http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-harris0906,0,5851443.story
Shanda R. Harris, the mother of an 11-year-old boy who police say was killed by a convicted sex offender, pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court Thursday to knowingly allowing the man to baby-sit her son.
Harris, as part of an agreement reached with prosecutors, received an eight-year suspended sentence on charges of reckless endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The deal spares Harris prison time beyond what she served from Oct. 5, when she was arrested, until she posted bail March 26.
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Melvin Lorenzo Jones Jr., 53, is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Harris' son Irvin in July 2006. Jones, a convicted sex offender who had been ordered to have no unsupervised contact with children, had repeatedly watched Harris' children, including Irvin.
Irvin disappeared one afternoon as he headed to the Belair Food Market in Northeast Baltimore to buy a snowball. His body was found two days later across the street from the Clifton Park Golf Course, in the woods behind a church a block from the family's home at that time on Lawnview Avenue.
Harris, 42, a recovering heroin addict, learned from an employee at her drug treatment program that Jones was a convicted sex offender about a year before Irvin's death.
She still let Jones play an important role in the boy's life, including allowing Jones to volunteer at Collington Square Elementary School, where Irvin was a fourth-grader.
Jones was eventually banned from the school after the principal found out he was a sex offender.
Prosecutors said they proposed a plea deal that spared Harris from jail because she agreed to participate in an extensive parenting and substance abuse program at University of Maryland Medical Center. The Client Services Division of the Office of the Public Defender recommended treatment that will require Harris to attend drug rehabilitation classes five times a week for three months and receive monthly psychiatric evaluations.
"Our focus from the start was what could be done to protect the surviving children," said Julie Drake, an assistant state's attorney who prosecuted the case. "I've never seen a case where anybody became a better parent after they have spent two, three years in jail."
Circuit Judge John M. Glynn called the case troubling but said the treatment plan is best for all parties. "In terms of long-term well-being, this is the best hope that there is," he said. "I'm not an optimist, but this is the best chance anyone has." Harris declined to comment in court.
