BALTIMORE — A teenage girl fatally stabbed a Baltimore girl in a robbery attempt to get her cell phone, but all she got was a sandwich, which she ate while walking away from the crime scene, police said.
Lataye King, 16, was charged with first-degree murder — along with Kendrick McCain, 15 — in the Nov. 7 slaying of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds, who was returning home with her brother around midnight on the city’s light rail from jobs at a fast-food restaurant.
“They were making their way home when they were brutally attacked by two individuals,” said Col. Frederick Bealefeld, chief of the police department’s detective unit.
Nicole’s 16-year-old brother, Marcus, fled the attackers. He kept in touch with his sister by cell phone after they had been separated.
During the first calls, Nicole had not been found by the would-be robbers, and she urged him to hurry to where she was, Col. Bealefeld said.
“When he went to the spot where he anticipated finding her, she was no longer there and he rang her cell phone again,” Col. Bealefeld said. “But obviously by that time, the attack had occurred, and he used the ring tone, her ring tone, to track down where she was lying mortally wounded on North Avenue.”
Col. Bealefeld said Marcus sensed they were being targeted for a robbery while riding on the train.
At their North Avenue station stop, Marcus and his sister tried to run. At first, the pair tried to rob Marcus, but he eluded them by running along the train tracks.
They then turned their attention to Nicole and ran her down.
“We believe that Lataye King wielded the knife, and we believe that Lataye King in fact took Nicole Edmonds’ life on November 7,” Col. Bealefeld said.
Miss King took Nicole’s purse and rummaged through it, finding a sandwich that Nicole had brought from the Wendy’s restaurant in Anne Arundel County where she and her brother worked, police said.
“The only thing of real value that she got from this is a sandwich that she was able to get out of Nicole Edmund’s purse,” Col. Bealefeld said.
Col. Bealefeld said the attack appeared to be random.
Police arrested Mr. McCain on Thursday, when they received information from his family.
Investigators located additional witnesses, enabling them to focus on Miss King, who was arrested early Sunday at the home of a male friend in Suitland, Col. Bealefeld said.
Police also have acquired videotape from the train as evidence.
There were two persons with Mr. McCain and Miss KIng. Police said they are witnesses — not suspects in the case.
Mr. McCain and Miss King were being held at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center.
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