THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407070506
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JODY R. SNIDER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
A Gwaltney packing plant worker died Wednesday afternoon after he was stabbed in the chest by a co-worker at the plant.
Eric Tyrone Giles, 23, of Smithfield died about 3 p.m. Wednesday after being stabbed near the heart during a fight.
Police have charged Preston O. Davis III, 23, of Suffolk with murder. He was arrested about 5:30 p.m. at a house in the 1000 block of Railroad Ave. in Suffolk.
Co-workers said the two men were fighting about a woman when the stabbing occurred.
At the time, Giles was just completing his shift and Davis was reporting for his. They began arguing in a hallway near the plant's cafeteria, co-workers said.
James Tynes, a worker in the fresh sausage department at Gwaltney, said Giles and Davis then began to struggle.
``They got in a fight in the hall, and then I saw him (Giles) laying out there on the floor,'' Tynes said.
Co-workers said Giles had worked at Gwaltney of Smithfield Ltd. for about two years.
He had recently been transferred to the bacon room but did not like the new assignment, they said.
Police recovered several knives at the crime scene, Police Chief Mark A. Marshall said. Investigators believe one of them was used in the stabbing.
The slaying was Smithfield's second this year. Before March, no one had been slain in Smithfield since 1984.
Two hours after the stabbing, Gloston Wooten, 22, was waiting outside the fence at Gwaltney to hear the fate of his friend.
``They ain't told us nothing,'' Wooten said. `` That's our brethren laying in there on that floor.''
KEYWORDS: STABBING FATALITY ARREST by CNB