Shady Side man convicted of double murder

A Shady Side man was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder Friday in the shooting deaths of two people in June 2017. Kirk Byron Matthews, 57, was convicted of the two murder counts as well as several weapons offenses related to the killings of Leslie Michael Smith, 48, and his live-in companion, Linda Lynn McKenzie, 44. He was convicted by an Anne Arundel County jury in Circuit Court. McKenzie and Smith were found shot dead in the woods near Scott Town and Nick roads in Shady Side last year. Matthews was indicted on two counts of common law murder and various weapons charges in September 2017, which gave the jury the option to find Matthews guilty of either manslaughter, first-degree murder or second- degree murder. Prosecutors said Matthews shot the two with a shotgun and dragged their bodies into the woods after an altercation between Smith and McKenzie. The FBI is assisting Prince George’s County police in a broadening investigation into the causes of the severe electrical shock received by a child swinging on a lighted handrail at MGM National Harbor this summer, county law enforcement officials said Thursday. Prince George’s Police Chief Hank Stawinski said the probe will examine the “systems” that could have played a role in the lifethreatening injuries of the 6-year-old girl at the casino and hotel on the shore of the Potomac River — including design, permitting, installation and inspection processes. Determining if corners were cut to speed the opening of the $1.4 billion project, which officials have heralded as an “economic game changer” for the Maryland county, is “at the heart” of the investigation, the chief said. Stawinski and the county’s state’s attorney, Angela D. Alsobrooks, said the investigation will look at whether there is the possibility of public corruption, which has cast a shadow over the county since the arrest of former county executive Jack B. Johnson in 2010. He served more than five years in prison for destroying evidence in a corruption scheme. “We will find the truth in this — if that includes public corruption, so be it,” Alsobrooks said.