Woman Sentenced in Attempted Murder of Teen in Marriotsville

A 22-year-old Randallstown woman was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday for attempted murder in the shooting of a 15-year-old boy in Marriottsville. 

Chiquita Sketers pleaded guilty in late April to attempted murder and use of a firearm. Howard County Circuit Court Judge Richard S. Bernhardt sentenced Chiquita Sketers to life in prison suspending all but 25 years for attempted murder and suspending all but five years for the firearms charge, according to a spokesperson for the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office.

The two sentences will be served concurrently.  

Howard County police say that on June 19, Donald George Peoples and Laura Christian Karr abducted the 15 year old from near his Reisterstown home. Then they picked up Sketers, according to police, who brought a long barrel rifle. 

Prosecutors said that the three mistook the 15-year-old as someone responsible for a “$200 ripoff,” according to State’s Attorney spokesperson Wayne Kirwan.

According to a statement made by the victim, when Sketers got in the car, she began asking him questions and “told him that he was going to die while loading the rifle with ammunition,” according to court documents.

Police said Karr, Peoples and Sketers drove the teen to Old Frederick Road in Marriottsville and forced him out of the car at gunpoint. As he walked away from the car, according to police, Peoples shot him in the back of the head.

The victim was not at the hearing, according to Kirwan, but Sketers asked prosecutors to send him an apology on her behalf.

Sketers was represented in court by Marc Zayon.

Karr’s trial date is scheduled for July 19; Peoples is scheduled for a November trial. 

This article has been edited to indicate Sketers will serve her sentences concurrently.