NATHANIEL GOLPHIN POINTED A GUN AT A
ST. MARY’S DEPUTY WHO NEARLY SHOT HIM GRAVEYARD DEAD; Latest incident reveals trail of shootings, murders, violent crime, and carjackings as Sheriff Hall’s term ends in chaos, spiraling cost of new Sheriff’s Palace

CALIFORNIA, MD. – The moral of the story for a recent import to St. Mary’s County, from the District of Columbia, is one that he almost had to take to his grave: don’t point a gun at a cop, as the cop is going to send your lame ass straight to the hell you deserve.  The reason for this is that citizens hire cops to keep them safe from hoodlums like you.  The citizens train cops, arm them, and expect them to shoot you graveyard dead if you try to kill a citizen or a cop.

 GOLPHIN PULLED A GUN ON DEPUTIES

On July 23, 2025, at approximately 6:10 p.m., an officer-involved shooting occurred in California, MD. The preliminary investigation revealed deputies located a subject wanted on a search warrant at the Dollar Tree store in the San Souci Plaza. As deputies approached the individual, he fled. Deputies pursued him. The individual displayed a firearm, and a deputy discharged his agency weapon one time, striking the subject.

Deputies immediately rendered aid until emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene. The subject, a 19-year-old male, was transported via Maryland State Police Aviation Command to an area trauma center for treatment, where he is currently listed in critical but stable condition.

The suspect’s firearm was recovered at the scene. The suspect has been identified as Nathaniel Mekhi Golphin, 19, of California, MD. He remains hospitalized in stable condition, and a warrant with criminal charges has been issued for the following:

• Handgun on person
• Loaded handgun on a person
• Possession of a firearm while under 21years of age
• Firearm possession with a criminal violent felony conviction
• Illegal possession of ammunition
• Knowingly altering a manufacturer’s identification number on a firearm

Detective Corporal Warren Forinash, an eight-year veteran of the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office, was identified as the deputy who fired his weapon, striking the suspect once. Per agency policy, Cpl. Forinash has been placed on administrative leave pending investigations by the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department of Professional Responsibilities and Criminal Investigations Division.

NATANIEL GOLPHIN BEGAN HIS
 ADULT CRIMINAL CAREER IN DC

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Third District announce a man has been arrested for attempting to rob a victim in the 3300 block of 11th Street, Northwest.

On Wednesday, January 3, 2024, at approximately 8:17 a.m., the suspect approached the victim with his hand in his pocket as if he had a weapon and demanded property from the victim. The victim realized there was no weapon and yelled for help. The suspect fled the scene without obtaining any property from the victim.

Metropolitan Police records show that on Wednesday, January 3, 2024, 18-year-old Nathaniel Golphin (DOB 10/27/2005) was arrested and charged with Attempt to Commit Robbery.

District Superior Court records reveal the conviction of Golphin:
06/10/2024         Sentence

Sentence for Charge # 1, Attempt to Commit Robbery

Sentence Date: 06/10/2024

Time: 0 years, 15 months, 0 days.

Time Susp: 0 years, 8 months, 0 days.

Amount To Serve: 0 years, 7 months, 0 days.

Supervised Release: 3 years, 0 months, 0 days, Suspended.

VVCA Amount:        100.00 , Due:  01/10/2026

Probation Type: SUPVP, Start Date:  , End Date:

Probation Time: 0 years, 12 months, 0 days

Probation Conditions: Community Service

• Special Conditions: 40 hours of community service must be complete before probation review hearing date.
• Probation Conditions:  Drug Treatment Program
• Special Conditions:  Do not consume illegal drugs.
• Probation Conditions: Seek Medical, Psychological/Psychiatric Treatment
• Special Conditions: Mental health assessment and treatment if needed, including medical treatment. Grief counseling
• Probation Conditions: Other conditions:
• Special Conditions: Mentor
• Probation Conditions: Other conditions:
• Special Conditions:  Enroll, attend and graduate for a high school program
• Probation Conditions:  Stay Away From:
• Special Conditions:  see addendum

Defense counsel may file a motion for Youth Act consideration.

Sentencing Comments: Defendant to receive credit for time served. Probation may be transferred to the State of Maryland.

 

NATHANIEL GOLPHIN NOW IN HOSPITAL

This incident, which has left the hoodlum in a hospital suffering from two implants of lead from a deputy, isn’t his first rodeo, as he was found guilty of attempted robbery in the District of Columbia in 2024, and sentenced to a year in prison, with credit given for time served and probation transferred to Maryland. This story also highlights the increasing daylight crime that has been spreading over the Lexington Park and California areas, including the shopping centers.

A series of carjackings and a drive-by shooting at the location of a former black barber shop in the San Souci Center are more indications that too many of the deputies in St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department are assigned to the headquarters in Leonardtown instead of patrolling the community. 

The story of a punk who decided to point his ghost gun at a St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Deputy began when his family bought a house in the San Souci subdivision located behind the San Souci Shopping Center in California, Maryland. 

DRUG DEALER WENDELL FORD BECAME A REAL ESTATE SPECULATOR AFTER SERVING HIS TIME IN PRISON

Dametria Golphin purchased a home located at 45969 Herring Court in the San Souci Subdivision from the notorious drug dealer Wendell Ignatius Ford Sr. for $290,000 on July 31, 2024. Since serving a federal prison term for cocaine distribution, Ford has become a successful land and real estate investor. Ford purchased the property on December 29, 2023, from Ward Investing LLC for a purchase price of $130,000, making for a handsome profit in just six months. Ford has nearly a dozen other real estate transactions under his belt since his release from prison.

WHERE’S THE LOOT?

Ford, who attended Great Mills High School, operated a successful cocaine distribution scheme that operated up and down the East Coast and included the famous Loot Scandal with the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department that took place during the administration of St. Mary’s County Sheriff Richard Voorhaar.  Ford established a network of sub-dealers in the region, who were supplied cocaine through his system until 2007, when he was convicted in the United States District Court of drug distribution of five kilos of cocaine and sentenced to federal prison for eight years.

Ford sent a letter to a federal judge after he was released from prison following the completion of his prison sentence, requesting leniency on the strict terms of his five-year probation so he could travel out of state to assist his aging mother in visiting friends and family.

 Before Ford’s federal drug distribution conviction, a St. Mary’s Sheriff Department investigation in 2002, into stolen lumber from a construction site on Rt. 235, across from the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, of a building owned by the Eagan McAlister firm, led deputies to Ford’s home on First Street in the Southampton community of Hermanville. St. Mary’s Sheriff Captain Steven Doolan oversaw the seizure of $80,000 worth of building supplies in the raid.  When St. Mary’s State’s Richard Fritz dropped the charges against Ford, Ford’s attorneys A. Shane Mattingly and Michael Suessmann, filed for the return of the seized building supplies after Sheriff Lt. Lyle Long told Ford that Ford would never get the property returned.

ST. MARY’S TODAY published the news of the building supplies stolen by deputies from the property storage in a compound under police control. The story became the leading cause for Sheriff Richard Voorhaar to scrap a planned campaign for another term in office rather than face the onslaught of news evolving from a scandal that became known as “Where’s the Loot?“  Eventually, Captain Steven Doolan was busted in rank to Sergeant and forced to retire to avoid being fired when it became known that he had given much of the property to his stepson, George Michael Bowes, and Doolan’s friend, Steven Cooper.

Wendell I Ford et al, Plaintiffs, v. Richard J. Voorhaar et. al. First Amended Complaint

Doolan’s wife was the campaign treasurer for Fritz, and no deputies were ever prosecuted for stealing the building materials, despite some of them bringing back various items. Ford filed suit for his property, and a settlement was reached that left the taxpayers paying for items seized from Ford.

 

Dealt Fatal Dose of Fentanyl

A St. Mary’s County jury convicted Damauriae Myzuan Jones, 26, of Lexington Park, Maryland, of distribution of fentanyl and distribution of a counterfeit narcotic.

The charges stem from a December 21, 2023, incident in which law enforcement responded to reports of an unresponsive woman. Upon arrival, officers discovered the victim was deceased. A toxicology report confirmed the presence of fentanyl in the victim’s blood. The medical examiner concluded that the victim’s cause of death was fentanyl intoxication. Items recovered from the scene and tested by the Maryland State Police lab included a cut straw and pills appearing to be oxycodone that both tested positive for fentanyl.

An investigation revealed electronic payments and communications between the victim and Jones regarding a narcotics transaction. These findings further corroborated that Jones distributed the fentanyl to the victim on the night of her overdose death.

“Fentanyl is killing people in our community, and this case is yet another heartbreaking reminder,” said State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling. “These deadly pills sold on the street are not prescribed by a doctor or regulated by the FDA. They are counterfeit drugs, ‘fakes’ that may look like prescription medications, such as oxycodone, but are laced with the deadly drug fentanyl.”

Jones remains held without bond pending sentencing. He faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Lisa Ridge, Chief of Narcotics, prosecuted the case on behalf of the citizens of St. Mary’s County.

 

BLOODSHED IN THE GHETTO

Mother’s Day 2023 weekend was celebrated by Lexington Park hoodlums with gunfire that resulted in two people being wounded, one shot in the stomach and another injured in the leg, just four weeks after Marcus Anthony Day was shot dead at the Sheetz in Great Mills.  An unnamed 15-year-old teen was arrested on May 5, 2023, in King George County, Virginia, after he fled Maryland as police began pursuing evidence from the April 4, 2023, murder.  Police were called to Sheetz for gunfire at 10:37 pm that evening, and shortly afterward, Marcus Day arrived at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital with fatal gunshot wounds.

While some say that the good die young, that can’t be said for the murder victim at Sheetz.  Marcus Day was not good when he was young.

Day was dead from gunfire administered by a 15-year-old male who will be charged as an adult. Under new laws enacted by the super-liberal Maryland General Assembly, the killer won’t be identified until the court approves of the adult charges of first and second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a minor for the alleged murder of Marcus Day.

 

The victim of Day and Travon Markell Courtney, his accomplice, was accosted by the thugs near the Leonardtown firehouse and was able to elude the predators as he walked home from his job. Day and Courtney were in the process of performing the only jobs they had been known to perform.

On May 5, 2025, a St. Mary’s County Circuit Court jury found James Jerome Adams Jr., 20, of Great Mills, Maryland, guilty of first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence for his role in a shooting homicide in Great Mills, Maryland.

On April 4, 2023, deputies from the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office responded to the parking lot of the Sheetz on Old Great Mills Road in Great Mills, Maryland, for a report of gunfire. A thorough investigation, including surveillance footage, revealed that Adams and several others carried out a coordinated attack on a 26-year-old victim who was at the convenience store. The victim suffered multiple gunshot wounds and ultimately succumbed to his injuries.

“The Defendant’s actions stole a young man’s life and endangered many others in a brazen act of gun violence carried out at a busy gas station,” said St. Mary’s County State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling. “This conviction delivers accountability, though no verdict can bring back the life that was tragically taken that day. We will continue to stand with the victim’s family and do everything in our power by continuing to prosecute cases involving senseless gun violence to the fullest extent of the law.”

Adams was convicted by a St. Mary’s County jury following a jury trial. He will be held without bond pending sentencing. He faces a maximum penalty of Life plus 20 years in prison.

Fifteen Years in the Big House for Badass

Jonathan Salazar-Martinez, 20, of Lexington Park, Maryland, was sentenced to 45 years, with 15 years in prison, for a domestic-related first-degree assault involving a firearm.

Less than 24 hours after he was released from serving a jail sentence for a separate misdemeanor assault, Salazar-Martinez tracked down the same victim from that prior assault, followed her to a friend’s house, and then discharged a firearm during the new criminal encounter.

“Repeat offenders must face serious consequences,” said State’s Attorney Jaymi Sterling. “I hope this sentence can ensure this domestic violence survivor a period of safety and empower her to break free from the vicious cycle of domestic violence.”

The State requested the maximum sentence of 45 years in prison. The Maryland Sentencing Guidelines called for a sentence between 8 and 12 years in prison.

The Court sentenced the Defendant to a sentence above the guideline range as follows:

·         First-degree assault: 25 years, with 10 years in prison; and

·         Use of a firearm in the commission of a violent crime: 20 years, with 5 years in prison.

The total sentence imposed was 45 years, with 15 years in prison.

Deputy Taylor-Lynn Kril of the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department was the lead investigator.

Assistant State’s Attorney Zachary Varda prosecuted the case on behalf of the citizens of St. Mary’s County.

The Honorable Amy Lorenzini presided over the case.