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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 22, 1993                   TAG: 9306220128
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

SUSPECT IN DUAL KILLINGS RECOMMITTED

A man found innocent by reason of insanity in two 1987 shooting deaths was recommitted to the custody of the state health commissioner during a hearing in Carroll County Circuit Court on Monday.

David Carl Salmons had been scheduled for trial in 1990 on charges of killing two neighbors, Thomas Jefferson Hardy Jr., 63, and his son, Kenneth Wayne Hardy, 38, who had been trying to apprehend whoever had been destroying "no trespassing" signs on their property.

Instead, Salmons was found insane and sent to Central State Hospital in Petersburg. He has since been transferred to the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Marion, where he is closer to family members and where staff members reported to Circuit Judge Duane Mink that he had adjusted well.

The report stressed the importance of Salmons maintaining his medication, saying that otherwise he again would have hallucinations. It recommended that he stay at Marion for now.

Salmons' status will be reviewed annually for his first five years in the system, and every other year after that if he remains institutionalized.

- Southwest bureau

by CNB