On October 27, 2008, Jodi Lynne Torok was at her Crofton, MD home talking on the phone with her close friend, Blair Wolfe, when a man, purporting to be a salesman, knocked on her front door. Jodi ended the call to respond to the so-called salesman, but thereafter never called Ms. Wolfe back or answered any of Wolfe's subsequent telephone calls. Growing increasingly concerned, Ms. Wolfe telephoned the victim's roommate, and requested that she leave work and return home to make sure that the victim was safe. Upon arriving at the residence that she shared with the victim, Ms. Higgs found the front door unlocked and the victim lying on the foyer, unconscious and bleeding from a gunshot wound to her head. At the time, she was two months pregnant. As a result of the gunshot wound, the victim's pregnancy was terminated, and she suffered severe and disabling injuries. The State developed a theory that, Charles Martin was in a relationship with the victim and upon learning of Torok’s refusal to obtain an abortion, solicited a friend to kill Torok and assisted Burks in the murder. The State charged Martin with solicitation of murder and accessory before the fact to attempted murder in the first degree. He was convicted and sentence to life in prison.
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