Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993 TAG: 9307280208
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MANASSAS - Faced with a potential cost of $500,000 to rebuild a burned historic home, officials at Manassas National Battlefield Park may have to consider the less expensive option of razing the structure.
Federal investigators and Prince William County fire officials examined the charred remains of the Robinson House on Tuesday but did not announce what caused Monday night's blaze.
The 67-year-old farmhouse was built on the foundation of a cabin belonging to James Robinson, a freed slave.
The Park Service now has to decide if what's left is worth saving.
- Associated Press
Senator faces Nov. 18 embezzlement trial
RICHMOND - A judge set a Nov. 18 trial date for state Sen. Robert E. Russell, who is accused of embezzling money from a group he founded to support amateur bicycle racing.
Fairfax County Circuit Judge Lewis Griffith, who was named to hear the case in Chesterfield County, also set a Sept. 7 date to hear motions.
Russell, a Chesterfield Republican who was elected to the Senate in 1984, pleaded innocent Monday to two felony counts of embezzlement. He remains free on $10,000 bond.
- Associated Press
Woman admits killing retarded son
TAZEWELL - A woman who thought drug dealers were trying to kill her and her family has pleaded guilty to strangling her 6-year-old retarded son in an effort to keep him quiet.
Freda Sue Carter, 43, pleaded guilty Monday in Tazewell County Circuit Court to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Joseph Clarence Carter. The child's body was found in the garage of the family's home in April 1992.
In a statement to police at the time, Carter said she had started hearing voices three months before the boy's death. She said voices coming from the radio and trees led her to believe drug dealers were out to kill her family.
- Associated Press
State technicians join probe of fatal beating
MARTINSVILLE - Henry County authorities investigating the beating death of a Bassett man have called in state crime technicians to help.
Henry County Sheriff's Investigator Kimmie Nester said the crime-scene technicians from a state laboratory in Roanoke helped recover forensic evidence over the weekend.
Nester said witnesses and suspects were still being interviewed about the July 17 death of David Fackler. He died the day after he got into a fight with one of two men standing along a road, according to police reports.
- Associated Press
Inmate strangled self, investigation concludes
RICHMOND - Death row inmate Wayne Kenneth DeLong committed suicide last month by strangling himself with a cord, the state Department of Corrections said Tuesday.
DeLong was on death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center for killing a Richmond police detective seven years ago. He was to have been executed July 15.
But the 37-year-old inmate was found dead in his cell June 13.
- Associated Press
Death row inmate gets stay from appeals court
RICHMOND - A federal appeals court on Tuesday granted a stay of execution to Timothy W. Spencer, who had been scheduled to be executed Aug. 26.
Spencer was sentenced to death for the killings of four women in Arlington and the Richmond area in 1987. His lawyers sought the stay from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because Spencer has not exhausted all his federal appeals. - Associated Press
Virginia Beach pipeline gets environmental OK
VIRGINIA BEACH - A preliminary report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has found no environmental harm in allowing water to be withdrawn from Lake Gaston to supply.
"It's the last hurdle that the city has to face, and it appears we've got a favorable indication," Councilman Linwood O. Branch III said Monday of the report.
The proposed 85-mile pipeline, which has been on the drawing board for more than a decade, has been bitterly fought by North Carolina officials and landowners along the lake straddling that state's border with Virginia. They contend that the withdrawal will harm wildlife. - Associated Press
Chincoteague ponies hit the water today
CHINCOTEAGUE - Wild ponies believed to be descendants of Spanish mustangs brought to the New World by explorers will swim into town from Assateague Island today to the cheers of thousands of tourists.
The swim and Thursday's auction are held every year to thin the herd on the island and raise funds for the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department.
The ponies will be rounded up and herded into the water at low tide, around 8 a.m. About a dozen horse-mounted Fire Department members will act as cowboys-for-a-day to drive the animals across the shallow, quarter-mile channel separating the island from the town.
The pony swim - this is the 68th - was made famous by Marguerite Henry's 1947 book, "Misty of Chincoteague." - Associated Press
Keywords:
FATALITY
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