Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 12, 1994 TAG: 9412120077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Early Sunday, she quit wondering.
About 4 a.m., Saul and her husband, Ralph, were awakened by an explosion-like sound from the front of their brick ranch house, which sits several yards back from the northbound side of 220. They heard a motor running so loudly that it seemed to be coming from inside the house.
It was. A car had plowed into the house, hitting the corner of one bedroom and nearly demolishing a second.
"There were no skid marks on the road," Saul said. "It didn't slow down at all. It ran smack into the house. Why it came up here, we'll never know."
The car's driver wasn't around to explain. He or she was long gone by the time the couple had pulled on their clothes and surveyed the scene. The car had North Carolina license plates, empty beer cans inside and half a case of beer behind the passenger seat, Saul said.
Roanoke County Police Officer T.R. Brown said deputies found the car's three passengers walking down 220 about an hour later.
The two men were illegal immigrants from Mexico; the third, a 13-year-old whose parents live in Mexico, was taken into Social Services custody, Brown said.
Police had not found the driver as of Sunday night.
Brown estimated there was at least $10,000 in damage to the house.
Had the car hit the house at a different angle, "it would have gotten our bedroom," Dot Saul said. "I'll sure be worried now. I won't be able to sleep.
"The heck of it is, there's an old, abandoned house next door that needs to be hit and torn down."
Staff writer Lisa Applegate contributed information to this story.
by CNB