Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 3, 1990                   TAG: 9007030071
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Short

PULASKI GRAND JURY GETS MURDER CHARGE

Harold Lee Lawson Jr., 32, of Max Meadows, is charged with shooting 21-year-old Richard Wayne Smith to death on April 28.

Smith's body was found by neighbors the morning after the shooting in the front yard of his mother's mobile home in Walter's Trailer Park on U.S. 11 between Pulaski and Dublin.

Smith, who lived in Pulaski County, had been shot three times with a handgun. Investigators have said the 4:30 a.m. shooting apparently stemmed from an argument.

Lawson surrendered later that day to officers with the Wythe County Sheriff's Department, who turned him over to the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department.

Lawson, an auto mechanic at Heritage Pontiac in Pulaski, also was charged with using a firearm to commit a felony. He has been released from the Pulaski County Jail on $100,000 bond.

Pulaski County investigators have said that Lawson and Smith apparently got into an argument over Lawson's wife.