On the evening of August 29, 2002, Prince George's County Sheriff's Deputy Elizabeth Licera Magruder, a 30-year-old female, was shot and killed in the line of duty in Adelphi, Maryland. She and her partner, Sergeant James Arnaud, were attempting to serve an emergency psychiatric petition at a home in the 9300 block of Lynmont Drive. The subject of the petition, 23-year-old James Ramiah Logan, had been exhibiting increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior, prompting his wife to seek the court
order for a psychiatric evaluation.
Upon their arrival at approximately 9:30 p.m., the deputies encountered Logan, who had retreated to a back bedroom. As they attempted to talk him out, Logan opened fire with a handgun. Sergeant Arnaud was struck in the throat, and Deputy Magruder was fatally wounded by a gunshot to the back of the head. Logan then fled the scene, sparking a large-scale manhunt.
Two days after the shooting, undercover officers located and arrested Logan at an apartment building approximately two miles from the scene of the crime. The handgun used in the murders was recovered at the time of his arrest. The tragic event marked the first line-of-duty deaths in the 306-year history of the Prince George's County Sheriff's Department. Deputy Magruder, who had served with the department for 18 months, was posthumously promoted to Private First Class and left behind her husband and a 3-year-old son.
In November 2003, a jury found James Logan guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and a handgun violation, leading to a sentence of 100 years in prison. However, this conviction was overturned on appeal in September 2005, and a new trial was ordered. After his second trial resulted in a hung jury, Logan ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in October 2007 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released from prison in December of 2023.
