Free Republic

(May 4) -- Maryland police have arrested a fourth person in connection with the killing of Brian Betts, a popular Washington public school principal, and say the suspects had contact with him on a sex chat line shortly before he died. WTOP reported this morning that Deontra Gray, 18, has been charged with Betts' murder and that robbery was the motive. Police on Monday also charged Alante Saunders and Sharif Tau Lancaster, both 18, with murder. Artura Otey Williams, 46, Lancaster's mother, was taken into custody Monday and charged with two counts of credit card misuse described by police as...

Until Brian Betts mysteriously failed to appear at work Thursday morning, this is what his many admirers knew about him: He was the energetic new principal of a long-troubled urban school and, within a D.C. school system desperate for heroes, a superstar. But by the end of that day, worried colleagues had found him shot dead in his Silver Spring home, and the upbeat narrative of Betts's two decades of work had become a tragic tale. The celebrated educator is now at the improbable center of a murder mystery. His blue Nissan Xterra is missing, as is some property in...