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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080244
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HUSBAND CHARGED IN KILLING OF WOMAN FOUND ON I-81

Lawrence Church, 61, was arrested Thursday morning in his home in Lower Paxton Township, Pa., near Harrisburg. He faces a murder charge.

Ann Church, 55, died of strangulation and a puncture wound to the head. A medical examiner said the wound appeared to have been made by a hollow-cored instrument such as a punch drill.

According to a court document, Church had made inconsistent statements to police throughout the two-month investigation. Bloodstains found in the Churches' home and on the floorboard of their van were consistent with his wife's blood type.

The court document outlines the following allegations:

On Nov. 13, Church reported that his wife had failed to return home after going on an overnight shopping trip to Winchester with an old school friend, whom he could not identify. He said he was taking a shower when the friend picked up his wife the previous evening.

He told police he did not know what kind of car was being driven by his wife's friend, who was described only as a woman.

However, during an interview with police on Nov. 21, about two weeks before the body was found, he three times referred to Nov. 12 as the day she "passed away." The medical examiner estimated that she had been dead two to three weeks when a hitchhiker discovered her body at the bottom of an embankment Dec. 4.

The same day as the interview, a detective also found bloodstains on the wooden steps behind the Church residence.

About a week after the interview, Church had the carpeting in the house and van professionally cleaned. The man who cleaned the carpets told police he also tried to clean a stain from a couch that could have been either coffee or blood.

Police then searched the house and found a stain suspected to be blood on the couch and on a carpet leading to the back door. They also found a substantial amount of blood on the underside of the living-room carpet.

Suspected blood splatters were found on the wall, door and end table near the couch. Other bloodstains were found on seats and carpets in the van.

Lawrence Church dismissed the blood on the back steps by saying he had "busted my knuckles" while doing some work. He said the blood on the carpet was cat blood.

A lab analysis showed the blood was human Type B, consistent with Ann Church's blood type.

Two pairs of eyeglasses matching those worn by Ann Church also were found in the house. Although she always wore glasses, none was found with her body.

George Church, brother of the suspect, told police that he never heard Ann Church discuss an overnight trip to Virginia during his visit to the home on Nov. 12. He said she asked him three times to extend his visit overnight, but he could not stay because of his work schedule as a long-haul truck driver.

The Churches had been married for two years and had spent a weekend in Virginia last summer. She previously had been married to a Roanoke man who has since remarried, police said.