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

DATE: TUESDAY, September 20, 1994                   TAG: 9409220049
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PILOT                                LENGTH: Medium

MAN KILLED IN ROANOKE HAD `WRONG' FRIENDS

Until a few months ago, Gary Wayne West's family says, he was the kind of person who got up at 3:30 a.m. to be sure he would be at his Roanoke dairy job on time.

He drove from his rural Floyd County home to Valley Rich Dairy for 15 years - since the Monday after his Friday graduation from Floyd County High School in 1978. He loaded containers of milk onto trucks.

Recently, his mother, brothers and sister say, West got mixed up with the wrong crowd in Roanoke.

"He had all kinds of money in the bank," his sister, Joan French, said. "He had a nice vehicle. He had a nice place. He lost everything."

Sunday morning, West lost his life.

West, upset with his estranged girlfriend, held her and police at bay with a shotgun for two hours on Roanoke's Williamson Road. Officers shot and killed him after he pointed the gun at a police lieutenant.

West's family won't say what that "wrong crowd" was into.

But they say West, 34, apologized to his parents for his troubling new life in Roanoke. He called them at 8 Saturday night, hours before he was to die.

"He said he loved his Mama and his Daddy," French said. "He was supposed to call back."

Sunday morning, a law officer came to their country home to tell them their son was dead.

They wish police had let them know he was in a long police standoff. His torment, his threats, then his death by nine gunshot wounds were witnessed by scores of strangers on the street.

His mother, Ruth West, and his sister think they could have talked him into a peaceful surrender. "I believe if we'd been contacted, we would have saved him," French said. "I don't believe he wanted to die, no."

They said West was crazy about Floyd County, his brown 1993 Chevrolet four-wheel-drive pickup, and Hank Williams Jr. "Just a plain old country boy," one of his brothers said.

One of Gary West's co-workers at Valley Rich said West was fired in the spring. "He was just hanging around with the wrong crowd," said the man, who would not give his name. "He was always late, calling in sick, stuff like that."

That wasn't the old Gary, his mother said.

"Never been in trouble. He never missed a day of work, hardly. He never raised his voice to me."

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB