Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501230066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Robert Michael May was at a New Year's party, a glass of bourbon in his hand and a pistol in his pocket, getting more and more irritated with an argument between two drunken men.
"We were sitting there and we were all getting really drunk," May would later tell a Roanoke homicide detective.
Two men that May did not know started to argue about "some Marine Corps and Navy stuff. ... About the Marines couldn't get there unless it was for the Navy and, you know, the Navy wasn't s--- ... and all this and that."
"I was like, 'Why don't both of you shut the f--- up,'" May remembered telling the two men.
In the following seconds, the trivial argument escalated into the worst mass killing in recent Roanoke history.
One of the men pulled a revolver and stuck it in his face, May told police. "And, just like instinctively, I knew I had [a friend's] gun on me. And I took his gun out and stuck it up to the guy, and the next thing I know, BAM!, I've shot the guy."
In an alcohol-blurred scene that May later described as "the fTwilight Zone," he shot the rest of the people - two men and two women - and then fled from the small, Old Southwest apartment.
After hearing May's statement, read by Detective C.B. Tinsley at a preliminary hearing Friday in Roanoke General District Court, a judge determined there was probable cause to support a murder charge against him.
Judge William Broadhurst certified the charge to a grand jury that will meet Feb. 6. At that time, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said, prosecutors will seek indictments charging May with the four other killings.
Branscom said May will be charged with capital murder, but no decision has been made on whether to seek the death penalty.
May, who appeared in court Friday with a new haircut and wearing blue jeans and a button-down shirt, is suspected of killing Dale J. Arnold, 36; Susan Hutchinson, 44; Cynthia LaPrade, 43; Carl Stroop, 42; and Daniel Mason, 47.
Arnold and Hutchinson lived in the tiny, upstairs apartment of a carriage house on 41/2 Street Southwest, where the shooting happened just three hours into the new year. LaPrade, Stroop and Mason, who lived at a nearby Mountain Avenue apartment, were guests at the party.
May, 27, did not testify Friday. He listened impassively as Tinsley read the statement he gave about 12 hours after the shooting.
During the 20-minute statement, May's emotions seemed to swing from remorse to disbelief at what he had done. He cursed often, and sometimes asked the detective questions about the crime scene as he tried to recount what had happened.
"Some of it's a big blur," he said. "It's like a gnightmare. I wish I could just wake up and go to work and go on with my life."
After the killings, May said, he tried to kill himself. He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, only to discover that he had emptied the weapon during the shooting.
It was the worst night of May's life, but it had started out on a good note. According to May's statement, this is what happened:
He and his girlfriend, Bridgett Decicco, had volunteered to help out at First Night, an alcohol-free New Year's celebration in downtown Roanoke. He and Decicco helped set up decorations and then handed out candles on the courthouse steps.
"It was feeling so good to be, like, doing good, righteous things," he said.
Around midnight, Decicco suggested that they celebrate with a sip of champagne. She was a recovering alcoholic, and May also had struggled with a drinking problem and managed to quit, but the festive moment apparently was too much to resist.
"All of the good steps he had been taking were lost on that fateful night," said Public Defender Ray Leven, who represents May along with Assistant Public Defender Roger Dalton.
The champagne led to beer, and the beer led to bourbon.
After several hours of drinking, May and Decicco headed to his apartment on Highland Avenue. Once at home, May ran into Frank Selbe Jr., a neighbor who had had too much to drink. After helping Selbe to bed, May took a .40-caliber, semiautomatic Glock handgun that Selbe had left on his bedroom dresser.
"I was going to take it to my house, and the next day, when he sobered up and I sobered up, give it back," May said. "I was trying to take care of him."
But on the way back to his apartment, May ran into Arnold - the only one of the five victims that he knew. "They were drunk and raising hell ... and they were like, 'Hey, come over and get drunk with us,''' he said.
May could not remember how long he had been at the carriage house apartment when two men - apparently Stroop and Mason - began to argue about the Navy and Marines.
May could not identify the men. But Mason served in the U.S. Navy, according to a Navy spokesman, and friends said Stroop was a former Marine.
After he told the men to shut up, May said, one of them grabbed him by the collar and pulled a gun. May shot that man, he told police, and then went into a self-defense mode.
"I'm not the biggest guy in the world and I'm damn sure no bad a--, but I got scared," he said. After shooting the three men, May said, he turned his gun on the two women, who were screaming.
"It was real loud, and I knew what I'd done," he said. "I knew things would never be the same, and I shot the rest of them."
When police arrived after a neighbor reported gunfire, they found the three men lying on the kitchen floor, all dead from gunshot wounds to the head. Hutchinson and LaPrade had been shot dead as they sat in the living room.
Hutchinson, who was shot in the head and the side, was sitting on the couch with her legs crossed when her body was discovered.
In a second statement to police, May said he left the apartment after killing the three men in self-defense, then returned seconds later and shot the women because they were witnesses.
Police have said it appeared that Hutchinson and LaPrade were shot as they slept, while the men apparently died during a violent struggle.
Authorities also said earlier that there was no indication that a second weapon was involved in the killing. May said he took the revolver that was pulled on him, but later threw it away as he fled to his father's home on Windsor Avenue Southwest.
But first, he ran back to his apartment to kiss his girlfriend goodbye - forever.
"I hugged her and squeezed her and kissed her, and told her things would never be the same," he said. As police approached, May fled down a hallway, climbed through a window and jumped from a second-floor balcony.
He then took a cross-country route - wading through the frigid waters of the Roanoke River - before ending up at his father's house, where he was arrested about 3 p.m..
At the end of the interview, Tinsley asked May if he had anything he wanted to add.
"I wish it had never fhappened," May said. "I wish it had never happened."
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