THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 d
KILLING Continued from Page A-1 key from inside the car and let themselves into Avery’s home on Cherry Bend Drive, and discovered a hellish scene inside — Avery’s two toddlers who had been stabbed to death, and her two other young children suffering from stab wounds. Avery told investigators she had been once been involuntarily committed for psychiatric reasons. Sanford told police she had tried to kill herself two times before. Avery was the self-described commander of the Demon Assassins, which had performed other exorcisms before Friday, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said. Sanford was a “sergeant.” Police have identified the two other members of the group and are trying to find them to interview them about the slayings, according to Montgomery County Police Capt. Marcus Jones. In court, McCarthy, who is prosecuting the case, said the women believed in the devil.
BILLS Continued from Page A-1 Rice (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown, Vice President George Leventhal (D-At Large) of Takoma Park and Councilmen Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg, Hans Riemer (D-At Large) of Takoma Park and Marc Elrich (D-At Large) of Takoma Park each support various proposals. Riemer said the package was full of initiatives that will keep the county on the “cutting edge” of movements in local government. “That’s certainly where Montgomery County wants to be on energy issues,” he said. He said he thinks Montgomery is already among the leaders in that area, but it’s one that is constantly changing and evolving, and jurisdictions have to constantly consider new legislation and regulations to keep up with science and technology. “Everyone is leap-frogging everyone else all the time,” Riemer said. Berliner (D-Dist. 1) of Bethesda said the bills would reinforce Montgomery’s brand as a county that embraces sustainability and creates green jobs. It would also help the county honor its pledge, made several years ago along with counties from around the country, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
CLARKSBURG Continued from Page A-1 houses west of I-270. Peterson Companies wants to build a mixed-use Tanger outlet center that would include some housing on part of 100
They had been planning an exorcism on another Demon Assassin named “Troy,” he said. The man had not arrived as scheduled for the exorcism that night, and the attacks began around 5 a.m. Friday. The women believed the devil had inhabited the body of the youngest child, 1-yearold Norell N. Harris, and then leaped from body to body of the different children, McCarthy said in district court, as Avery, dressed in a sleeveless prison gown, watched through a video monitor from jail. The two women told police that as the devil inhabited the bodies of the children, it turned their eyes black, McCarthy said. But the two women believed the demon leaped to her 2-year-old daughter, Zyana Harris, and they tried to exorcise it from her, he said. The same process occurred with the children’s siblings, a 5-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy, whom The Gazette is not identifying because they are juvenile crime victims. McCarthy said that during the exorcism, the demon had jumped into
Avery’s body and caused her to attack Sanford. Before charging Sanford, police had to take her to a local hospital to receive treatment for stab wounds and a slice to her neck. After police entered the house, they found Avery walking down the stairs of the home. She walked past officers with the 8-year-old, then tried to flee out the back, along with Sanford. Officers tackled Avery outside, and soon discovered the boy’s stab wounds. Jones, head of the Major Crimes Unit, said investigators found two knives they believe were used in the attacks — one about the size of a paring knife, and a second a butcher’s knife. Upstairs, they found Norell and Zyana on their mother’s bed. Their bodies had been washed and wrapped in blankets. “They had washed them to prepare so that when they got to heaven, they would see God and not have blood on them,” McCarthy said. Police also found the 5-yearold nearby and realized that she had been seriously stabbed. Officials “initially thought
she was not going to survive,” he said, explaining that she is in critical condition but she has improved. The 8-year-old had not only been stabbed, but also saw his mother kill his little brother, McCarthy said. The horrific details elicited a sob from family members who had come to the hearing. In a brief hearing for Sanford, David Felsen, her defense attorney, asked that the woman’s bail hearing be postponed because her family members had hired private attorneys who had not been able to speak to her yet. Her bail review was postponed until Friday. After the hearing, Edward Leyden, one of Sanford’s private attorneys, said that he and cocounsel Dana Jones-Oliver were “still trying to get a handle on what happened.” “However you cut this, this was an enormous tragedy,” he said. If the defendants are deemed to be “competent,” or able to understand their present situation and participate in their defense, court proceedings can
One bill would require the county to purchase at least half of its energy from renewable resources by 2015 and 100 percent by 2020. The county currently buys about 30 percent of its energy from renewable resources. Berliner pointed out that Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas, and Portland, Ore., already use 100 percent renewable energy. Other legislation would require: • County buildings that are new or have been heavily remodeled to generate at least one kilowatt of renewable energy for each 1,000 square feet of floor space. • The county’s Department of Permitting Services to create a cheaper and easier way to approve permits for solar products. A proposed zoning amendment would allow solar panels to extend two feet into a property’s side and rear setbacks. • Building owners to track their buildings’ energy efficiency and make the information available to the public so tenants would be better able to predict the cost of utilities. • An Office of Sustainability within the county’s Department of Environmental Protection. • Regulations to create a preference in procurement for local companies that have been “green certified” by the county by adopting sustainable policies. • A telecommuting policy for
county workers and a telecommuting manager. • The county’s Department of Transportation to contract with a company to provide more efficient streetlights. • New buildings to install an electronic vehicle charging station for every 50 spaces in a parking lot. • A streamlined permitting process for installing charging stations for electric vehicles. • All new commercial buildings in Montgomery to meet the Silver standard for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. New commercial buildings currently have to be LEED-certified, although county buildings must meet the more demanding Silver standard. Floreen said she sees that bill as one that could draw some opposition from the development community. But she said she also believes that builders understand that more efficient buildings are ultimately cheaper to operate. “I’m not sure how much push-back we’ll receive,” she said. Another bill would require the county to use the Environmental Protection Agency’s method, or a similar method, for calculating the hidden costs in pollution and other areas of fuels, particularly coal, when it’s evaluating the potential for energy-efficiency improvements. “Carbon imposes a cost on
society that is not reflected in the price of fuel,” Berliner said Tuesday. As for the ratio of charging stations to parking spaces, Floreen said she didn’t know if the county should be specific, but she predicted the council will discuss the issue further. Riemer said the telecommuting bill was one of the elements of the package that stood out to him. With increasing technology, the ability of workers to do their jobs from home is only going to advance, he said. And it could also be a way to help solve the traffic problems that plague the D.C. region, he said. “I think it’s the future, I really do,” he said. Berliner said he thinks the fact that all the bills attracted support from various council members illustrates the council’s desire that Montgomery be known as a community that embraces sustainability. Although the bills have a long way to go through the legislative process, Floreen said she believes they’ll help move the county toward its ultimate energy-efficiency goals. “If we don’t keep setting goals, we’ll never get there,” she said.
acres called the Miles-Coppola property between I-270 and Frederick Road (Md. 355). Owners of High Point Catering to the north of the MilesCoppola property also want to build homes on the so-called Egan site. The 1994 Clarksburg Master Plan envisioned the Clarksburg
area as a high-tech corridor town of 40,000 people with services and public amenities, extending earlier development in Rockville, Gaithersburg and Germantown northwest along I-270 toward Urbana in Frederick County. The Master Plan also envisioned the arrival of high-pay-
ing employers, but that has not materialized, nor is it expected to anytime soon, because of low demand for commercial space that far north in Montgomery County, according to developers and planners.
rmarshall@gazette.net
vterhune@gazette.net
Page A-7 continue toward trial, McCarthy said. In that case, a lawyer would still be able to argue the women were “not criminally responsible,” or insane, as a defense. The findings from that initial report will be presented to Everngam on Tuesday.
‘No warning signs’ A neighbor called 911 the night before the children were killed, saying one of the women “seems to be responding to internal stimuli,” and was talking to herself. The caller told dispatchers that a woman in the house had left a baby in her blue Toyota outside for about an hour. The caller said the women had told him “something was going on, and they didn’t want the baby to be endangered in the house.” When police arrived, the women had taken the children inside and refused to answer the door. Police filed a report with Child Protective Services, who were planning to follow up with the case Friday morning, Jones said. “There were no warning signs this was going to happen,”
Jones said at a news conference after Tuesday’s hearing, later explaining that officers did not have enough cause to enter the house that night. Friday morning, police received the call about the bloody knife, prompting the grisly discovery. How much the women understood of their alleged crimes is still unclear at this point. “They were hard to read,” Jones said, later adding, “We didn’t get the typical type of response [you would get] when a child is harmed in that kind of way.” Investigators spoke to the pastor of the church Avery attended, Exousia Ministries in Germantown, Jones said. “This is not being ordered, not part of their religion, not what is being preached,” Jones said. Police “want to see what else [other church members] can provide to show what this group was all about,” he said, though they do not believe the other members are a danger to the public. sjbsmith@gazette.net
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
People gather on Friday night to remember 10-year-old D’Angelo Jayvon McMullen, who drowned on Jan. 13 after falling through an ice-covered sediment pond at the developing Crown Farm in Gaithersburg.
DROWNING
Continued from Page A-1 Planning and Code Administration, said in an email that the fence must be at least 42 inches high, have posts spaced no farther apart than 8 feet, have mesh openings no greater than two inches in width and four inches in height, with a minimum of 14-gauge wire. Once construction is complete on the property and the pond is converted to a stormwater management pond, the fence can be permanently removed, Burnette wrote in an email to The Gazette. Westbrook Acquisitions is one of the developers of the Crown project, a mix of residential and retail units built on the former Crown Farm at Fields Road and Great Seneca Highway. John Wolf, managing principal at Westbrook Partners, could not immediately be reached Friday for comment. Charles Maier, a spokesman for the company that owns the land containing the pond, said in a statement after D’Angelo’s death, “We are deeply saddened by the tragic
loss of a young boy’s life. Our hearts go out to the youngster’s family and friends. ... We all wish the outcome had been different.” Maier said the owners of the site had been in contact with city officials, and were investigating how the fence had been removed. A new fence was installed earlier this week and Burnette said it was reinspected by city workers. The city issued another Notice of Violation on Jan. 14 for a second sediment pond on the Crown site where the fence around it appeared to have been damaged by equipment, Burnette said. Both ponds have are now properly fenced, he said. As a result of the tragedy, the city reinspected all other sediment traps in the city, Burnette said. City officials issued a notice to Classic Communities to install a safety fence around a new sediment pond that has been constructed at Parklands, which is off of W. Watkins Mill Road. All the notices issued have been complied with, he said. sjbsmith@gazette.net