Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 27, 1994                   TAG: 9412270134
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN VIRGINIA

NORFOLK - Authorities have ordered an autopsy on an infant found dead in a trash bag to determine if the woman believed to be the baby's mother should be charged with murder.

Norfolk police spokesman Larry Hill said police found the infant early Sunday after being alerted by doctors at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital that a 26-year-old woman had come to the emergency room hemorrhaging.

Doctors determined that the woman recently had given birth.

If an autopsy shows the infant was born alive, the mother could be charged with murder. Absent such a finding, she may not face prosecution.

The baby, believed to have been born about two or three months premature, was in a trash bag that had been left in a green garbage can inside a Norfolk residence, police said. The gender was uncertain because of the infant's condition.

- Associated Press

Prisoner to choose form of execution

RICHMOND - Dana Ray Edmonds has a decision to make: whether to die by electrocution or injection of lethal drugs.

Edmonds, convicted of capital murder and robbery in Danville in 1984, is scheduled to be executed Jan. 24. Barring a court reprieve, he will be the first Virginia inmate executed under a law allowing lethal injection.

Jim Jones, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said Edmonds has not stated a preferred method of execution. The new law requires an inmate to choose no later than 15 days before the execution date. Inmates who do not state a preference get injections.

- Associated Press