Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409160061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But since June 25, 1993, when Pamela Susan Gallagher, 38, was found strangled in her Laburnum Avenue apartment, Gallagher has been forced to focus on her death and the unhappy years leading up to it.
And he also must struggle with the fact that, almost 15 months after her death, the case still has not been solved.
Gallagher has grown weary of waiting for answers.
"As painful as this is, there has to be an ending to it," Gallagher said.
So he and his ex-wife, Geraldine Gallagher, are distributing posters that display their daughter's photograph, with information about the slaying and the Roanoke Crime Line phone number. Large letters at the top read, "REWARD, UP TO $1,000."
"I'm hoping that it will jog someone's memory. Somebody in Roanoke knows about this, and that reward should attract their attention," he said.
Pamela was found two days after her death, when a neighbor who noticed she was not collecting her mail opened her unlocked apartment door.
She was found face down, halfway under her bed. Her glasses were broken beneath her head; one lens was found on the kitchen floor. Her ironing board had been tipped over, the iron rested nearby on its side.
There were no signs of a forced entry - the front door had not been damaged and $100 she had just borrowed from a credit union still was in her purse.
Roanoke Detective Charles Tinsley, who has been investigating the death since it was reported, said initially that suicide was considered a possibility,
"After two days, the body was fairly decomposed and it was difficult to tell how she had died," Tinsley said.
In fact, Gallagher said, when he and his wife first heard about her death, they thought their daughter had ended her life.
"As unhappy as she'd been, we were just waiting for her to do something drastic like commit suicide," Gallagher said.
But the autopsy report filed three days after her body was discovered said Pamela Gallagher had died from a deep injury to her neck that was inconsistent with an accident.
Gallagher said police first suspected Pamela's former husband, but he had a strong alibi for the night of the killing.
Neither Tinsley nor Police Major J.L. Viar would comment on any suspects.
Tinsley did say that when police interviewed neighbors, one recalled seeing Pamela arguing with a man in front of the apartment complex the day she was killed.
"But now that neighbor is saying she can't be sure it was Pam arguing in the road," Gallagher said.
Police were left with the hope that a friend or co-worker might have some insight to who would want to kill Pamela.
"Problem was, she didn't have any friends. She was so suspicious of everyone - she had pushed her friends and family away," John Gallagher said.
In the last ten years of her life, Pamela Gallagher had shown increasing signs of some sort of mental imbalance. It was obvious, her father said, that she needed help but she refused to seek it. Her two brothers and one sister - who previously had been three of her closest friends - were completely alienated from her.
"It got to the point that I would hate to call her. I'd ask her how she was doing and she'd say, real sarcastically, 'Why do you care? Stay out of my life,'" Gallagher said.
Gallagher said she had a difficult time holding down a job in those last few years. "She had a college degree in psychology - she was very intelligent. But she had a way about her that would make you blow your top."
And her difficult personality, he said, contributed to her death.
"It could have been someone she just met. She could have antagonized the person; it might have escalated until he was in a fit of rage; and before he knew it, she was strangled to death."
He said he's sure she wasn't involved in any kind of drug activity - a possible motive for murder. "To my knowledge, she would never even drink a highball. Besides, with always losing jobs, she couldn't afford drugs."
This case is one of two unsolved homicides from 1993. The other victim, Mary S. Keeling, 18, was killed on Massachusetts Avenue Northwest in September 1993.
Viar said having two unsolved homicides from the same year is very unusual for the Roanoke Police Department. After time and with few leads, he admitted, the cases become a waiting game. Police hope someone will come forward with information, or that someone will slip up and talk about the murder to the right person.
Gallagher said he can understand how difficult his daughter could be, and how challenging it must be for police to find any kind of lead in a case in which the victim had little contact with the world.
But the retired Norfolk Southern Corp. employee remembers a time when his daughter could light up a room when she entered it.
"She had such an unpredictable, fun personality - she always had at least five kids following her everywhere."
Knowing that the person who ended that life is still free has only added torment to an already painful recovery.
"It's been an effort to keep going. Gosh, you never really get over it - there will always be an empty space in my life. And I kept thinking they'd turn up something, but it just lingers on. I can't wait forever."
So far, Gallagher has distributed more that 40 posters - which were printed for free by Image Masters in Roanoke - to fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. No business has refused to display it.
"I figure it's never too late to do something," Gallagher said. "I've got to try."
Any information regarding Pamela Gallagher's death can be given anonymously through the Roanoke Police Department's Crime Line at 344-8500. Tips leading to an arrest and conviction can result in a $1,000 reward.
by CNB