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

DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994                   TAG: 9406170073
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ELKS HOME RESIDENT STABLE AFTER STABBING

A 68-year-old man who was stabbed Saturday night at the Elks National Home in Bedford was listed in stable condition Thursday at Bedford County Memorial Hospital after being transferred from the cardiac unit.

Dewey Riley Barber, a resident of the home, was admitted to the hospital with what Bedford Police Chief Milton Graham described as "a pretty severe stab wound" to the abdomen.

Bedford police arrested another Elks Home resident, 81-year-old John Haskell Sims, and charged him with malicious wounding.

Graham said the stabbing followed an argument that started in the dining room and progressed to violence on the home's western veranda. Barber was struck on the head with a golf club and then stabbed with a kitchen knife.

The police chief said he did not know what caused the argument.

Sims was released on bond. A preliminary hearing will be held Aug. 12 in Bedford County General District Court.

William P. Pickett, executive director of the Elks National Home, would not say whether Sims still was living there.

The Elks National Home houses unmarried Elks Lodge members of retirement age from around the nation.

|- RICHARD FOSTER

by CNB