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

DATE: THURSDAY, August 19, 1993                   TAG: 9308190265
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DRUG SENDS DRIVER BACK TO PRISON

A man convicted in the 1985 hit-and-run deaths of three people, including two Roanoke firefighters, was ordered back to prison Wednesday.

Judge Roy Willett revoked Roger Lee White's probation and ordered him to serve the eight years remaining on his involuntary manslaughter convictions.

Willett's decision came after White entered a plea of no contest Wednesday to a crack cocaine charge.

In an agreement with prosecutors, White will serve one year in prison on the possession charge and will have his driver's license suspended for six months.

In April, city vice officers spotted a passenger in White's car who appeared to be smoking crack cocaine in the 600 block of 14th Street Northwest. White was arrested when officers found some of the drug in his shirt pocket.

In 1986, White, then 18, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the deaths of Brenda Downs and firefighters Robert G. Cassell and Harvey Helm on Halloween 1985.

White was two weeks shy of his 18th birthday when his speeding car struck the three people as firefighters were trying to assist Downs, whose car engine was smoking.

Witnesses said White was going about 70 mph and never slowed.

He was released after serving about two years and placed on probation.

by CNB