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

DATE: TUESDAY, February 28, 1995                   TAG: 9502280099
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FRIEND'S TAPES TELL OF ANGER TOWARD SLAIN VINTON FAMILY

One of the last people to see the Hodges family before they were slain in their Vinton home last summer had recounted his anger toward one of the victims in a series of audiocassettes.

About a year before the Hodgeses were killed, Earl Conrad Bramblett rambled into a tape recorder about his relationship with the family and his "hostility" toward Blaine Hodges, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed Monday in Roanoke County Circuit Court.

Details of what Bramblett said on the tapes was not revealed.

The tapes are the first evidence that Bramblett held anything against the Hodgeses, who were found dead in their East Virginia Avenue home the morning of Aug. 29. Teresa Hodges had been strangled. Her husband, Blaine, and their daughters, Winter and Anah, had been shot in the head. The house then had been set on fire.

Bramblett has not been charged in the case, and he has not made his current whereabouts known.

The affidavit, opened by request of the Roanoke Times & World-News, reveals circumstantial evidence that police gathered against him during the early days of the investigation:

Almost immediately after the slayings, police talked to Bramblett and found him "defensive and evasive," according to the affidavit. On several occasions, Bramblett asked detectives if he was going to be charged with murder. At one point, he said he contemplated suicide because he felt so bad about the family's deaths.

Police used his statements and actions after the killings to obtain a warrant to search his motel room the morning of Sept. 1. They found cartridge cases of the same caliber as bullets found at the murder scene.

Six days later, Bramblett's sister gave police audiocassette tapes and photographs - created a year before the Hodgeses' deaths - documenting Bramblett's association with them, according to the affidavit.

Bramblett's sister told police her brother gave the instructions, "If anything ever happens to me, give these to the police."

On Sept. 8, investigators searched a trash bin at Brewco Sign Corp. in Roanoke, where Bramblett worked just before the Hodgeses were killed. There, police found notes referring to the Hodges family and an illustration with four hand-drawn stick figures. Three of the figures had lines pointing to their heads.

That illustration "may depict the death of the Hodges family," according to the affidavit.

With the accumulated evidence, investigators secured a second search warrant. The night of Sept. 9, police searched a storage locker rented by Bramblett at Winter's Mini Storage in Vinton. In it they found and seized a .22-caliber Magnum cartridge, cassette tapes, a typewriter case containing photographs and a past edition of the Roanoke Times & World-News.

Vinton Police Chief Rick Foutz would not elaborate Monday on the significance of the items. But he said ballistic evidence gathered from those searches and others was sent to FBI laboratories. Results from those tests were "positive," he said, but he offered no details.

Police have not recovered the gun used to kill Blaine, Winter and Anah Hodges.

Roanoke County Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue temporarily sealed all the search warrant affidavits in the murder investigation in September, saying information in them could jeopardize the case.

In early January, at the request of the newspaper, Trabue broke the seal on the first affidavit, saying his reason no longer applied. He opened the second affidavit on the same basis Monday.

That Sept. 9 affidavit does not reveal why Bramblett was angry at Blaine Hodges or exactly what was said on the audiocassette tapes.

Bramblett and Blaine Hodges had been close for 20 years. He was often seen at the Hodgeses' home, painting or constructing rose trellises. According to the second search warrant affidavit, a neighbor saw Bramblett at the Hodgeses' home the day before the fire.

At 7 a.m. the day of the fire, Bramblett went to Brewco, employee Glenn Barger said last week. He appeared upset, Barger said.

Bramblett "said he couldn't trust the police," Barger recalled. "He said he wasn't going to cooperate because he said he never trusted the police. Not long after that he left."

In an October letter to the newspaper, Bramblett said police had fabricated the information used to obtain the search warrants. And he said he had no direct knowledge about the killings.

Of the Hodges' death he said he was "in such a state of shock that [he] could not focus."

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