Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409260056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
POQUOSON - Authorities have found a stand of 59 marijuana plants in the Plum Tree Island National Wildlife Refuge. Investigator C.W. Buffington called the find `the most I've ever found in my 20 years.''
The smallest of the plants was 8 feet tall, and many were 14 feet tall. Police have suspects and are continuing to investigate, Buffington said.
Officers stuffed the leaves and branches of the marijuana into 22 plastic garbage bags for shipment to the Virginia Division of Forensic Science's Tidewater Laboratory in Norfolk, where they will be weighed.
Because of the large amount, the marijuana probably was intended for sale, Buffington said.
``They'd have to stay high 24 hours a day for a month to smoke all of this,'' he said. ``They're good, healthy marijuana plants that apparently had been watered and fertilized.''
- Associated Press
2 boys face charges in burning of child
HOPEWELL - Two boys, ages 9 and 11, will stand trial next month for allegedly dousing a 3-year-old boy with gasoline and setting him on fire.
Tony Dillhoff was released from the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals on Friday after suffering second- and third-degree burns on his back, arms and legs.
Tony's aunt was baby-sitting Monday evening when the incident occurred in an alley behind the Dillhoff home.
Kenny Dillhoff, 13, heard shouting, turned and saw flames where his little brother had been moments before. Kenny jumped on his brother, rolling him over several times in the gravel to put out the fire.
Petitions charging the 11- and 9-year-olds with aggravated malicious wounding and aggravated malicious bodily injury by caustic or explosive substance were issued Wednesday.
An Oct. 14 trial date was set when the boys, whose names are being withheld because they are minors, appeared in Hopewell Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
The 11-year-old has been placed in the Crater Detention Center. The younger boy was released to the custody of his parents.
- Associated Press
Man gets 40 years for 1991 crime spree
ALEXANDRIA - A Washington man was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison in connection with a November 1991 crime spree through Prince William County and the District of Columbia.
Earl Fitzgerald, 48, was sentenced in U.S. Circuit Court in Alexandria.
Fitzgerald was convicted Aug. 25 on charges of kidnapping, use of a firearm during a crime of violence, possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of an unregistered, sawed-off shotgun.
He also received five years of supervised release.
According to court records, Fitzgerald's two-day crime spree began Nov. 30, 1991 in Prince William County. During the course of the crime spree, Fitzgerald committed four armed robberies, prosecutors said.
While fleeing police, Fitzgerald abducted a taxicab driver, prosecutors said.
Two Washington women were killed in a traffic accident caused by the fleeing Fitzgerald.
- Associated Press
Peanut research unit closing to get review
SUFFOLK - Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy has promised to review a decision to close Virginia's only federally funded peanut research operation.
In February, the Department of Agriculture said the unit, part of the Virginia Tech Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Suffolk, would be closed Sept. 30.
But U.S. Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Charles Robb, D-Va., and Reps. Norman Sisisky, D-Petersburg, and Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News, met with Espy on Wednesday and persuaded him to take another look at the decision.
``It was better than a flat-out `No,''' said Morris Porter, director of the 11-person USDA research team at the unit. ``We've been hanging on this limb since February. We're ready for something.''
The unit is one of 19 across the country targeted for closing because of federal budget cuts. But state officials contend that its work is vital to peanut growers in Virginia and North Carolina.
- Associated Press
by CNB