Vernon Evans, Jr
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND Nos. 107, 123, 124 September Term, 2005 ______________________________________ VERNON EVANS, JR. v. STATE OF MARYLAND ______________________________________ No. 122 September Term, 2005 _______________________________ VERNON EVANS, JR., ET AL. v. STATE OF MARYLAND ______________________________________ Bell, C.J. Raker Wilner Harrell Battaglia Greene Rodowsky, Lawrence F. (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ. ______________________________________ Opinion by Wilner, J.; Greene, J., joins in Nos. 107 and 124 only; Bell, C.J., dissents which Greene, J., joins in Parts C and D Only. ______________________________________ Filed: December 19, 2006 On April 28, 1983, Vernon Evans, for a fee of $9,000 paid by or on behalf of his friend, Anthony Grandison, walked into the Warren House Motel in Baltimore County and murdered David Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy by shooting nineteen bullets at them. The murder of Ms. Kennedy was a mistake; Evans thought she was Piechowicz’s wife, Cheryl. Evans was hired to kill the Piechowiczes in order to prevent them from testifying against Grandison in a pending Federal criminal case that was scheduled for trial a week later. In May, 1984, a jury in the Circuit Court for Worcester County, to which the case had been removed, convicted Evans of two counts of first degree murder and sentenced him to death. The judgment was affirmed on appeal, but in 1991, in a post conviction proceeding filed in 1990, Evans was awarded a new sentencing hearing. At his request, the case was removed from Worcester County and, with his concurrence, returned to Baltimore County, where, in November, 1992, a new jury again sentenced him to death.
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