Lawyers for a man accused of assaulting five women and killing another want the court to avoid discussion of three other women whose bodies were found in a secluded area of Harford County.
Prosecutors and public defenders met for pretrial motions Friday in the murder case against Charles Eugene Burns of Bel Air and agreed they would not speak to the jury about other possible victims who police think may be linked, but whose killings Burns has not been charged with.
Judge Stephen Waldron said the agreement was open enough that if the situation changed during the trial, the issue could be revisited.
Such an agreement is often difficult to make, Waldron said, because “it asks the court to look into a crystal ball and predict what?s going to happen in the trial.”
Burns, 35, is scheduled for trial April 17 on charges of murdering Lillian Phelps, 43, of Elkton. Her body was found June 14 near Havre de Grace.
Dressed in the striped prison uniform of the Harford County Detention Center, with a thick black beard, Burns did not speak during the hearing. His hands and feet remained shackled as he sat in the courtroom.
The bodies of three other women were found in a field outside of Aberdeen between June and September, and though police suspect all four cases are linked, they have not charged Burns with the other three.
In closed discussions held within Waldron?s chambers, the parties also agreed that evidence from Burns? Bel Air address would be excluded from the trial, along with 18 of the 49 items confiscated from Burns? Dodge Neon. No information about the nature of that evidence was publicly disclosed.
Assistant Public Defender Kelly Casper argued that all the evidence from inside the car should be excluded because detectives from the Harford County Sheriff?s Office got two warrants to search it but wrote up only one inventory of the items inside. State law requires that each warranted search get its own inventory, she said.
Det. Kenneth Smith of the Sheriff?s Office Crime Scene Unit said he had been investigating the car?s interior first for Burns? sexual assault charges, then obtained a second warrant for the rest of the car when the investigation turned into a homicide case.
“I felt it was one continuous search,” Smith said. Once the case became a homicide investigation, Smith said he cut the seat covers and trunk liner from the car, and removed a few loose items from the trunk
Human hair was found in the undercarriage of the car, he said.
Waldron did not rule on that motion Friday, but is expected to make a decisionbefore the case goes to trial.
