Robberies were up, the murder rate stayed about the same and pedestrian-involved car accidents were an increasing problem in Montgomery County during 2006, according to law enforcement.
A few high-profile incidents grabbed the community’s attention.
Perhaps most horrifying to residents was the slaying of prominent Bethesda psychiatrist Wayne Stuart Fenton in September. Policearrested the doctor’s 19-year-old patient, Vitali A. Davydov, in connection with the brutal killing, which occurred in Fenton’s office. The official account of the homicide was that Davydov had been meeting with Fenton in the evening when something went wrong and he snapped, bludgeoning the doctor to death.
That month, an out-of-control van slamming into a bus stop full of Silver Spring students also made headlines. Though none of the 10 students injured died as a result of the crash, the event was an awful end to the first week of school in Montgomery County.
Other big incidents of the year included an October murder-suicide involving 39-year-old George Robert Wells, of Gaithersburg, and his 23-month-old son, Jacob Matthew Dunn. Autopsy results concluded that Wells fatally shot himself after killing his toddler son.
Consumer protection officials in the county also notified residents to what they said was a widespread fraud involving a charity falsely claiming to collect donations for local police. The case is still pending, but Sue Rogan, a spokeswoman for the consumer protection department, said it’s believed the Police Protective Fund has scammed millions from citizens nationwide.
Earlier in 2006, the county’s firearms investigation unit, which was assembled after the 2002 sniper shootings, reached a milestone of confiscating 1,000 guns. Sgt. Kenneth Berger, who is in charge of the unit, said that it was formed as a one-time-only force, but it will continue to get illegal guns off of Montgomery County’s streets indefinitely.
