Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 22, 1994 TAG: 9410240049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Family Camp at the Church of the Nazarene Camp in Buckingham County usually is a week of fun, friends and prayer. Church members from all over the country attend with their children year after year. They swim, play an annual kids-against-adults baseball game and meet at church twice a day.
But early the morning of Aug. 15, the last Sunday of camp, that peaceful atmosphere was shattered.
That's when, according to testimony Friday in Buckingham County General District Court, Paul Westley Ragland Sr. of Roanoke County shot Marcia Summers, a Fairfax woman, several times in the chest as she lay on a bed in her trailer. Her 9-year-old daughter, Kristin, was sleeping just a few feet away.
Kristin "slept right on through until morning," said Summers' husband, Charles. The men who found her mother's body finally woke her up.
Buckingham County General District Judge R.B. Spencer certified first-degree murder and firearms charges against Ragland to the grand jury Friday. He is in jail in lieu of $100,000 bond.
Spencer made his ruling despite a protest from Ragland's attorney, Bill Cleaveland of Roanoke, who argued that all evidence presented was circumstantial.
Buckingham County Commonwealth's Attorney E.M. Wright called five witnesses, including one of Ragland's brothers.
David Ragland testified that he found Summers' body after being directed to her trailer by a phone call from Ronald Ferguson.
Ferguson testified that Paul Ragland had shown up at the Portsmouth home of another of his brothers, Bennie Ragland, early that Sunday. Ferguson, a friend of Bennie's, said he talked with Paul and eventually got it out of him that he thought Marcia Summers was hurt. That's when he called David Ragland at the camp.
In August, state police said they arrested Paul Ragland without incident at Bennie Ragland's house that afternoon.
Also testifying Friday were three men staying at the camp that week who said they heard what they thought were firecrackers about 2:45 that morning. All three also said that just minutes later, they saw a dark, late-model Ford Mustang leaving the campground, the same kind of car David Ragland testified Paul was driving when he arrived at camp.
Only one of the men, Ernest Spaer, whose camper was set up next to Summers', testified that he saw Ragland driving the car.
Sitting outside the courthouse after the hearing Friday, Marcia Summers' father, Millard Garvin, recounted how Paul Ragland and his daughter played together as children at the Nazarene camp 35 years ago.
He said he bought a cabin on the grounds of the camp from the Raglands back then.
At the time of her death, Marcia Summers was a 40-year-old homemaker who sold World Book Encyclopedias. Her husband said she loved to ride her bicycle. She kept a bike at the camp, and Charles Summers said people often told him they had seen her riding around the grounds.
The church camp also is where Kay Ragland, Paul's ex-wife, met her husband when she was only 10. They married at 16 and had two children, Paul Jr., 21, and Paige, 17.
Paul Sr. was an athlete who played and coached softball, and bowled in several leagues, according to Kay Ragland.
"He's crazy about his kids," Kay Ragland said. The couple divorced in 1989, but Kay Ragland said they've never stopped raising their kids together.
Still unclear is exactly what the relationship was between Paul Ragland and Marcia Summers. Members of Ragland's family have declined comment. Charles Summers said he didn't know of any relationship between the two of them.
"It seemed like they were just friends," said Kay Ragland.
Spaer testified that, from watching Ragland and Summers interact at camp that week, he had guessed they were married. He said the Monday before the shooting, Ragland parked his camper next to Summers'. It stayed there all week.
Charles Summers had stayed in Fairfax that week with the couple's other child, Timothy, 6.
Garvin said he knows his daughter was spending time with Ragland, but he said it was because Ragland had some problems, and his daughter believed she could help him. He said he thinks Ragland just got the wrong idea when she tried to take care of him.
"I believe in my heart that she let him know she wasn't leaving her family," Garvin said.
Meanwhile, the church that brought these families together has rallied to help them out. Kay Ragland and Garvin have received cards, letters and phone calls from church members all over the country.
Charles Summers is struggling to take over all the tasks his wife had handled, but said church members volunteer to keep Kristin and Timothy and bring meals for the family.
Garvin and his wife have moved back to Northern Virginia from Florida to help care for their grandchildren. Garvin said he sees them off to school most days.
"Every day I do it," he said, "this thing is opened up anew."
by CNB