Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY DIANE STRUZZI AND LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITERS NOTE: lede
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We're not close to accusing anybody ... and that may or may not ever happen," Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney Skip Burkart said Wednesday.
Burkart made his comments in court while arguing that the contents of a search warrant - filed last week as police closed in on a possible suspect - should remain under seal while authorities continue to check out leads.
While the search did not result in a quick arrest, authorities say its target has not been eliminated as a suspect. Just who or what police were looking for remained a secret Wednesday, after Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue rejected media efforts to have the warrant unsealed.
About 5 a.m. Aug. 29, firefighters responded to what appeared to be a house fire at 232 E. Virginia Ave. in Vinton and instead found what is believed to be the only quadruple homicide in the town's history.
In the home's living room, where the fire apparently was started, authorities found the body of Teresa Hodges, 37. She was burned over most of her body and had been strangled, an autopsy revealed.
Upstairs, three other family members were found lying dead in their beds. Hodges' husband, 41-year-old William Blaine Hodges, had been shot once in the head, and their daughters, 11-year-old Winter and 3-year-old Anah, had each been shot twice in the head with a small-caliber handgun.
Blaine Hodges and his daughters were found in what appeared to be night clothes, while Teresa Hodges was partially clothed.
In releasing little information about the crime, police have said nothing about a possible motive or potential suspects. Details also have been scarce about the fire that gutted the house.
Authorities are saying, however, that the fire was started near Teresa Hodges' body and that an accelerant - such as gasoline or kerosene - was used.
After spending two days collecting evidence at the scene, police are awaiting test results and tracking down leads that continue to come in. Late last week, Vinton Police Chief R.R. Foutz said authorities had learned enough to rule out the possibility that the killings were a random act of violence.
And last Thursday, police had enough information to lead them to file a search warrant. The warrant and an affidavit were sealed immediately by Trabue, barring any release of who or what police were seeking.
Lawyers for the Roanoke Times & World-News and WDBJ (Channel 7) went to court Wednesday to ask Trabue to unseal the search warrant, which usually is a matter of public record.
Trabue said he was convinced that disclosure of the search warrant's contents "could seriously jeopardize the investigation."
In challenging the first search warrant to be sealed in Roanoke County for at least the past decade, newspaper attorney Stan Barnhill said the Roanoke Times was not seeking access to information that could damage the investigation.
Barnhill asked only that the judge review the warrant and release any portions that would not impair police efforts.
Burkart argued that the search warrant - which includes information about the case that has not been made public - should remain sealed in its entirety. The prosecutor said news reports could prompt a suspect to get rid of incriminating evidence or to flee.
Burkart also cited a case in which a capital murder defendant in Roanoke County based his defense partially on claims that what he knew about the crime he had learned from a newspaper reporter.
In arguing that the search warrant remain a secret, Burkart made the most telling remarks yet about the progress of a multijurisdictional police task force that has been investigating the murders.
His statement that police are nowhere close to making an arrest came just one day after Foutz said in a news release that police "remain very optimistic that a successful conclusion will be reached in the future."
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