ELKTON â In December 2004, Pennsylvania State Police Det. John J. Comerford swore out an arrest warrant charging former Port Deposit-area resident Joseph Dwayne Griest with first-degree rape and related sexual assault offenses in that state.
Comerford did so even though Griest, who was 33 at that time, already was serving a 65-year prison sentence in Maryland in a related 1999 kidnapping case that had been handled in Cecil County.
His decision to secure that Pennsylvania arrest warrant more than 16 years ago loomed large on March 16.
Thatâs when Griest, now 49, received a 35-year prison term after pleading guilty to kidnapping and carjacking in his latest successful appeal of that dual-jurisdiction case relating to a 1999 abduction that started in Elkton and ended several hours later in Pennsylvania.
THE ISSUE
Today begins Sunshine Week, which highlights the fight for transparency in government and access to public information. Led by the News Leaders Association and organizations including the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, Sunshine Week aims to increase public awareness of open-meetings and open-records laws like Pennsylvaniaâs Right-to-Know Law and Sunshine Act.
The restrictions and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic didnât stop the work of journalists over the past year but did make it tougher.
Pandemic-related emergencies gave the Wolf administration, for instance, some cover for holding back information.
But journalists at LNP | LancasterOnline and The Caucus â an LNP Media Group watchdog publication focusing on state government â persisted in ensuring that taxpayers knew how government officials were acting and spending money on their behalf.
No charges filed in 55-year-old’s stabbing death, Lancaster County DA says
Updated Mar 05, 2021;
Lancaster County authorities declined to press charges against a Lancaster City resident who fatally stabbed a man who broke into his home late last year, prosecutors said.
Carlos Lopez-Perez, 55, was stabbed to death Dec. 29, 2020, after entering a South Ann Street home at which his ex-girlfriend was staying, according to a news release from the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office.
That same day, the woman confided to her healthcare provider that Lopez-Perez was violent with her, according to prosecutors. He tried to contact her the day before and of the stabbing, but she told him she didn’t want to talk to him, prosecutors said.
A Pennsylvania teen stabbed her disabled sister to death a day after one of her videos went viral on video sharing app TikTok, authorities and reports say.Claire Miller, 14, was charged as an adult by the the Lancaster County District Atto…