3-18-2025 4:24am

25 YEARS AGO:

Joby Palczynzki killed four people and held a family hostage for days before being killed by police, Your Worst Nightmare examines the case. 31-year-old Joseph C. Palczynski had worked at an electrician and was a fan of body building, but at the time of the shootings he was unemployed. He also had an extensive list of prior convictions for assault, battery and other crimes, having served time in both prison and mental institutions. On March 7, 2000, in the suburb of Bowley’s Quarters near Baltimore, Palczynzki kidnapped his 22-year-old former girlfriend Tracy Whitehead...

Joseph C. Palcynski - "Joby" Palcynski went on a two-week rampage of murder and kidnapping. He held five people hostage in a 97-hour ordeal in Dundalk, Maryland.

The ordeal came to an end when one of the hostages managed to slip Xanax into Palcynski's drink and escape. Police were able to raid the home and shoot and kill Palcynski.

Joseph Chester "Joe" Palczynski (November 11, 1968 – March 21, 2000) was a spree killer in the suburbs of Baltimore who in March 2000 killed four people and held a family of three as hostages in nearly a four-day standoff, one of the longest known conducted by one man.[2]

The saga ended when the two adult hostages escaped the house, the third—a child—was rescued, and Baltimore County Police fatally shot Palczynski as he was reaching for a gun. A woman was convicted and sentenced for buying weapons for a convicted felon, because she bought guns for him before he committed these crimes.

Background

In the years before his shooting rampage, Palczynski, an electrician and bodybuilder, had a lengthy record of domestic violence and related crimes. He had been in and out of prison, mental institutions, and was on parole or probation on many occasions. Some of his earlier crimes included assault and battery.

On one occasion, he apparently caused one of his ex-girlfriends to have a miscarriage after he beat her. In 1992 he had been involved in a standoff in Idaho that lasted 16 hours.[3]

At the time of the shootings, Palczynski was unemployed and wanted for violating his parole.[citation needed]

First three killings

On March 7, 2000, a triple homicide occurred in the quiet community of Bowley's Quarters near Middle River (a suburb to the east of Baltimore), an area not accustomed to violent crime. George and Gloria Shenk, ages 49 and 50, respectively, and their neighbor, David Meyers, aged 42, were shot to death as Palczynski kidnapped his estranged girlfriend, Tracy Whitehead, then 22, and drove away with her in his mother's car.[4] The Shenks had sheltered Whitehead, who had accused Palczynski of abusing her. She had recently left him and planned to move into her own apartment from her parents' house, where she had been living. FINISH READING HERE