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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 16, 1995                   TAG: 9502160065
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DISABLED MAN GIVEN 4 YEARS IN MOLESTING

David Edward Lockard, 37, of the 6700 block of Shingles Ridge Road, was charged with forcible sodomy in May after the child returned home and told her mother she had been locked in a room and sexually abused.

Lockard denied the accusation when first approached by police and swore on the Bible to his wife that it was false, but he went to the police station the next day and confessed, Detective Debbie Hogan said Wednesday.

He pleaded guilty Nov. 23.

Hogan told Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue that Lockard had admitted performing oral sex on the girl while his wife was picking up a newspaper from the family's mailbox a half-mile down the road.

Laura Lockard testified that she seldom left her husband in charge of their children - ages 7, 2, and 4 weeks - because he is not capable of caring for them. He has been treated at several mental health facilities and had started taking Thorazine and Lithium shortly before the incident, Laura Lockard said.

Lockard's attorney, Vaso Doubles, asked the court to take these factors into consideration and hand down a lenient sentence.

"This is an individual who has extreme psychological and psychiatric problems," she said. "He is intellectually limited. In fact, some of the tests in his psychiatric evaluation couldn't be done, because he is unable to read or write."

But Trabue said Lockard nevertheless committed the crime and he should be punished.

In addition to the prison sentence and five years of probation, Trabue ordered Lockard to participate in a sex offenders' treatment program. Lockard also was prohibited from spending unsupervised time with children.