Shooting suspect’s vehicle found
Search for man accused of killing Maryland judge continues
HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Authorities found the vehicle used by the suspect in the fatal shooting of a Maryland judge but asked the public to remain vigilant Saturday as they continued searching for the man.
Pedro Argote, 49, is suspected of gunning down the judge in his driveway hours after he ruled against him in a divorce case. The Washington County sheriff’s office said in a statement posted on Facebook that the silver Mercedes SUV that Argote was believed to be driving had been located in a wooded area in Williamsport, about 8 miles southwest of Hagerstown, where the judge was shot outside his home.
“Anyone with information on Argote’s location should immediately notify law enforcement,” the sheriff ’s office said in its statement.
Circuit Court Judge Andrew Wilkinson, 52, was shot late Thursday, just hours after he awarded custody of Argote’s children to his wife. Washington County Sheriff Brian Albert said it was a “targeted attack.”
“We’re going to catch this guy, it’s just a matter of time,” Albert said.
The U.S. Marshals Service is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that leads to Argote’s arrest.
In a news release issued late Friday, the Marshals Service said Argote has ties to multiple areas outside of Maryland, including Brooklyn and Long Island, N.Y.; Tampa and Clearwater, Fla.; Columbus, Ind.; and unknown cities in North Carolina.
Albert said Argote is considered “armed and dangerous.”
Wilkinson had presided over a divorce proceeding involving Argote earlier Thursday, but Argote was not present at the hearing, Albert said. The judge gave custody of Argote’s children to his wife at the hearing, and that was the motive for the killing, the sheriff said. The judge had also ordered Argote to have no contact with the children and pay $1,120 a month in child support.
Argote, who shared four children — ages 12, 11, 5 and 3 — with his ex-wife, is also accused of physically abusing one of the children, according to court documents obtained on Friday by NBC News. In a petition for a protective order filed in Washington County District Court on June 12, 2022, the ex-wife accused Argote of having abused the 11-year-old.
The abuse went on for a very long time, the ex-wife said. She says she sought help from a domestic violence advocacy center a decade earlier but didn’t get the help she needed. However, according to the June 2022 document, the physical abuse had stopped after she confronted Argote and told him if he wanted “to get to [the child], he needed to hit me or kill me.”
“I am not taking this anymore,” she wrote. “I will protect my child.”
According to the petition, Argote also harassed his exwife via text messages and monitored her constantly through security cameras. She also accused him of threatening to take custody of their kids over neglect claims, which she said were unfounded.
Hagerstown, a city of nearly 44,000, lies about 75 miles northwest of Baltimore.
Judges across the U.S. have been the target of threats and sometimes violence in recent years. President Joe Biden last year signed a bill to give around-the-clock security protection to the families of Supreme Court justices after the leak of a draft court opinion overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision, which prompted protests outside of conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices’ homes.
In June 2022, a retired Wisconsin County Circuit Judge John Roemer, was killed in his home in what authorities said was a targeted killing. That same month, a man carrying a gun, a knife and zip ties was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house in Maryland after threatening to kill the justice.
A men’s rights lawyer with a history of anti-feminist writings posed as a FedEx delivery person in 2020 and fatally shot the 20-yearold son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, and wounded her husband at their New Jersey home. Salas was not injured.
In August, a Texas woman was charged with threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the Washington case accusing Donald Trump of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss.