BALTIMORE MURDERS CALLED A WARNING

By The Associated Press

BALTIMORE (AP) -- The weekend slayings of five women, including three
generations of the same family, were a deadly warning sent by drug dealers,
authorities said Tuesday.

Police say the women were not involved with drug dealing, but were shot to
send a message to friends or relatives who were.

Col. John E. Gavrills, chief of the detective bureau, said the message was:
``You need to fear us if you're involved in our drug trade. If you stiff
us, if you don't work business the way we want you to work business, we'll
kill you.''

The 22-year-old son of one of the five victims was found fatally shot the
morning after the killings and investigators were trying to determine
whether the two crimes were connected, said police spokeswoman Angelique
Cook-Hayes.

Investigators linked the slayings to a decade-old drug turf war in the
southeast Baltimore neighborhood of O'Donnell Heights. Police said the
slain homeowner, Mary McNeil Matthews, had recently moved from the area and
two of her family members have been accused of dealing drugs there.

Two suspects were in police custody Tuesday.

Killed Sunday were Ms. Matthews, 39; her mother, Mary Collien, 54; and her
daughter Makisha Jenkins, 18. Trennell Alston, 26, and LeVanna Spearman, 23
also were slain.

Ms. Matthews' son, Tovaris McNeil, was found slain Monday morning in a
grassy area next to an apartment building located two miles from the house
where he lived with his mother.