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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 25, 1992                   TAG: 9203250319
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BLAND                                LENGTH: Short

ABANDONED GIRL'S PARENTS BACK IN BLAND

A Woodbridge couple charged with abandoning their 11-year-old daughter on Interstate 77 before concluding a suicide pact have been returned to Bland County from Beckley, W.Va., where they were apprehended.

Lorne and Cassandra Cooper are scheduled for arraignment in Bland County General District Court Thursday morning. Meanwhile, they are being held in jail.

The daughter was picked up by a Marion minister and his family, who alerted authorities in Bluefield, W.Va., that the girl said her parents had asked her to join them in committing suicide so they could be in heaven. Her 5-year-old brother had stayed with them, and was temporarily placed with a W.Va. human services agency when the couple was arrested for child abandonment.

- Southwest bureau

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by CNB