Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 19, 1995 TAG: 9501190091
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
It was the first time she had seen Gary O. Shanks' face, she said after court. The man who robbed her was wearing a ski mask when he pointed a gun at her in June 1993 and took $90 from the store's cash register.
Shanks, paroled in April 1993 for a Montgomery County murder committed when he was a teen-ager, made headlines last March when he was linked along with another paroled murderer, Billy Joe Hampton, to the November 1993 savage beating of a Pulaski County man.
Hampton was in the headlines at the time as police in three states searched for him in connection with the Pulaski beating and a laundry list of charges that included rape, carjacking and malicious wounding.
But Shanks, 31, claimed the spotlight for a brief period when he confessed that he, not Hampton, had beaten Pulaski County resident Bobby McDaniel with a carpenter's hammer and robbed him at his home.
As a bonus, he confessed to the Blacksburg store robbery as well.
When he thought police were not moving quickly enough to charge him, Shanks called the Roanoke Times & World-News to repeat his confessions. He said prison had turned him into a bitter young man as he unsuccessfully sought parole from his 41-year sentence for the 1979 murder of Edward Charles Disney. Shanks made parole on his fifth try after serving about 13 years of the sentence.
At first, he said he would refuse counsel and offer no defense to these new charges.
But Shanks accepted court-appointed lawyers for both the Pulaski and Montgomery cases. The continuances piled up, as did motions to suppress evidence and seek mental evaluations. Jury trials were scheduled for both cases.
In the end, he did as he said he would.
Wednesday, Shanks pleaded guilty to the robbery charge. To wearing a mask to conceal his face while committing that robbery. To using a firearm while committing the robbery. To possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony.
Coupled with his pleas in Pulaski County - entered in November only after witnesses and a pool of jurors assembled - Shanks may well now be a "three-time loser" convicted of three violent crimes and facing no hope of parole.
But in both cases, Shanks must make one more court appearance. Judges ordered background reports and victim-impact statements before Shanks is sentenced.
Neff was robbed on June 15, 1993, when a person wearing surgical gloves and a blue ski mask entered the A & J Quick Shop in Blacksburg at about 10:30 p.m., Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith said.
"He pulled out a blue-steel handgun ... he pointed that at Michelle Neff and he demanded money from her," Keith told the judge.
Shanks at first denied any involvement in the robbery, but on March 9 he asked Blacksburg Detective Donnie Goodman to visit him in the Montgomery County Jail where he was being held on traffic charges and parole violations.
He gave Goodman a taped confession to the robbery. "He provided details that only the actual person who did the crime," could have known, Keith said.
An argument that may be addressed during sentencing is whether the Pulaski and Montgomery convictions, coupled with Shanks' previous murder sentence, make up the three violent crimes necessary for a person to be declared a three-time loser ineligible for parole.
Either way, Shanks' pleas have made a self-fulfilling prophesy of comments he made to this newspaper last March.
"When I walked out of that prison door, I was just saddled with this impending doom. I knew I was going back," he said.
by CNB