Charles Richardson, who pleaded not criminally responsible for two murders that occurred in less than a month, is competent to stand trial today in the fatal shooting of a Howard teenager.
Richardson, 24, of Columbia, could face up to life in prison if a Howard jury convicts him this week for the first-degree murder of Trae Davon Allen, 19, of Columbia, whom police found dead May 21, 2007, inside Richardson’s Brook Way town house.
The trial’s outcome could affect whether Richardson faces the death penalty when he goes to trial next month for allegedly shooting to death store clerk Alevtina Zhilina, 40, during an attempted armed robbery in April 2007 at the 7-Eleven convenience store across the street from his house.
Defense attorney Mark Van Bavel declined to comment on whether Richardson has a history of mental illness, but he requested in May that his client undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
He also planned to have Richardson privately evaluated if the state’s psychiatrist found no basis for mental illness.
Van Bavel is expected to call a witness from the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center to testify on Richardson’s behalf. Perkins is a maximum-security mental institution in Jessup where Richardson would be detained if found not criminally responsible.
The jury also is expected to hear evidence Howard police obtained from wire tapping Richardson’s phone. Van Bavel argued against the wire tapping, but Howard Circuit Judge Diane Leasure permitted it into evidence, ruling that police exhausted all other methods of getting information.
Prosecutors Kim Oldham and Lynn Marshall declined comment.
Several witnesses helped link Richardson to the slayings including Kenneth Wayne Sledd, 20, of Columbia, who told police Richardson told him May 21 that he had “merked,” or murdered, someone.
Sledd later pleaded guilty to driving Richardson to an Ellicott City hideout and buying him bleach to wash his bloody clothes.
A second witness, whose name was withheld for her safety, linked Richardson to Zhilina’s murder. She told police she overheard Richardson having a cell phone conversation on a Howard transit bus in which he said, “If she’d just given me the money, I wouldn’t have had to pop her.”
According to court records, Richardson has an extensive criminal record including charges of armed robbery and first-degree assault at the same 7-Eleven where Zhilina was killed. Those charges were dropped against him in 2006 because of insufficient evidence.
