Court Subpoenas Victim for Accused Killer’s Trial

Theresa E. Ambrose was killed in February, shot during a robbery at the bar where she worked. But until Oct. 6, the court was trying to resurrect her to testify at the trial of the teenager accused of murdering her.

Three times the Baltimore Circuit Court sent summonses by mail to Ambrose demanding that she testify against the 16-year-old girl charged with pulling the trigger. The order was clear: Either appear in court or be jailed for contempt.

“Do the courts think they can subpoena her ghost?” said Louis “Van” Vanevera, Ambrose’s former fiance, who received the subpoenas at the home they shared. “She’s dead. This is a murder trial. Why do these things keep happening?”

Ambrose, 35, was working at her father’s tavern at 11:40 p.m. on Feb. 11 when three teenagers entered and demanded money. They asked the barmaid to open the cash register. But Ambrose froze, and one teenager shot her. One adult and four teenagers, including then-15-year-old Carleana A. Kirby, were charged in the case.

The summons was first mailed to Ambrose in August. A sheriff’s deputy hand-delivered another copy later in the summer; Vanevera says he confronted the deputy, who apologized. Nevertheless, a third copy came by mail, addressed to Ambrose and stating: “You are hereby summoned to appear as victim” in Kirby’s trial Oct. 20.

“Failure to appear on time may cause you to be charged with contempt of court or a warrant to be issued for your arrest,” the summons says.

The summons was signed by Patricia Bertorelli, chief deputy clerk for the Baltimore Circuit Court. Contacted on Oct. 2, Bertorelli said that a young clerk who no longer works for the court had mistakenly entered Ambrose’s name into the computer that produces subpoenas.

After a call from the Baltimore Sun, court officials deleted references to Ambrose from the computer system and held a staff meeting to ensure that such a mistake will not recur.

“This is the first time that it’s gotten to the point that someone complained about it,” Bertorelli said, adding: “We are straightening that out now.”

Court officials blamed the errors in part on confusion involving the Crime Victim Notification Request Form, which the state’s attorney’s office gives to every crime victim--or to the victim’s family when there is a homicide. The form is meant to help prosecutors locate relatives. If the victim is dead, there is space for an alternative victim’s name.

In that space, Ambrose’s relatives wrote in both her name and her mother’s name, and filled in both addresses. The clerk did not catch the mistake, and that information, once entered into the computer, triggered the subpoenas.