A St. Mary's firefighter stabbed his mother's fiance to death, police allege, amid an argument Sunday evening between the two men in the living quarters of the Bay District firehouse in Lexington Park.
Nicholas Thomas Potts III, 22, was arrested by police after the fire department's chief found him trying to clean up blood in the second-floor lounge area where the attack occurred, according to detectives. Lawmen followed a trail of blood from the lounge to a storage room, where they found the body of 46-year-old James Augustus "Gus" Choporis Jr. of Lexington Park shrouded in blankets, towels and plastic.
Potts and Choporis had stopped at the firehouse so Potts could take care of some duties, detectives report, and the ensuing argument may have been about money. Choporis was struck on the head with a golf club before he was repeatedly cut with a folding knife, including wounds to his neck.
Potts, a California resident and senior firefighter, was jailed without bond on charges including first-degree murder.
E-mail John Wharton at [email protected].
Copyright, 2006 Southern Maryland Newspapers. Republished with permission from The Enterprise.
