Left, Maryland State Police and Charles Sheriff's officers conduct investigation at scene of wreckage on Rt. 225.  Photo courtesy of La Plata Volunteer Fire Department.	State Police prepare to move the wreckage of the truck that one of the burglars was driving from the scene to a crime lab after the body of one of the teen burglars was removed from the front passenger area.   The truck was stolen and was being used by the gang to return to a home where they had broken into the day before. ST. MARY'S TODAY photo
The stolen van was pulled away for further investigation after the body of the burglary suspect was removed.  The driver, Alton Lee Peele-Howard, 16, of Suitland, was charged with first degree murder.  ST. MARY'S TODAY photo	Even an airbag couldn't help the woman who was hit by the teenage criminals from the city.  ST. MARY'S TODAY photo

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

LA PLATA --- Two people were killed on Wednesday as two vans loaded with a gang of Washington, D. C. area teens on a burglary rampage fled a home they were robbing for the second time in two days. The teens involved are all charged or about to be charged with first degree murder.

According to Maryland State Police Major A. J. McAndrew and Charles County Sheriff Fred Davis, a white 2001 Ford phone company van, which had been stolen earlier in the District, one of the two vans involved in the burglary, was spotted eastbound on Rt. 225 shortly before 9:30 am by a Maryland State Trooper after a lookout was broadcast by the Sheriff’s Department.
Trooper Justin Zimmerman had been westbound and turned around, notifying the barracks that he was in pursuit of one of the suspect vehicles.

The trooper turned on his emergency lights and proceeded to use his public address system urging the van operator to stop. The van was in a line of traffic going about 50 mph and the driver, who police say is 16, refused to stop.

Instead, the operator veered across the centerline and struck a 2001 Mercury Mountaineer operated by an Indian Head woman.  The woman had tried to escape to the shoulder of the road but the van continued on and hit her while both vehicles were on the shoulder, report police.

The vehicles struck head-on and both ended up side by side on the westbound shoulder.

The impact killed immediately one of the burglary suspects, a teenager from the District.

The driver of the Mercury truck was Cynthia L. Chester, 50, died in an ambulance en route to a hospital. She was returning to her Indian Head home after shopping at the new Safeway store on Rt. 301 in La Plata, a routine event in a life which was soon to end due to the lawless lifestyle of the District and Prince George's County.

The dead teen was inside the van for about four hours as rescue workers had to peel the vehicle apart to remove his body which was trapped inside the wreckage. He had been wearing his seatbelt and his identity could not be immediately determined.

The husband of the innocent motorist is a chief petty officer in the United States Navy assigned to the Naval District of Washington. He arrived at the Maryland State Police Barracks later in the day and asked to be taken to the crash scene and to view his wife’s smashed truck, according to Maj. McAndrew.

The other set of burglars had fled from the Camelot subdivision in a second van, which was also involved in yet another wreck. The burglars fled that van into nearby woods. While Charles County Sheriff’s K-9 dogs worked the track a Fairfax Police Helicopter assisted in the search.

The burglars then stole a 1997 Toyota from near the scene of the second crash near Pomfret. The gang had come down to Charles County the previous day and burglarized a home, storing a motorcycle and other loot in nearby woods. With a newly stolen van and a borrowed van, they were prepared to haul their loot back to the District.

Police report that the crew of the second van then fled back up the road.

"I called Lt. Brian Cedar at Forrestville Barracks," said Maj. McAndrew, " and told him to get his troopers working Rt. 301 and Rt. 5 right away with the description of the stolen Toyota. It was just a minute later that a trooper spotted the car at Rt. 5 and Woodyard Road in Clinton. The troopers pursued the car and other troopers deployed stop sticks at Rt. 5 and Auth Road. Even thought the tires were flattened they continued on to the District line where they crashed at Naylor Road on the Suitland Parkway."

Major McAndrew said that the U. S. Park Police got one suspect and the Maryland State Police nabbed two of the gang members.
According to First Sgt. Truitt of the La Plata Barracks, charged with first degree murder, as adults, were: Alton Lee Peele-Howard, 16, of Suitland, who crashed the van into Mrs. Chester's vehicle; Davon Spencer, 16; and Ray Kenneth Spencer, 14, both of the District.   The dead youth was not yet identified nor were the two who are still at large.

An increasing number of armed robberies and burglaries have begun to besiege Charles County with the criminals coming from the District and Prince George’s County.

A Wawa was robbed in broad daylight last week in Waldorf and a District man was arrested for shooting another man in front of J.C. Penney’s at the St. Charles Mall two weeks ago.

Sheriff Davis was asked what more the police could do to stop these criminals from preying on Charles County.