A Landover man was sentenced to two life sentences in a triple stabbing that turned a newlywed wife into a widow.
Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Sheila Tillerson-Adams handed down the stiffest possible sentence against 35-year-old convicted killer Lawrence Thomas Covington. A jury took five hours in May to convict Covington of first-degree murder, attempted murder and other charges in the killing of Maurice Fountain, and the stabbing of his pregnant wife, Genea Simms Fountain.
“Justice is served and we look forward to life behind bars for this cold-blooded killer,” State’s Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said in a statement Wednesday.
Covington was not found guilty in the death of the woman’s stepfather, LePrince Hall, who was also killed at their Upper Marlboro home in the March 2009 attack.
On March 26, 2009, Genea Simms Fountain let a man into her house at 1100 Snow Court in Landover to talk to her stepfather, a tow truck company owner, about a business matter. She then went to the hospital with her husband for a pregnancy checkup and sonogram exam. Genea Simms Fountain also worked at the hospital and stopped to chat with her friends for a few minutes.
When the couple returned home, they were bound, forced face-down in the kitchen and robbed at gunpoint, prosecutors said. Genea Simms Fountain could not see the man’s face, but she remembered the man’s voice as he demanded cash, jewelry and computers.
He then removed the newlyweds’ wedding rings. Suddenly, prosecutors said, Genea Simms Fountain heard a strange sound coming from her husband and realized that the gunman had slit his throat. She screamed and the suspect told her to die as he slit her throat, prosecutors said.
She heard the man drive her stepfather’s tow truck out of their garage. Although she was bleeding profusely, she managed to find a cell phone and call 911.
By the time authorities arrived, her new husband had bled to death. Police found Hall in the basement. His throat was slashed and he was nearly decapitated.
At the hospital, Fountain provided detectives with a description of the man whom she let into her house. Employees at Hall’s tow truck company recognized the composite sketch of the suspect as Covington, who had been fired by Hall just days earlier.
