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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994                   TAG: 9403110097
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ABINGDON                                LENGTH: Short

GUN FOUND IN FARM POND LINKED TO N.C. MURDER

A gun police found in a farm pond was stolen from a Tennessee home and used to murder a North Carolina woman, authorities said.

The .22-caliber Marlin rifle was used last June to kill Melinda K. McDowell, 53, of Asheville, N.C., said Detective Butch Oxner of the Asheville Police Department.

"The gun we thought to be the murder weapon, the ballistics did match," said Chris Jennings, an investigator with the Asheville district attorney's office.

Police have charged Archie F. McLemore, 22, with capital murder in the June 1 death of his mother. McDowell was shot repeatedly and stabbed once. He was arrested June 5 in Tennessee.

McLemore was in the Buncombe County (N.C.) Jail awaiting an April 1 trial. If convicted, he faces the death sentence.

Jennings said the gun find should bolster the case against McLemore.

A Washington County Sheriff's Department dive team found a half-dozen weapons, including rifles, shotguns and assault weapons, in a pond near John Battle High School on Feb. 19.

The pond was dragged after a tip, Jennings said.

Agent Frank McCauley of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the weapons were stolen from a Sullivan County, Tenn., residence about six weeks before McDowell was killed.

The pond is owned by an acquaintance of McLemore's.

The search-and-recovery divers used special techniques to ensure that the weapons, which had been under water for several months, would not deteriorate before they could be analyzed.

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by CNB