Posted on 04/21/2005 11:13:31 AM PDT by Woodstock
An Elkton man accused of murdering his brain-damaged wife by keeping her locked in a bedroom regained custody of his three daughters Wednesday.
Judge Dexter M. Thompson Jr. returned the children to John Joseph Dougherty, 53, after a hearing that lasted all afternoon in circuit court.
The county's social services department took custody of the children Feb. 25, after police found their mother dead on a mattress amidst squalid conditions in their Chestnut Drive home.
Wait, wait; don't tell me! Kerry/Blue state, right?
Someone please track this guy and the judge. If (when?) something happens to one of the daughters over the next three years, I like to see what the judge says.
You know it!
What were the circumstances of her becoming brain damaged?
Murder alleged in homemade prison case * Grand Jury levels new charge following autopsy evidence
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 8:39 AM EDT By Mike Spector mspector@cecilwhig.com
A grand jury has indicted an Elkton man on a murder charge, six weeks after police found his emaciated wife dead in a bedroom amidst squalid conditions.
John Joseph Dougherty, 53, faces a second-degree murder charge in the indictment, handed up last week after the grand jury heard new evidence against him.
Dougherty already faced manslaughter and abuse charges in an indictment handed up March 17. The new indictment, unsealed yesterday, included those charges and added the murder charge.
Dougherty is accused of causing his wife's death by keeping her locked in a bedroom for six years without access to basic food, water and hygiene. Police found his wife, Mary Elizabeth Kilrain, dead on a mattress Feb. 25, surrounded by moldy food and her own excrement. She weighed just 81 pounds.
Dougherty is free on $350,000 bail.
Cecil County State's Attorney Christopher J. Eastridge presented new evidence to the grand jury after the medical examiner's office completed an autopsy on Kilrain earlier this month.
The exact nature of the evidence Eastridge presented is not known, but the medical examiner ruled Kilrain's death a homicide, according to sources familiar with the autopsy results, and Eastridge said recently he planned to review the autopsy to determine if new charges were warranted.
The autopsy, normally available to the public, is not being released because it is part of an ongoing investigation, the medical examiner's office said. The state's attorney declined to comment further on the case last week.
Dougherty kept his wife locked in the bedroom after she suffered a brain aneurysm in 1999 and began berating their three daughters, according to court papers. Kilrain, 46, was only fed and bathed sporadically, according to police, and sometimes banged on the walls of her bedroom with a cane.
Dougherty called police to the home when his youngest daughter found her mother dead after trying to give her a drink of water, according to court papers, and later admitted to investigators that he neglected her basic needs.
Dougherty also had a live-in girlfriend when his wife died. Kathleen Marie Zeman, 32, who lived at the home with her two sons for at least a month before Kilrain's death, faces an abuse charge in the case. She doesn't face any new charges.
The pair dated for years before Kilrain's death, according to court papers.
Zeman is free on $125,000 bond. Zeman's attorney filed papers asking a judge to lower Zeman's bail, which was set while she still faced a more serious manslaughter charge. That charge was dropped when Zeman was indicted.
A hearing on the bail request hasn't been scheduled yet.
Dougherty is scheduled to be arraigned May 23 in circuit court. Zeman is set to appear May 5.
Dougherty's children, ages 10, 13 and 16, and Zeman's children, ages 9 and 14, are in foster care under the supervision of the county social services department.
Judge: We're not Germany or Russia * Thompson orders children's custody hearing open to public
Thursday, April 21, 2005 8:48 AM EDT
Mike Spector
Cecil Circuit Court Judge Dexter M. Thompson Jr. decried lawyers' arguments that a child custody hearing should be closed to the public Wednesday, saying such a move would be akin to creating atmospheres similar to historically totalitarian states.
The heated exchange came at the start of a hearing in which the county's social services department attempted to retain custody of John Joseph Dougherty's three daughters. Dougherty, 53, faces a second-degree murder charge after police found his brain-damaged wife dead on a mattress, surrounded by moldy food and her own excrement.
"Maybe we should be more like Germany or Russia," the judge said when asked to close the hearing.
Attorneys representing the social services department, Dougherty and the three children argued that the hearing should be closed by law. They cited a law that says the court must close the hearing if it "involves discussion of confidential information from the child abuse and neglect report and record, or any information obtained from the child welfare agency concerning a child or family who is receiving ... child welfare services or ... foster care or adoption assistance."
The request to close the hearing stemmed from the presence of a Cecil Whig reporter in the courtroom. The attorneys argued that media coverage caused one of Dougherty's daughters to change schools and worried that the children would be subject to harassment if the substance of the hearing was published.
But the judge said the attorneys failed to show any information would come out in the hearing that would compel him to close it. "What is gonna come out here that's different than any other case we hear?" the judge asked.
Thompson then said the United States was becoming increasingly secretive and said the court had an "obligation to remain open."
Michael Scibinico, the social services attorney, immediately asked the judge to delay the hearing so the agency could appeal his ruling. But the judge waved his hand and said, "The court's not going to do that."
Thompson's decision to keep the hearing open was in direct contrast to a ruling made by Judge Richard Eli Jackson before an emergency custody hearing in the same case.
The social services department gained custody of Dougherty's children Feb. 28 after that emergency hearing. The hearing came a few days after Dougherty's initial arrest.
Jackson, reading the same law attorneys argued in front of Thompson, decided he was forced to close the hearing under the circumstances.
Jackson said at the time that it was the county court's practice to remain open to the public but that the law mandated he close the particular hearing.
That should be Cecil Whig in the above post
What's the fuss? Nowadays if you dehydrate and starve your brain-damaged wife to death in squalid conditions, you are lionized in the press and will probably be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
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