Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 19, 1990 TAG: 9007190294
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Relatives of Boggs and the elderly widow he robbed and killed six years ago were reluctant to talk Wednesday about the crime.
"I'm sure you understand, but the Boggs family really doesn't want to talk about it at all," said Marie Deans of the Virginia Coalition on Jails and Prisons. Deans had contacted the family at the request of The Associated Press to offer them an opportunity to talk about their lives since their son was convicted of murdering Treeby M. Shaw in 1984.
The victim's daughter also declined to talk about tonight's scheduled execution.
"I'm sorry, but she doesn't want to speak about it," said an unidentified man answering the telephone at the woman's home in Chesapeake. "Both families were quite close. They attend the same church. There has been too much pain already."
Shaw, 87, lived two doors down from the Boggs family in a quiet, residential section of Portsmouth. Neighbors said Ricky Boggs' father and Shaw's late husband were close friends. After the man's death, the elder Boggs often visited Shaw and helped with odd jobs.
The elder Boggs was a pallbearer at Treeby Shaw's funeral.
Ricky Boggs, 21 at the time of the murder, grew up with the Shaws as neighbors. But on Jan. 24, 1984, Boggs robbed and killed Shaw while she poured him tea.
"I really didn't want to kill her, but I needed money for drugs," he told police after his arrest.
Testimony at his trial showed Boggs went to the Shaw house to borrow a book. While Shaw poured the tea, Boggs knocked the woman unconscious with a steel bar, then stabbed her several times.
by CNB