Man Convicted on Two Counts of Attempted 2nd-Degree Murder

June 24, 2009

Following a two-day trial that ended this evening, a Howard County Circuit Court judge convicted 27-year old Gregory Imes, Jr. of two counts of attempted second-degree murder and additional charges for assaulting his former girlfriend’s mother and her fiancé on September 27, 2008. Judge Richard S. Bernhardt also found Imes guilty on two counts of first-degree assault and a single count of first-degree burglary for the near-dawn break-in and bloody attack at a Columbia townhome located in the 10,000 block of Twin Rivers Rd.

According to police reports and trial testimony, Imes broke into the residence by hurling a large rock to shatter the rear sliding glass door. The awakened residents were accosted by Imes who used a knife to repeatedly slash and stab the victims who were transported to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center as a result of their life-threatening injuries.

During the trial’s opening statement, Senior Assistant States Attorney James Dietrich told the court that Imes’ girlfriend had broken off their increasingly-strained, romantic relationship. “Mr. Imes became more possessive, more controlling, more paranoid,” he said.

The former girlfriend testified that following the over-the phone-breakup with Imes on September 26, she packed a bag and departed her mother’s house to stay with a friend in Baltimore City because Imes threatened to kill her.

In closing arguments, Assistant State’s Attorney Maurice Frazier described the attack as cold, calculated and planned. “Plan A was to kill Camille (his ex-girlfriend); plan B was to kill those close to her,” he stated.

Imes will be sentenced on October 8, 2009. He faces maximum sentences of 30 years in prison on each of the attempted murder charges, 25 years on each of the first-degree assault charges plus 20 years on the first-degree burglary charge. He is in the custody of the Maryland Division of Correction serving a two-year prison sentence for telephone misuse and harassment of the girlfriend prior to the September 27, 2008 attack on her mother and her mother’s fiancé.