In Once-Quiet Area, Violence Erupts

Four people were shot to death in Prince George's County within 30 hours yesterday and Friday, including a 40-year-old Lanham woman who was killed in her house by a stray bullet, county police said. In addition, a fifth person was killed in Greenbelt, a city within the county's borders.

The first of the shootings came about 5:15 p.m. and took the life of Theodora Summers, who lived in the 6700 block of 96th Avenue, in a solid working-class neighborhood in Lanham. But increasingly, neighbors said, at least one nearby house has become a magnet for young people to congregate at all hours.

An argument among a group standing outside of that house escalated into a drive-by shooting Friday, county police said. Summers was alone in her house when the stray bullet killed her.

"It's a real tragic situation," police Cpl. Diane Richardson said. Police said the bullet, aimed at the group, went through Summers's second-story bedroom window, striking her in the upper body and killing her instantly.

Summers's neighbors called the woman a victim of changes in a once-quiet community that is growing more unstable. One factor, they said, was that 96th Avenue is a major connector between Good Luck Road and Route 450.

"It has gotten bad at night around here," said Bob Hara, who was taking his afternoon walk yesterday near where the shooting occurred. "Three to four times a week you hear guns going off."

Longtime resident Shaun Nebblett, 47, said she was talking with her mother in her living room late Friday afternoon when she heard gunfire.

"I just can't believe that something like this happened right here in our neighborhood. It is like that movie 'Boyz n the Hood,' " she said.

Her husband, Milton Nebblett, 48, said the community had changed in the two decades they have lived there.

"When we moved here it was primarily white collar; today it is primarily blue collar," said Milton Nebblett, a chef who is well known in the community.

At the Best Western hotel on Princess Garden Parkway in Lanham yesterday, employees were saddened to learn about her death. Summers was a hostess at the hotel restaurant.

"She was a hard worker. Everybody loved her, and she made people laugh," said Tawanna McSwain, a housekeeper at the hotel.