DEVIL WAITED FOR THIS DEMON: DEADLY EXIT IN BOOZE-FILLED FLIP-OVER WAS A WELL-DESERVED HELL OF A LONG TIME COMING FOR MELVIN ELEM, WHO MAIMED HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND WITH ACID AND TOLD HER TO BURN, BABY, BURN

DEVIL WAITED FOR THIS DEMON: DEADLY EXIT IN BOOZE-FILLED FLIP-OVER WAS A WELL-DESERVED HELL OF A LONG TIME COMING FOR MELVIN ELEM, WHO MAIMED HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND WITH ACID AND TOLD HER TO BURN, BABY, BURN

CHARLOTTE HALL, MD – Melvin Leon Elem was sent to Hell on September 2, 2024, apparently by his own hand when St. Mary’s Sheriff Department Spokesperson Alisa Casas says he was likely speeding and intoxicated when he flipped his Nisson Armada while traveling on Maryland Rt. 5 at Oak Station Drive in Charlotte Hall.

Elem was recently released from a Maryland prison after being sentenced to 38 years by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Allen L. Schwait. Judge Schwait gave Elem his due reward in 2005: 25 years for first-degree assault, ten years for second-degree assault, and three years for carrying a deadly substance. It took a Baltimore City jury just ten minutes to convict him. The sentence was the maximum under Maryland law.

But Maryland, being Maryland, with an ultra-liberal legislature and an Alice in Wonderland Judiciary, Elem failed to serve his entire sentence.

The treacherous attack took place when Elem confronted Gail Pinson, his ex-girlfriend, on a morning in September 2003 at the house of her new boyfriend, Louis Hayes, on Chesholm Road. Pinson feared Elem so much that she took out a keep-away order for the 45-year-old Army veteran. In 2001, Pinson broke off a 20-year relationship with Elem.

Elem was a danger to others for most of his life, racking up eight assault convictions, including one for tossing acid on a co-worker.  His Facebook page, which includes photos of his 2021 Nissan Armada, includes many photos of him wearing a cross and thanking God for his daily being, and even cringy graphics of a cartoonish version of himself greeting all the beautiful women of Baltimore for Valentine’s Day. Elem created a half dozen Facebook pages, and none of them have any condolences from any family or friends expressed over his passing.

Melvin Elem’s arrest records show an address on Mount Holly Street in Baltimore. The house at that address belonged to his brother, who died in 2001 and became the property of his niece who later sold the house.

The description of Elem’s attack on Pinson by reporter Julie Bykowicz in the Baltimore Sun and Pinson’s resulting surgeries and damage to her face, neck, arm, and back belies any narcissistic concerns he professed to have for beautiful women and solidly paints him as just a monster.

On September 11, 2003, Elem found her on the steps of Haye’s home as the couple left for work. He unscrewed a fluid-filled jar and told her, ” See who will want you now,” as he threw it on her face.

Pinson was a special education teacher, and her injuries included requiring twelve surgeries, very painful skin grafts, a cornea transplant in one eye, and the need to wear a body suit and clear plastic face mask to smooth out her damaged skin, according to the Sun report on the trial. Pinson told the judge she had not yet returned to work as she feared how the children would react to her appearance.

Assistant States Attorney Julie Drake told the Sun that the case wasn’t only about the serious injuries Elem caused the victim, but how much delight the defendant took in the pain he caused her.

“What was so chilling wasn’t just the serious injuries to the victim but that the defendant delighted in the pain he was causing her,” said Assistant States Attorney Julie Drake, supervisor and 10-year veteran of the felony violence unit that prosecuted Elem.

Hayes also suffered some damage from the acid as he held Elem down to keep him from escaping from the police while paramedics were called.

The Sun reported: “The liquid melted the flesh on Pinson’s face, arm and back. Hayes said he saw her eyes change color and her skin turn dark.”

As police arrested Elem, he said to Pinson, “Burn, baby burn,” said prosecutors at the trial.

Hayes, at the sentencing, called Elem “… a coward and a poor excuse for a man. You have the devil inside you, and you are not worthy of being a free man.”

Longtime prosecutor Julie Drake died in 2016 and was described this way in Baltimore Magazine: “Assistant state’s attorney prosecuted the city’s most notorious child abusers, among them a mother, under the spell of a religious cult, who starved her 1-year-old son to death. As head of the State’s Attorney’s Office’s family violence division, she closed loopholes in the law in order to help prevent child abuse.”

Pinson told The Sun after Elem’s 2005 sentencing that she hoped to return to teaching that fall.