Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 14, 1993 TAG: 9302140023
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
3 MEN ARRESTED IN KILLING SHERIFF: SHOOTING WAS DRUG RELATED
Three men were arrested Friday and Saturday in Delaware and Blacksburg on charges of murdering and robbing a Grayson County man whose body was found in the New River two weeks ago. A fourth man was arrested Thursday.Those charged in the death of Albert Haywood Hamilton Sr., 68, are:
Robert D. Godfrey, 23, who was arrested Saturday at his home in New Castle, Del.
Darrell Wayne Smith, 20, of Blacksburg, and Charles Richard Akers, 19, of Route 2, Fries, who were arrested Friday in Blacksburg.
William Lacy Baldwin, 22, of Elk Creek, who was arrested Thursday.
The four are charged with first-degree murder, robbery of four guns found near Hamilton's body, and the use of a firearm in a felony, according to Grayson County Sheriff Herbert McKnight. Godfrey also is charged as a fugitive from justice.
Godfrey, Baldwin and Akers are cousins by marriage "and Smith was just along for the ride," McKnight said Saturday.
The sheriff said drugs were involved in the killing. After Hamilton's body was located, police found 300 plastic buckets containing remnants of marijuana plants in a shed at his home at Comers Rock in northern Grayson County.
The body was weighted by a cinder block, police said, and Hamilton's death was caused by gunshot wounds in the head and neck, according to a medical examiner. Hamilton, who lived alone, had not been seen since December when the killing probably occurred, police said.
Hamilton's four children in the Washington-Northern Virginia area have been in contact with the sheriff's department, McKnight said.
Godfrey, who is held in Gander Hill prison in Wilmington, Del. without bond, has refused to waive extradition to Grayson County, officers said. But McKnight said he expects the Delaware man will be returned for trial after extradition procedures are completed.
Smith and Akers are held in Carroll County jail at Hillsville and Baldwin is in the Grayson County jail at Independence, all on bond of $250,000.
The sheriff's staff "put our notes and our heads together" to find the men after Hamilton's body was found, McKnight said.
When the men are tried in court, the sheriff said, he expects "hair-raisers" will come out in testimony.