Maryland duo get 40 years for killing, dismembering roommate after crack-fueled fight

Two people have been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 2017 killing and dismemberment of their former roommate in Maryland.

Christina Harnish, also known as Christina Stallings, and William Rice were sentenced Friday to the maximum punishment for second-degree murder in the killing of Megan Tilman.

Body parts of Tilman, an Annapolis mother of two, washed up along the Shady Side shoreline weeks after she was killed.

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In the fall of 2017, Rice and Harnish were roommates of Tilman and her elderly mother and had relied on their financial support. When Tilman stopped providing that support, she disappeared, prosecutors said.

Tilman’s family reported that they stopped hearing from her. Her ex-husband reported receiving suspicious text messages and seeing social media posts on her account that were different from her normal communications.

By that time, Rice and Harnish had fled to Arizona by bus, State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said in a news release.

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The Baltimore Sun reported that public defender Anne Stewart-Hill said Harnish entered a three-way romance with Rice and Tilman after leaving an abusive relationship. She moved in with the couple and Tilman’s ailing mother.

Police and prosecutors said Harnish and Rice manipulated Tilman, who was intellectually disabled, out of her mother’s money.

Assistant State’s Attorney Glen Neubauer said it was Tilman’s money that paid for Harnish and Rice’s bus tickets to Arizona, where they lived in a homeless encampment for nearly four years. They were extradited to Maryland in February 2022 after being arrested by local officials in Pima County, Arizona.

Attorneys for both defendants said the fatal fight with Tilman was fueled by alcohol and crack cocaine.