Murders This Week: 2
Murders This Year: 48

The death of Raymond Sakievich, a 46-year-old Caucasian man, was ruled a homicide this week. Sakievich was found at 11:05 a.m. on Feb. 11 in the 1100 block of Russell Street near M&T Bank Stadium. While initially there were no signs of foul play, a March 1 autopsy revealed that Sakievich was strangled to death.

The murder of Maurice Collick, a 43-year-old African-American man, was accidentally omitted from last week’s Murder Ink. At 12:24 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 21, Collick was standing in the 600 block of Lakewood Avenue in East Baltimore’s McElderry Park neighborhood when someone came up to him and shot him several times. He was pronounced dead 20 minutes later at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was just a few blocks from home.

Sunday, Feb. 27

5:26 p.m. After entering a house in the 2200 block of East North Avenue through the back door, two men found Travis Coles, a 37-year-old African-American man, slumped on the couch. There was blood on the couch and a towel on Coles’ face. His breathing was slow. The two men called the police and Coles was taken to Hopkins Hospital, where he was deemed brain dead and died the next day. Coles’ death was ruled a homicide from blunt-force trauma to the head on March 1.

7:57 p.m. Police officers arrived at the scene of a shooting in the 2600 block of Kent Street in South Baltimore’s Westport neighborhood and found Darryl Lee Smith, a 19-year-old African-American man, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head. Smith, who used to live in the Orchards neighborhood in North Baltimore near the Elkridge Hunt Club, was pronounced dead at the scene less than 10 minutes later. This is the second murder in Westport this year. Both victims were young African-American men. Both were shot in the head.

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