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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 16, 1993                   TAG: 9306160189
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

SYRINGE FOUND NEAR BODY

Wilder said investigators were trying to determine what was in the syringe and how Wayne Kenneth DeLong obtained it.

DeLong, who was scheduled to die in Virginia's electric chair in July, was found dead in his cell at Mecklenburg Correctional Center about 8:30 a.m. Sunday.

Officials at the prison in Boydton and at state Department of Corrections headquarters in Richmond have said little about the incident. The department's internal affairs office and the Virginia State Police are investigating.

Wilder told reporters Tuesday that he could confirm "the presence of a syringe" in DeLong's cell but that he could not be more specific.

"Of course we don't allow or condone those kinds of instruments to be in a prison environment, but we're not so naive that we ignore the possibility that they are there," Secretary of Public Safety O. Randolph Rollins said.

The question of how DeLong obtained the syringe "may never be answered," he said.

DeLong's body was taken to the state medical examiner's office for an autopsy. The results could come within a few days, Rollins said.

Lee Bradley, state police special agent at Third District headquarters in Appomattox, said he could not discuss details of the investigation.

Rollins said prison officials asked state police to assist because "in a high-profile case, they're interested that complete objectivity is both obtained and perceived."

Joann Royster, operations officer at Mecklenburg, said the 44 inmates on death row generally are checked at least hourly by prison guards.

"Any amount of surveillance is not enough," Wilder said.

DeLong's most recent appeal had failed and an execution date of July 15, a day after his 38th birthday, was set in May by Richmond Circuit Judge Robert W. Duling.

DeLong was on probation for a 1978 second-degree murder conviction when Richmond police Detective George R. Taylor stopped him in his car on June 16, 1986.

DeLong then shot Taylor in the chest with a .45-caliber bullet, killing him.

Keywords:
FATALITY

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.