Luke Broadwater and Jaime Malarkey, The Examiner
2008-05-16 07:00:00.0
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TOWSON -

A Baltimore County teen showed little emotion as he confessed to beating his mother to death with a baseball bat after arguing with her about his grades, according to investigators.

Lewin C. Powell III, 16, was “straight-forward” with police about killing his mother, 39-year-old, Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell, and trying to kill his father, Lewin Powell, a police source said.

“He was matter-of-fact,” the source said.

Powell, an honors student at McDonogh School, had argued with his mother about slipping grades, the source said.

The teen, who has been charged as an adult, waived an appearance at a bail review Thursday morning in Baltimore County District Court in Towson. Judge Norman R. Stone ordered Powell to remain held without bail at the county detention center and said the teen is to have no contact with his father. Another judge has ordered the court file sealed.

Thursday, grief counselors were McDonogh’s Owings Mills campus, where Powell had been a student since 6th grade and was a member of the jazz band.

“He was taking a courseload that suggested a capable student, including honors and advanced placement courses,” said school spokeswoman Lynn McKain. “His performance would have had to been at the top of the class to be admitted in those courses.”

Police were called to the Powell home on the 1600 block of Alston Road in Towson Wednesday morning after Powell-Campbell’s coworkers at the Baltimore County budget office became concerned when she did not show up for work.

Powell and his mother got into an argument Tuesday afternoon about his performance in school, police said, and Powell repeatedly beat his mother with a bat until she was dead.

The teen hid his mother’s body in the garage, according to police. His father came home from work at about midnight and fell asleep on the sofa, and awoke Wednesday morning when Powell began beating him with the same bat.

“Thank God you’re here,” the elder Powell told police, according to court documents. “My son killed my wife.”

Powell-Campbell’s co-workers described her as punctual, dependable and gracious. Though an assistant claims adjust for only one year, her supervisor, Mary Ellen Niles, said she was “the type of person everybody got to know very quickly.”

“She was just a class act,” Niles said. “The one thing people are saying is how dedicated she was to her son and how proud she was of him and how well she spoke of him.”

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com

jmalarkey@baltimoreexaminer.com