SCARY IN SILVER SPRING No Haunted Garden, but there are other haunts A-5
The Gazette
NEWS: See a list of local polling places open for early voting. A-3
SILVER SPRING | TAKOMA PARK | WHEATON | BURTONSVILLE DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Woman guilty of killing her lover
25 cents
Cameras common in county police cars
Dance fever
Will be sentenced in December for 2012 Silver Spring slaying n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN
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STAFF WRITER
A Mississippi woman accused of fatally shooting her lover in his Silver Spring apartment in 2012 was found guilty by jurors on Oct. 22. A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge could give Katrina Ben, 36, life in prison without the possibility of parole. She is scheduled to be sentenced in December. Ben was charged with firstdegree murder and using a handgun in a crime of violence in the death of car salesman Eric Somuah, 34, who was found shot to death in June 2012. Ben and Somuah had been in a casual romantic relationship, one that prosecutors asserted was too casual for Ben’s liking. Somuah’s sister, Cynthia Zegeye, said she was elated with the verdict, and she and her family were deeply indebted to Montgomery County police detectives, who worked persistently to solve the case for more than a year before an arrest was made. Jurors deliberated for several hours Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning before reaching their verdict. Among the most persuasive evidence was a record of Ben’s Facebook browsing in the time between Somuah’s death and when she first spoke to police, juror Frank DeSanto told The Gazette after
SPORTS: Kennedy runner learns how to stride into the county’s top 10. B-1
Takoma Park, other police agencies considering body-worn cameras BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS BY BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
(Above) Evan Sletten, 8, of Silver Spring competes in a break-dancing competition at The Lab DC Breakin’ School in Takoma Park on Sunday. (Below) Tristan Grabow, 8, of Gaithersburg dances at the competition.
Children bend, break, earn respect BY DYLAN REFFE SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
C
hildren in Takoma Park are getting down to a fresh new beat in Takoma Park. The funk-filled sounds of James Brown, Bobby Byrd, and their soulful contemporaries welcomed more than 100 guests to the Lab DC Breakin’ School on Sunday for a Student Breakin’ Tournament in Takoma in Washington, D.C. Break dancing has been has been around almost 40 years, but the competitive sport of breakin’ is new. The Lab DC, just across the D.C. line from Takoma Park at
See KILLING, Page A-9
After years of delay, the Montgomery County Police Department has installed video cameras in nearly half of its patrol car fleet and is eyeing putting cameras on the uniforms of its officers. The department has cameras in 450 of its 913 marked patrol vehicles, and is only adding cameras to newly acquired vehicles. Budget permitting, the department plans to add 150 more camera-equipped patrol cars this fiscal year and have cameras in the entire fleet within three years, according to the department’s press office. County officials agreed to put cameras in police cars as part of a 2000 settlement that followed the death of an unarmed man fatally shot by a county police officer in 1999. Objections from the county’s police union — which argued that cameras might violate state
See CAMERAS, Page A-10
6925 Willow Ave. NW, is home to a school that teaches breakin’ both as a dance and a competitive sport. Breakin’, breaking, break dancing, and b-boying all refer to the same style of dance that originated on New York streets nearly 40 years ago. Breakin’ is usually done to funk or hip-hop, and until lately, was widely thought of as a street art. it has become more popular recently through shows like MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew.” “Our mission at The Lab DC is to inspire, motivate and create through the hip-hop arts,” said
See BREAK, Page A-9
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Takoma Park police display a camera that can be mounted on glasses and clipped to clothing.
Man charged in second HIV sex case Silver Spring lab hosts Cleaves also facing allegations after July encounter with first woman n
BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
A Virginia man accused of trying to give HIV to a Silver Spring woman now has been charged with trying to give the virus to a Bethesda woman, too. Daniel Gray Cleaves, 28, met the second victim at a bar in Bethesda in March 2013. The two went back to her residence for sex, and occasionally ran into each other at different Bethesda bars during the next year, according to charging documents. On Sept. 13, 2014, they saw each other
again at a bar on Cordell Avenue, and went back to the victim’s apartment in Bethesda, where they had unprotected, consensual sex twice. Cleaves never offered or asked to wear a condom, and never told the second victim he was HIV-positive, but the encounter with the second woman occurred more than a month after his encounter with his first accuser, when he acknowledged he was HIV-positive, according to charging documents. The second victim spoke to police after Cleaves was charged with trying to give HIV to the first victim and the charges were reported in the media. Cleaves faces two counts of knowingly trying to transfer HIV to the second woman, as well as seven counts of the same charge relating to the first woman. Each charge
INDEX Automotive Calendar Classified Entertainment Opinion Sports
See HIV, Page A-10
A&E B-11 A-2 B-8 B-4 A-13 B-1
TELL ME MORE!
For Rockville Musical Theatre, “Grease” is still the word.
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carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $2,500 fine. Cleaves also is facing several unrelated charges — including assault and indecent exposure — stemming from an incident on Sept. 15. Cleaves’s attorney, Andrew V. Jezic, told the court at a bail hearing Monday that Cleaves, a Navy veteran, struggles with alcoholism and was sober for several years before recently “falling off the wagon” for about two months. Cleaves, who has been sober for 40 days, is participating in an outpatient treatment program through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, is seeking psychiatric help, and is taking medication for HIV under the close supervision of his parents, Jezic said. Montgomery County District Court
Volume 27, No. 44, Two sections, 28 Pages Copyright © 2014 The Gazette Please
RECYCLE
trials of Ebola vaccine n
Gaithersburg company also announces work on vaccine candidate BY
KEVIN JAMES SHAY STAFF WRITER
Researchers in Silver Spring and Bethesda are testing potential vaccines to prevent and treat Ebola. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda are
conducting an early-phase study on a vaccine called VSVZEBOV. The study is looking at healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 65 who are given two doses. Staff at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring is testing the same vaccine candidate using single doses to evaluate results for different doses. Initial safety and immune response data are expected by Dec. 31.
See EBOLA, Page A-10