Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 3, 1994 TAG: 9410040023
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER NOTE: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It was a Sunday afternoon ritual for Teresa Hodges and her two daughters. Right after church, they'd pile into her white Oldsmobile and visit her father. This day, the meeting was brief - about an hour - just enough time for 11-year-old Winter Hodges to model her new school wardrobe.
Dave Fulcher Sr. doesn't forget much about that hot August day. He recalls the way Winter and 3-year-old Anah Hodges ran from the car, embraced him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He remembers how his daughter's smile broadened as she talked about the recent success of her business.
Edging forward in his seat, Fulcher tries to relive every detail from that day - the last time he saw his daughter and grandchildren.
Two weeks after their visit, Teresa Hodges, 37, her 41-year-old husband, Blaine, and their two girls were murdered in their Vinton home. Their house was torched.
A month after their deaths, Fulcher sits at the long formica table where his daughter chatted with him that Sunday. He pulls a black-and-white photograph of Teresa from his billfold. In the photo Teresa is 15 years old; her almond-shaped eyes are deep and dark.
"I get up in the morning, wash my face, and I say it isn't true," Fulcher says, his eyes welling with tears. "We're going to suffer for the rest of our lives."
Each day for the past month, a team of investigators has shown up at the Vinton Police Department. They mull over the evidence, review the 200 or so interviews they've done and hash out their theories. Gradually, they have narrowed the focus of their search for the Hodgeses' killer.
"Any homicide investigation is like a large puzzle," said Jon Perry, psychological profiler for the state police. "We put the pieces together ... Each time we do a search warrant, an interview, the picture becomes clearer."
In the muggy dawn of Aug. 29, as Roanoke County schoolchildren were sleeping away their last hours of summer vacation, smoke drifted across East Virginia Avenue. From Poplar Street, flames in the first floor of the Hodgeses' home were visible.
About 4:45 a.m., Mark Stevens crested the hill on East Virginia Avenue on his way to work at the Cave Spring post office, a trip he makes almost every morning. He saw a thick film of smoke settling across the road.
He stopped his car and ran toward the house. Another man also had stopped and was running in the same direction. The two men found the front door locked. They broke through the glass; as they did, the heat singed their eyes.
Stevens, who is deaf, ran into the road, trying to flag down a car for help. Four passed by him. An off-duty officer was in the fifth car; he stopped. By that time the other man had notified fire and rescue units. All Stevens could do was wait for them.
About 5 a.m., Vinton Police Chief Rick Foutz was jarred from sleep by a telephone call unlike any he ever had received. Four bodies had been found inside the brick Cape Cod home at 232 E. Virginia Ave.
Three of the people had been shot; the fourth was burned beyond recognition.
Foutz, a 21-year veteran of the Vinton Police Department, pulled on his police fatigues - a pair of navy blue pants, a dark T-shirt with "Police" written in yellow - and drove to the scene.
During the first hours of the investigation, the case developed rapidly. A house-fire call had revealed a multiple homicide. It appeared that the victims had not died from the blaze. Evidence of arson only complicated matters.
The first public sign that the Hodgeses' deaths were not accidents was the mobilization of the State Police Violent Crimes Unit. Almost immediately the unit's members were called in from Appomattox, Harrisonburg and Salem.
State police formed the unit two years ago, bringing together specialists in bomb technology, arson, polygraph technique and forensic and behavioral sciences. Their mission: To handle Virginia's toughest murders.
Members of the special unit, the Vinton Police Department and other area departments swarmed through the area.
Police dogs led investigators through the Hodgeses' back yard and down Poplar Street. Arson specialists focused on a coal chute at the rear of the house, smelling soil samples. Technicians worked indoors to glean any fingerprint or detail.
The evidence-gathering would continue for weeks.
"The first moments of a crime scene are important, so we flood the area with manpower," said Bill Littreal, supervisor of the Violent Crimes Unit. "A crime scene talks to you. It tells you what went on."
Within 36 hours, investigators confirmed their suspicions that they were dealing with a quadruple murder and not a murder-suicide. Autopsy reports showed that Teresa, the only member of the family found downstairs, had been strangled and burned over 90 percent of her body.
The other family members were found in their beds. Blaine had been shot once in the head. Winter and Anah each had been shot twice in the head.
"There was no reason to kill a whole family, to kill two kids," Foutz would say later. "That's why the hammer is down. And we won't let up."
Investigators pounded away. They stockpiled an arsenal of details, but remained silent about them. One of their first moves was filing a search warrant in Roanoke County Circuit Court on Sept. 1. The search warrant was sealed immediately, barring anyone from reading the framework of their case.
On Sept. 9, they filed another search warrant that also was sealed. The searches produced no major breakthroughs, police say, and no arrests.
Blaine Hodges had seen the face of grief many times during his rescue runs with the Scruggs diving team.
Haden Dudley, Hodges' diving partner, recounted the desperate search for a 9-year-old girl who had fallen off a boat near Vista Point. From his perch on a pontoon, Blaine Hodges gazed at the water, then the shore. Along the banks of Smith Mountain Lake were the victim's mother and grandmother.
Each time divers surfaced, the women waded into the water, expecting, hoping.
Each time, the divers came up with nothing.
For Hodges, it was an exercise in perseverance and professionalism. He insisted on searching, even after the team officially was called off for the weekend. The girl's body surfaced on its own that Sunday.
He later would tell his diving colleagues that the most devastating thing in the world must be losing a child.
"Sometimes you hesitate or dread doing this job," Dudley said. "But there was Blaine with a smile of confidence that said, `We got through the others and we'll get through this one.'''
Teresa Hodges seemed the perfect complement to that steadfastness. Friends marveled at her dedication to her daughters and her unrelenting support of Blaine. When her husband was convicted and sentenced to prison for embezzling money from his workplace, she never left his side.
In 1991, while Blaine was a clerk at the Vinton post office, he was accused of taking $4,664 from his register over a period of two months. He was fired from the postal service in 1993.
Blaine denied any involvement. Teresa, his family and friends never doubted his innocence.
Life was not easy for the couple. They often found themselves financially strapped. Their two-bedroom home was in need of repairs; the basement leaked and the fireplace didn't work.
But the couple never complained or asked for handouts. And despite Blaine's pending prison term, the couple seemed to have an uncanny brightness about the future. Teresa's long commitment to Amway, a distribution company that sells products nationally, finally was paying off. This time, Blaine had become involved with the project wholeheartedly.
He even changed his appearance. While he once wore an earring and had long hair, he now clipped his hair short and often was seen wearing three-piece suits.
Business associates say that, most recently, the couple's stake in Amway was gaining momentum as they brought more distributors into the network.
"Blaine had no fear of going to jail," said one friend. "Their Amway business was about to explode, it was booming."
That money would have provided a cushion for Teresa while Blaine served his six-month prison term. Friends say the couple was content with what they had, basking in their love for each other and for their two daughters.
Looking at family photographs is a bittersweet task for Brenda Lugar. She runs her hand over Blaine's face and describes him as having a zest for life, a desire to do different things.
She points to her sister, Teresa, and says she was a humble, giving woman. She often wore her long, dark hair parted simply in the middle. Her penchant for cooking appeared when she nagged her sisters for family recipes.
"Teresa was the type of person that if you gave her a daisy, she'd be ecstatic," Lugar said. "You know, if you gave me a daisy, I'd probably say, `Why not a rose?'''
She hesitates as her finger crosses a snapshot of Winter. She cries as she describes Anah and the way she ate a candy-carameled apple.
"God is the only thing that gets me through the day," Lugar says. "I'm trying not to look at the big picture. But at the same time - it's all so overwhelming. I take one day at a time."
|n n| There are still so many questions. Friends ask who could have done such a thing to a family that struggled through many obstacles and recently seemed to have surmounted them. Family members barely can speak the Hodgeses' names without tears.
Investigators ponder. They await toxicology reports on the victims. They review and re-evaluate every shred of evidence - most of which they are still unwilling to talk about.
"I feel optimistic," investigator Perry said. "I feel like we're making good progress. Each day brings new information."
For Dave Fulcher, the days are long, the nights desolate. The last Sunday he was with his daughter and grandchildren, Winter clutched the treasures she had brought to show him.
She began to pull at the mess of belongings. Her light brown hair fell loosely about her face. She picked up a pair of white shoes and draped a new outfit across her body.
"Look, Pawpaw, what I have for school," she said, proud of her new clothes.
Fulcher gazed at the items, then at Winter. She soon would start at William Byrd Middle School. Fulcher remembers thinking how she had grown up over the summer. She stood almost as tall as her mother; she fancied herself quite the adult.
Two weeks later, as Winter's schoolmates gathered in their first-period classes, police were at her house on East Virginia Avenue, gathering evidence at the scene of her murder.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call 983-0617. A $10,000 reward is offered.
Staff writer Jan Vertefeuille contributed information to this story.
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