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

DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994                   TAG: 9408040088
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN VIRGINIA

NORFOLK - An escaped murderer with multiple personalities said Wednesday that he fled a North Carolina prison because he wasn't allowed to attend his mother's funeral when she died and he wanted to see her grave.

Thomas Lee Bonney, 51, waived extradition Wednesday at a brief hearing in General District Court and later was picked up by two North Carolina Department of Corrections officers.

Bonney was treated overnight at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for scrapes and bruises that he said he suffered in his escape last Friday from Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C.

Another inmate who escaped with Bonney, James Stromer, 48, was still at-large Wednesday.

Bonney was convicted in 1988 of shooting his daughter 27 times and dumping her nude body in the Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina.

Associated Press

Marijuana grower

gets 10-year term

GATE CITY - A complex court case involving what authorities called Virginia's largest marijuana crop has ended with a judge sentencing the grower of the crop to 10 years in prison.

James H. Lewis III, 51, was sentenced on charges of manufacturing more than $2 million worth of high-grade marijuana with the intent to distribute it. Authorities seized the plants in a 1992 raid of Lewis' farm.

Lewis was arrested in August 1993 in Florida after having spent nearly a year on the run from Virginia authorities. He later admitted growing the marijuana at the picturesque East Carter's Valley farm he moved to in 1992.

Lewis still faces felony charges of manufacturing marijuana in Mitchell County, N.C., and federal parole violations. Marijuana charges are still pending against Lewis in Kansas as well.

Associated Press

Shooting reported

on Northern Va. road

LORTON - State police say a Dale City man reported another motorist shot at him on Interstate 95 near Lorton. No one was injured.

Monday's incident is the seventh shooting reported on Northern Virginia highways this year, according to police records.

The driver, 28, whose name was not released, told police that at about 8:30 p.m. another motorist waved a .22-caliber pistol at him and fired after he failed to speed up. The car was not hit.

Associated Press

by CNB