Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411040121
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PILGRIMS KNOB LENGTH: Long
Dan Richard Grigsby did all the right things after his wife disappeared. He offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to her return.
He cooperated with police. He agreed to take a polygraph test.
But almost from the beginning, investigators questioned Grigsby's story.
How could his 42-year-old wife have just vanished from a West Virginia shopping mall? Why would she have left without taking any money or clothes? And why did it take Grigsby 12 hours to notify police?
On the afternoon of Oct. 6, investigators uncovered the buried remains of Dolly Rose Grigsby in the national forest of Craig County. Her decomposed body was barely recognizable.
She later was identified by a piece of her jawbone. Investigators say she had been shot with a .32-caliber gun at least twice - once in the back, and once in the chest. She had been buried, then her body torn apart weeks later. Her skull was missing and still hasn't been found.
Her body had been dismembered to avoid identification, authorities said.
The same day they uncovered Dolly Grigsby's remains, police arrested Dan Richard Grigsby and charged him with his wife's murder. He had just returned from church. He had no reaction to the charge, said Buchanan Deputy Sheriff Alan Honaker, who served the warrant. His final words to authorities were a request for an attorney.
Today, Grigsby is scheduled to appear in Craig County General District Court for his preliminary hearing. His court-appointed attorney, J. Harold Eads, would not comment on the case.
Pilgrims Knob is a place where the mountains rise steeply, where trucks brimming with coal navigate meandering roadways and where church remains the cornerstone of the community.
The Grigsbys seemed to embrace that life. She was a religious woman who took pride in her home and doted on her two children, friends say. He was a retired superintendent with one of the area's coal companies, who was often seen cheering along the sidelines of his son's high school football games.
But the marriage of Dolly and Dan Grigsby was not perfect. She had filed for divorce twice - once in August 1987, the second time in August 1988. She claimed that her husband was having affairs and that he physically and mentally abused her.
Each time, Dolly and Dan reconciled. In recent years, friends say, the relationship had appeared to mend.
The disappearance of Dolly Grigsby gripped Pilgrims Knob. The months leading up to Dan Grigsby's arrest were a time of intense speculation.
"People stopped talking about the O.J. Simpson case in this community and started talking about the Grigsby case," said Tom Dye, principal at Whitewood High School.
When Dolly Grigsby's remains were found, the community united and rushed to comfort Grigsby's 15-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter.
"This community is one that feels if something is done to my neighbor, then it's done to me," said Honaker, who also is a friend and neighbor of the family's.
Many were not surprised by the outcome. They had watched Dan Grigsby publicize his wife's disappearance. They had seen him weep. They had heard his pleas for prayer in church. But they also had learned of the investigation that was gradually targeting him as the prime suspect.
Hours after Grigsby reported his wife missing early in the morning of July 19, investigators questioned his story. Grigsby said he had dropped his wife off at the mall in Mercer County, W.Va. They were supposed to have met up in the electronics department of one of the stores, but she never appeared.
Grigsby told police that he searched the mall and figured his wife had gotten a ride back to their home, about 70 miles away. Grigsby did not notify mall security. Instead, he told police, he returned home and waited.
When his wife didn't show up by 2:30 a.m., Grigsby called the West Virginia State Police to file a missing person's report. A month later, Virginia State Police investigators were brought in to help with the case.
Grigsby complained to them that West Virginia authorities were going nowhere in their search for his wife. Grigsby agreed to take a lie-detector test. Of the 10 questions asked, he failed the three most important ones, those pertaining to the whereabouts of his wife, said Special Agent Jack Davidson.
Working on confidential information, nearly three months after she disappeared, police were led to Dolly Grigsby's grave.
Davidson said Dan Grigsby had told others where his wife was buried, including his brother, Ken Grigsby, and a friend, Mickey Breeding. The two are accused of helping to disperse her remains in the Jefferson National Forest.
Both have been charged with being accessories to the crime.
Police say Ken Grigsby and Breeding each received several hundred dollars for participating.
by CNB