Today's story by Baltimore Sun police reporter Justin Fenton on two cousins who were shot and killed, possibly because they were present when a friend of theirs was shot in June, brought back some memories. Their 31-year-old cousin, Mark Tilley, was killed back in March of 2000 during an apparent break-in at his apartment on St. Paul Street, across from Penn Statiion.

Tilley had been an assistant chef at the Country Club of Maryland on Stevenson Lane in Towson, and was known for his baggy white pants decorated with jalapenos and his own version of the classic crab cake that got rave reviews.

It was one of those killings in a then up-and-coming neighborhood that stunned his family and renewed concerns about safety north of downtown. It was the city's 56th homicide in a year that finished with 261 -- the first time Baltimore had fewer than 300 homicides in a decade.

That, of course, was of small comfort to Tilley's family, who now mourns the loss of two more family members. Tilley was a 1986 graduate of Randallstown High School and later from Baltimore International Culinary College,

His grandmother, Hortense Grant, said she used to follow Tilley from restaurant to restaurant -- he worked at Harvey's at Greenspring Station before the country club -- to sample his food. She said "seafood was his specialty. He made the best crab cakes in Maryland." Asked how he did that, Grant paused and then said: "I don't know. He wouldn't tell me."