Three-Judge Panel Upholds Attacker's Life Sentence

May 1, 2009

A three-judge panel of Howard County Circuit Court judges has upheld the life sentence handed down to a Columbia man convicted of the attempted murder of his estranged wife. In the fall of 2006, Frederick Evrod Jones was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of attempted first-degree murder, first degree assault and violation of an ex- parte/protective order by a Howard County jury.

On May 1, 2006, Jones used a machete and ambushed his estranged wife outside of her Columbia condominium in the Village of Long Reach. During the trial, prosecutors described the attack and resulting injuries as “something out of a horror movie.” She suffered a skull fracture and facial lacerations from the hits to her head, and lost two fingers of her right hand and the tip of one on her left hand.

At the conclusion of the trial Circuit Court Judge Lenore R. Gelfman sentenced Jones, then 54, to the maximum penalty allowed by law. Jones appealed his sentence at a hearing held before Circuit Court judges Diane O. Leasure, Louis A. Becker, III, and Richard S. Bernhardt on April 23 of this year. The ruling was issued on April 30, 2009.