Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 31, 1994 TAG: 9408310053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER NOTE: above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When Lisa Jones drove by the burned-out house on East Virginia Avenue on Monday morning, she looked around to see where the family was.
"I thought it was really odd," she said. "When a house gets burnt out, you expect to see the family outside looking at it."
Later, she heard about the gunshot wounds and the bodies - including 11-year-old Winter Hodges, whom Jones had baby-sat as an infant.
"I'm scared," Jones said. "I'm very scared. You don't know who did it to them."
The four deaths could be the Roanoke Valley's first murders of 1994, and people in Vinton pretty much assumed the first murder would occur in Roanoke, not in their small town. The last murder in Vinton stemmed from a drunken fight over a tomato last year.
"Everyone's saying, 'I can't believe it, I can't believe it,''' said Sylvia Hollandsworth, owner of the Dogwood Restaurant downtown. "It's like it [should] happen somewhere else, like on 'Hard Copy.'''
Jones described Teresa Hodges as "sweet, calm, kind" and said her husband, William Blaine Hodges, was always friendly.
The last time she saw them was about the time their three-year-old daughter, Anah, was born. "They were really excited about the baby."
Rhonda Wray last spoke with Blaine Hodges about three weeks ago, when he came into her DR Music Center in Vinton with his kids. He was there to buy guitar strings and other items and to pitch her a business proposition.
Wray knew Hodges from his days as an employee at the Vinton Post Office, across from her store, where everyone called him "Hodge." He sported long hair and an earring then. When he came to her store recently, his blond hair was short, but he seemed the same as always.
She told him she was busy, but to call after the Bluegrass Festival to set up an appointment. He didn't mention the business he was pitching, but, since losing his job at the post office, he had taken up his wife's career, selling Amway products on commission.
Teresa Hodges had sold Amway products before she was married and was a good salesperson, Jones said.
She said Hodges was the kind of mother who didn't let Winter eat junk food, who disciplined by speaking calmly, never yelling.
Tommy Miller, who was eating lunch at the Dogwood Restaurant, recalled attending school with Teresa Hodges at William Byrd High School. He said she was "outgoing, really easy-going."
"They were good, quiet people."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB