By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY

LEXINGTON PARK (Jan. 20, 2008)  ----  The only ones who used to aim their arrows and pull back on their bows in the woods of Jarboesville (the name of the small crossroads, prior to Lexington Park), along the Three Notch Trail, were the Mattapany Indian tribe, but since they didn't take aim at Leonard Calvert and the early settlers at St. Mary's City or any person, instead killing only deer and other game, it appears that laying the blame on Indians for an arrow passing into the back of a Lexington Park street walker is unfair and was instead allegedly due to a jilted Cupid.

In short, a woman who frequently walks the streets at night and is well known to police, was the target of a murderous act early on Saturday morning as she walked along Great Mills Road.
Natasha Kelly, 22, of Lexington Park, was walking along Rt. 246 with her boyfriend in front of the Checkers when she said an arrow came swirling through the dark night and struck her in the back. 

Kelly and her boyfriend had been arguing and had been separated by about a 1/4 block when the man said Kelly suddenly started screaming.  He said he ran to her side to find her sprawled on the pavement with an arrow sticking out of her back.

The man pulled the arrow out of the woman and then ran out into the highway to flag down help from a passing motorist.  St. Mary's deputies arrived on the scene and began tracking down a man who may have been involved in the incident but had left the area in a blue Jeep.

The Lexington Park Volunteer Rescue Squad responded to a call from police to assist and upon examining the woman's arrow wound, called for a helicopter to fly the woman to a trauma center. Bay District volunteers sent an engine over to the rear parking lot of Millison Plaza and prepared a landing zone for Trooper Two which landed and boarded their patient.

The injured woman told police that she didn't know who fired the arrow at her, which was laying next to her on the pavement.

Detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Investigations, a joint investigation unit of the Maryland State Police and the St. Mary's Sheriff's Department, began to follow up immediately on the case which was started by St. Mary's Deputy Margaret Smolarsky.

Officers learned that the man who was driving the Jeep, had actually been the man who lived in a second floor apartment in a two story house across the street from Checkers.   The police learned that the man was in fact the one who aimed and fired the arrow from his apartment and sent the arrow whizzing across the highway, striking Kelly in the back.

Police say that the woman's bulky coat kept her from suffering more serious damage as the coat slowed the rate of entry for the arrow.

The man told police that he had handled the arrow once he came to the scene, but a witness and the victim contradicted the man's story, making his only opportunity to place his fingerprints on the arrow the time he had fired the arrow with the bow from his window.

Other than the man who pulled the arrow from the woman's back, the next person to handle it was a deputy.

There, you have it.  It was about 28 degrees on a cold January night, a young woman who police consider to be a crackhead was walking the streets of Lexington Park and an arrow whirled across a highway and pierced her back as she passed in front of a twin drive-thru burger joint.

This woman who is living a fractured life, dependent on selling herself short and being preyed upon by others, came close to being murdered by a man with a job at Pax River, who police say had a prior relationship with her. He was identified as Luis R. Fuentes , 43, of Lexington Park.   A different type of arrow is slung by Cupid all over the area in just another three weeks as the patron saint of lovers, St. Valentine, is marked by a massive display of affection. 

This weekend's nearly murderous act of archery was just another tale from the Naked City.  There are a thousand more.