, 35, shooting
» March 11: Tavon Burks, 16, shooting
» March 12: Lemell Barnes, 22, shooting
» March 13: Jamal Harrison, 22, shooting
» March 15: Andre Jones, 18, shooting
» March 23: David Rankin, 21, shooting
» March 23: Jeffrey Butler, 18, shooting
» March 24: Robert Long, 36, shooting
» March 25: Zach Sowers, 28, blunt force trauma *
» March 27: Tyrone Bahia, 19, shooting
» March 30: Javon King, 19, shooting
» March 30: Ronald Joyner, 27, stabbing
» March 30: Athena Castillo, 2, drowning *
» March 30: Austin Castillo, 4, drowning *
» March 30: Anthony Castillo, 6 drowning *
» March 31: Unidentified man, shooting
* Resulted in arrest
