Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411110064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: APPALACHIA LENGTH: Medium
The assailant, Olaf Farmer, 69, had had a relationship with victim Eva Robinette, 21, according to Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Tim McAfee.
Appalachia police Sgt. Roy Munsey said his department received a call at 11:55 a.m. from a woman in Wise County's Exeter community requesting assistance.
``While she was on the phone, the dispatcher heard several shots, and the phone went dead,'' Munsey said. They also received a call that a car behind the house was on fire.
Witnesses told the Coalfield Progress that a man later identified as Farmer set the car on fire and then fired a shotgun blast into the house's back door to get inside.
While police and firefighters were driving to the house five miles from town they got a report that a man was waving a pistol back in Appalachia. When they arrived in response at Farmer's house, he was dead, Munsey said.
A neighbor said Farmer indicated before he died that ``there was a relationship between him and the shootings in Exeter,'' Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gary Gilliam said.
Killed along with Robinette were Doris Robinette Hall and Gary Hall, both in their 20s, McAfee said. Robinette's father, LeRoy Robinette, was shot in the shoulder and was in stable condition at Holston Valley Hospital in Kingsport, Tenn., authorities said.
All of the victims lived in the house, McAfee said.
A 3-year-old child and an 18-month-old child were in the house when the shootings occurred but were unharmed.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB