Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 2, 1991 TAG: 9104020620
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK and RON BROWN STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
None of the three people beaten - Clarence Fuller, 56; Charles B. Kinney, 20; and Crystal H. Patterson, 21 - was injured seriously enough to be hospitalized, police said.
Fuller told police that he was asleep in an upstairs bedroom of a house in the 1300 block of Gilmer Avenue when at about 1:50 a.m. an intruder pulled him from bed and led him downstairs at gunpoint.
Once downstairs, Fuller was beaten along with Patterson and Kinney by the two men, who also brandished handguns during the attack.
The men said they wanted money they believed was in the house, police said. When police arrived a short time later, an officer saw two men jump into a car that sped off.
The car was stopped at 10th Street and Staunton Avenue, and police arrested Robert Marcellus Manns Jr., 20, of 10th Street Northwest and Ahmad H. Murdi, 22 of Wells Avenue. They face charges of brandishing firearms and assault.
Area police also reported the following incidents:
Roanoke police have arrested three Northwest Roanoke youths after two people complained of being harassed at Franklin Road automobile dealerships over the weekend.
The youths - who range in age from 12 to 14 years - face charges that include brandishing a gun and unrelated offenses of stealing clothing from a Roanoke County sporting goods store.
Two men told police they were approached by the youths in automobile dealership parking lots over the weekend. One man said the youths jumped onto his car hood, tried to get inside and then chased him as he drove away. Both men said one of the youths pulled a black revolver that police later determined was a toy gun.
A 19-year-old Roanoke man was charged Monday with firing a .38-caliber pistol in the air as a city police car passed him on Lafayette Boulevard Northwest. Jeff Leigh Washington, of Delaware Avenue Northwest, faces charges of shooting in the city and carrying a concealed weapon.
A Patrick County man faces a cruelty-to-animals charge, accused of throwing a sick dog from the window of a moving car. The dog later died. Patrick County Sheriff Jay E. Gregory said James Robert Parker, 25, was already in jail on charges that he slapped a woman. He also is accused of stomping a jail commode to pieces.
Michael A. Harris, 27, who was driving a loaded gasoline tanker-truck that crashed through the Boones Mill Exxon ceramics shop last week, has been charged with reckless driving. The truck spilled 500 gallons of gas when a beam from the building pierced the tank. The cleanup is continuing.
A clerk in a small Franklin County grocery store fled out the back door when a masked bandit walked in demanding money Monday night. Franklin County Sheriff's Capt. Bill Overton said police were still trying to determine if money was taken from Mountain View Grocery on Virginia 919. State police tracking dogs had been called in to look for the suspect, who was believed to be armed.
A masked bandit in Salem fled on foot Sunday after he bound and gagged two clerks with duct tape at the Family Dollar Store on Wildwood Road. Salem Police Detective Sgt. Mike Fisher said the man, who took some cash, apparently hid in the store and robbed it after its 5 p.m. closing.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 3, 1991.
Because of a reporter's error, a store robbed in Salem on Sunday was incorrectly identified in Tuesday's editions. It was a Dollar General Store. Also, because of incorrect information provided to the newspaper, the job titles of the two people bound and gagged during the robbery were incorrect. One was a cashier and the other was a store manager.
Memo: CORRECTION