Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 29, 1990 TAG: 9007290069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Gunn calls so often that she no longer needs to introduce herself. "Oh yeah, you're the Virginia lady," an officer who recognized her voice said during a recent call.
For the past year, Gunn has been calling several times a week to ask if police have arrested the person who shot and killed her son, 18-year-old Bryan "Chipper" Gunn, in a North Bronx motel room June 22, 1989.
She doesn't like what she hears.
"I'm very disgusted with the way New York is handling this case," Gunn said. "I was very much impressed after talking to the district attorney that Bryan was just a number and not a real person."
The unsolved murder of an out-of-town teen-ager seems to have been all but forgotten, Gunn said - just another one of the 1,905 homicides in New York last year.
"Chipper may be a number in New York, but he's a real person to me," Gunn said in a recent interview at her home in Northwest Roanoke's Lincoln Terrace housing project.
She wonders why authorities, who have said her only child was apparently killed in a drug dispute, have not made an arrest despite having a suspect who was in custody but later released.
"If they can leave Bedford and go to England for the [Jens] Soering [murder] case, then surely they can do something between the Bronx and Roanoke for my son's case," she said.
Gunn has been more to New York authorities than just a voice on a long-distance line. She traveled to the Bronx in January to meet with police and a district attorney to discuss the case.
Even though authorities assured her the probe into her son's death is still open, Gunn said she left the meeting with a bad feeling.
And she is frustrated that police seldom return her calls.
"I know that they have a lot of other cases going on up there, but it doesn't take that long to pick up the telephone and say: `Mrs. Gunn, there's nothing new in Bryan's case.' "
Investigators have said they have information that Gunn may have been killed over a $1,000 drug debt. Police say the gunman may have been hired by a drug dealer who traveled occasionally between New York and Roanoke.
"Unfortunately, it was settled street-wise," said Harry Cordero, a New York detective who is investigating the case.
Cordero said he is still actively pursuing the investigation, although he acknowledges there are other pressing cases competing for his time.
"We do have a priority thing, but also bear in mind that some cases you can solve overnight and other cases, like this one, take more time," he said.
"We're looking for a few more pieces in the puzzle."
Gunn thinks there is more to her son's killing than a dispute over drug money.
"One thousand dollars is not much in the drug business," she said. "You have teen-agers these days who are walking around with that much money."
Gunn said her son gave no indication that he was involved in drugs, and that he frequently traveled to New York to visit friends and buy clothes.
His last trip to New York came just one week after he graduated from high school. The following Tuesday, Gunn and his mother planned to attend an orientation at Virginia State College, where he was to begin classes in the fall.
"When he didn't come home by Monday, I knew something was wrong," Gunn said.
After Gunn questioned two youths who had gone to New York with her son but returned home without him, they told her that he might have been shot. A short time later, Gunn was identified as the homicide victim in New York.
More than a year has passed, but, "It doesn't hurt any less," Jacqueline Gunn said.
"You relive every day of it," she said. "The whole month of June, I was tense, and every day I was waiting for someone to call and tell me something, anything, about the case."
Cordero said he understands Gunn's frustration. "I guess if I were in her situation I would be upset and concerned, but there's a lot of frustration on my part, too," he said.
Whether he needs it or not, Cordero will have plenty of reminders about the unsolved case.
"If I just stay on them and make them aware that I'm not going to let Chipper become another number, maybe something will break," Gunn said. "I'm not going to let it die."
by CNB