ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — Neighbors say 61-year-old Ronald McCandless and his wife, Veronica McGinley, were longtime staples in the community, and it was a request for a welfare check at their house on Spring Falls Court in Ellicott City, which led police there on Monday afternoon.
“Once they got inside the home, they found the woman dead in a bedroom, and there was evidence inside the home to indicate that her husband killed her,” said Seth Hoffman of the Howard County Police Department.
Within a few hours, officers spotted McCandless sitting in his car a short distance from the home and took him into custody.
McGinley’s murder follows a domestic-related, fatal shooting that was also in Ellicott City last Thursday, in which 32-year-old Samantha Marie Myers faces charges in connection with her mother’s death.
“Sometimes it’s just a matter of these happened close to each other in terms of timing and there’s no rhyme or reason,” said Hoffman. “Obviously, our murder count is not that large in any given year, but when you’re dealing with such small numbers, an increase of one or two can mean a big increase in terms of percentage.”
The recent pair of domestic homicides brings the number of murders in the county up to five for the year after just seven in all of the 12 months of last year.
