investigativevoice.com

By Stephen Janis and Luke Broadwater

She’s only 5-foot-4. A petite teen, all of 125 pounds, with innocent eyes staring back through the grainy lens of an unflattering mug shot. 

When police arrested Sierra Pyle last week at a friend’s home on Reisterstown Road in Park Heights charging her with first-degree murder in connection with the slaying of Petro Taylor, she was wearing red pants, a red vest and a red belt — the unmistakable color of the Bloods gang.

Her slender body was rife with a half-dozen tattoos, the insignias of the notorious gang indelibly etched on a girl just 19 years old.

In custody, she confessed to dragging the body of Taylor to the patch grass near a stream where he was later set fire, police said. Then she met friends at a bar on Belvedere Avenue in Park Heights later that evening, where another suspect, Terrell Greg, said he found her drinking and socializing as if nothing had happened. 

And while the arrests of five suspects from the Bounty Hunters gang, including Pyle, has been an unqualified success for the Baltimore Police Department and their battle against gangs, a picture has emerged of a ruthless gang with upwards of a hundred members and possible ties outside th city borders, investigators have learned.  

So far, police said, only Terrell Greg, the man whom they believe initiated the fight with Taylor in room 312 of the Red Carpet Inn on Reisterstown Road on Dec. 28, 2008 has admitted to being a Blood, the gang they believe serves as an umbrella organization for the Bounty Hunters. 

Greg has told police that the “OG” or leader of his gang is “not in the city,” but did not provide specifics. However, after dozens of interviews and three more arrests pending, police believe they are on the verge of disrupting a powerful and influential gang with members in Cherry Hill, Park Heights and even Baltimore County — a gang with members as young as 15 involved in drug dealing and violence, and a gang ruthless enough to burn one of their own alive. 

Still, it is the alleged role of the young women, including Grechauna Rogers, who is only 16, that investigators said demonstrates the continued and perhaps deepening influence of gangs like the Bounty Hunters in the city. 

Tanisha Lawson, who was attending a culinary arts school in Atlanta when she was arrested, allegedly told investigators how she discarded the trunk covering in her car that was covered with blood, and soaked the trunk with bleach to rid the car of evidence while attending classes. 

It was Rogers who allegedly laid pillows on the grass where Taylor, still alive, was lain on the ground before Lawson is alleged to have poured gasoline on his body, according to police.  

It was also Lawson’s confession that led to first-degree murder charges, police said, after she admitted to discussing how to dispose of Taylor en route to the deserted utility road in Leakin Park. 

Baltimore police have said the city has about 2,600 known gang members and 170 criminal street gangs, but the gruesome details and integral role of teenage girls in the Bounty Hunters has drawn particular police attention.  

Gang violence is affecting every county in the Baltimore metropolitan area, according to state authorities, who say the problem is spreading throughout the state: 

» Baltimore County has about 35 known gangs — half with national affiliations, such as the Bloods or Crips — with more than 300 members. 

» Anne Arundel has about 25 known gangs, including MS-13, with about 100 members. 

» Carroll authorities have identified nine gangs with 77 members, including 45 Crips and 12 Bloods, and say the county's gang activity is most prominent in Westminster.

» Harford police say they know of more than 200 Bloods and 90 Crips active in the county. 

» Howard County authorities says their biggest problem is MS-13, with police arresting at least 55 suspected members of the gang. 

» The area’s gang problem is most prevalent in Baltimore City,  where about half of all gang members from state jails and prisons are released. Police have identified 400 Bloods and 100 Crips operating in Baltimore, more than half of whom are under 25. Police said there are more than 50 gangs with about 500 members in city high schools and an additional 500 gang members in middle and elementary schools.

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