Suspects were charged Wednesday in two different homicides in Silver Spring and Gaithersburg, according to Montgomery County Police.
Around 7:07 p.m. on Dec. 1, police said they responded to the 1500 block of Heather Hollow Circle in Silver Spring. When they arrived, officers found the victim, Leon Perkins, 66, of Silver Spring, dead in his wheelchair at the scene, police said.
Perkins’ caretaker was a family relative, Charles Parker, 55, according to police. On Dec. 1, Parker called Perkins’ wife to report that her husband had fallen and when Perkins’ wife arrived at his apartment, Perkins was dead, police said.
Perkins’ body was transported to Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where an autopsy was conducted, and the results are pending, according to police.
Police said they identified Parker as a suspect, arrested him on Wednesday and charged him with Perkins’ homicide. He was transported to the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit where he is being held without bond, according to police.
About a week earlier, around 8:10 a.m. on Nov. 28, Gaithersburg Police responded to the 200 block of Old MacDonald Road for a report of a man who was not conscious or breathing, police said.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service personnel performed lifesaving measures, but Charles Claggett, 60, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Police said they identified Ronald Thomas Dwyer II, 44, of an unknown address, as the suspect in the homicide, and on Wednesday, he was arrested on an open warrant for an unrelated incident.
Dwyer was transported to the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit and charged with first degree murder and robbery, and is being held without bond, police said.
Parker and Dwyer’s attorney information could not be accessed as the Maryland Judiciary Case Search website is experiencing an outage due to system maintenance.
There have been at least 29 homicides so far in 2023, up from 22 homicides in 2022, according to Data Montgomery.