Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 21, 1993 TAG: 9309210179
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Is everything all right in there?" the officer asked.
Johnson dropped his head.
"I have a dead man in my apartment," he answered.
Inside, police found the body of Ralph Dewey Day, 59, slumped across a chair.
"It appears he was either beaten or kicked," said Vinton Police Chief Rick Foutz.
As a result of the autopsy, physical evidence and statements from witnesses Monday, Johnson was charged with killing him.
"They'd always been friends," said one police officer, who asked not to be named.
Police were called to the Bush Drive apartment after a neighbor noticed a stranger rattling the door and trying to enter.
Police said the two men were accustomed to living on the streets near bridge culverts and in makeshift tents in the woods and had collected many drunk-in-public charges in Roanoke over the years.
Actually, it was Johnson's reputation as a drinker that led two Roanoke police officers to stop him Monday when they saw him staggering along the street.
When the two officers checked, they found that murder charges had been placed against him in Vinton.
In their dealings with the two men, police had found that Day was the calmer of the two.
"He gave you the impression that he worked somewhere," said one police officer, who asked not to be named. "He wasn't a dirty drunk."
Another officer said Day didn't appear prone to violence.
"He was just one of the regulars, passive," the officer said.
Johnson is street smart, one officer said. "He's a little guy, cocky."
Keywords:
ROMUR
by CNB