Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 20, 1993 TAG: 9302200292
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
CHANGES LEFT PAIR BEHIND
DON PETERSEN/Staff. An investigator removes evidence from the home where James\ and Evelyn Merritt lived more than 40 years, and died. color. NOTE: Merritt, James & Evelyn.\ Over the years, the neighborhood surrounding College Street changed.People who worked in Martinsville's textile mills and furniture factories, people who had bought houses shortly after World War II, retired and moved away.
Houses on one side of the street were torn down to make way for businesses. The 10 or so remaining old homes were divided into apartments.
But for more than 40 years, the one constant on College Street was the couple at 206: James and Evelyn Merritt.
"The street years ago was a fairly nice street," police Lt. Dave Edwards said, "and they just stayed on even after it started going down."
Thursday afternoon, James Merritt, a 78-year-old retired furniture factory worker, and Evelyn Merritt, a 75-year-old retired Tultex Corp. worker, were found dead in their living room at 206 College St.
They had been wrapped up - and bound together - in duct tape, according to Dr. William Massello, deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia.
Edwards said it was apparent the Merritts had been dead "for some time." There were no apparent gunshot or stab wounds.
Massello conducted an autopsy Friday afternoon; authorities were unsure exactly what killed the couple.
Authorities are investigating the Merritts' deaths as a double homicide. Because the house was ransacked, robbery is suspected as a motive.
To some people on College Street, the Merritts were the perfect neighbors: They kept to themselves, but they didn't scream and yell if children or dogs ran through their yard.
"When I say they never went past their hedges, they never went past their hedges," said Stacy Beam, 24, who has lived on College Street much of her life. "They didn't bother anybody.
"There was no reason for anybody to have killed them."
Though the Merritts liked their privacy, they weren't curmudgeons.
When Beam was a child, Evelyn Merritt used to give her and other neighborhood children graham-cracker cookies.
The Merritts' hedge was the best refuge in the neighborhood during games of hide-and-seek. Though known as the introvert of the couple, James Merritt even seemed to enjoy coming last fall when a football got stuck in a tree in his yard.
"He would come out and sit on the swing, smoke a couple of cigarettes and watch the day go by," Beam said.
There was never much sign of activity at the Merritts' house. That's why nobody noticed when they weren't seen for a couple of days this week.
Finally, a neighbor called their daughter in Georgia to see if she had heard from her parents. The daughter asked the police to go by the house, and that's when the bodies were discovered.
Leads in the case appear to be few. Police and neighbors, though, wonder if people who scammed the Merritts last September were involved.
Two people stopped by the Merritts' house, told them their chimney was about to fall over and charged them a couple hundred dollars to fix it. When the Merritts were paying one of the men for the shoddy work, the other man stole more than $1,000 from a wallet and a box in the house.
The Merritts reported the incident to the police, Edwards said, but no one ever was arrested.
Beam said she still knows almost everybody who lives on College Street. But the streets near hers have become rougher.
She knows about the nearby drug dealers. She's heard about rapes and shootings. College Street, though it's had its share of break-ins, used to be isolated from Martinsville's more serious crime.
"I've seen people come and go; I've seen so many changes here," Beam said. "They've always lived here, as long as I can remember, and their habits never changed."
Thursday afternoon, Martinsville was reminded again: Though the Merritts hadn't changed, the world they lived in had.