Free Republic

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...

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...

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.

ELKTON - New evidence against an Elkton man accused of locking up the mother of his children for six years until her death has prompted a Cecil County grand jury to increase the charges against him from manslaughter to second-degree murder. John Joseph Dougherty, 53, told authorities that he started keeping Mary Elizabeth Kilrain, 46, in a bedroom in 1999 after she suffered an aneurysm and became verbally aggressive toward their daughters, according to police. He told authorities that he wanted to keep her from wandering around the house. Kilrain did not have access to food, water and hygiene, prosecutors...