A Havre de Grace man is dead and his estranged wife’s boyfriend is being held without bail after an argument at his preteen daughter’s birthday party ended in a shooting Sunday, police said.
Christopher Lee Fritsche, 34, started arguing with 36-year-old Kevin J. Sorrick as a birthday party for Fritsche’s daughter in Pylesville was winding down around 9 p.m., said Harford County sheriff’s spokeswoman Monica Worrell.
Tension at the party was high between Fritsche and Sorrick, who is Yvonne Fritsche’s boyfriend, according to charging documents. Sorrick told investigators that at one point, Christopher Fritsche started threatening him.
“He stated Mr. Fritsche was being rude and obnoxious and intoxicated,” the documents stated. “Fritsche was yelling threatening remarks approximately 10 to 15 feet away.”
As Fritsche stood in the kitchen shouting threats, Sorrick walked to his bedroom; retrieved a rifle and loaded it; returned to the kitchen where Fritsche was still yelling; and shot him once in the head, the charges stated. He allegedly returned the gun to the bedroom after the shooting.
Emergency medical personnel from the Norrisville Fire Department responded to Sorrick’s house on the 1200 block of Harkins Road and declared Fritsche dead at the scene around 9:20 p.m. Deputies arrested Sorrick at the scene and charged him with first- and second-degree murder.
“I think it’s important that he was shot in the head,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Douglas Dolan at Sorrick’s bail review Monday. “[Sorrick’s] definite intent appears to have been to kill. He had the time to go and get the gun, to load it and to walk back.”
Assistant Public Defender Brian Cunningham asked District Judge Susan H. Hazlett to consider that Sorrick was being threatened in his home when the shooting occurred.
Sorrick has worked as a night supervisor at the Saks Fifth Avenue distribution center in Aberdeen for the past 15 years, and was working to support Yvonne Fritsche and her children, Cunningham said.
Sorrick, who appeared via closed-circuit television from the Harford County Detention Center, chewed his lip and glanced around as Hazlett told him the penalties could be as severe as life without parole or the death penalty.
When asked whether he had anything to add to Cunningham’s argument, he started to say Fritsche was physically threatening him before the judge cut him off, telling him not to say anything about the facts of the case.
Hazlett ordered that Sorrick continue to be held without bail.
