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

DATE: MONDAY, March 13, 1995                   TAG: 9503130099
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN VIRGINIA

NORFOLK - A man was found dead inside a recreational vehicle after flames swept through it, authorities said.

Investigators believe the victim owned the motor home and was sleeping when the fire broke out early Saturday morning.

Because the body was badly burned, the man's identity will not be released until the state Medical Examiner's Office has completed an autopsy.

The fire was traced to a stove in the motor home's kitchen, said Greg Orfield, an investigator with the Fire Marshal's Office.

When firefighters arrived, the vehicle was engulfed in flames. It was parked in the driveway of a home, and flames were spreading to that structure, as well.

Orfield said the man they suspect is the victim lived in Norfolk and traveled the country in the motor home.

- Associated Press

Va. robbery suspect dies in Ark. crash

VAN BUREN, Ark. - A man suspected of robbing a Virginia convenience store and abducting its clerk has been killed in a fiery crash on Interstate 40 after a police chase.

A car driven by the unidentified man overturned and burst into flames after a 15-minute chase Friday in which speeds exceeded 100 mph, police said.

The driver was burned beyond recognition. A video made at a 7-Eleven store in New Market, Va., from which a clerk was abducted Thursday, eventually may provide some clue to his identity.

State Trooper Charlie Edmonson said it may take dental records to identify the dead man.

The driver, stunned in the crash, resisted efforts of lawmen to get him out of the overturned car before it exploded in flames.

``All of a sudden, the car exploded and the bigger flames engulfed us,'' Mulberry police chief Bob Reeves said. ``All we could do was get fire extinguishers and try to put it out.''

In Virginia, a man armed with a small handgun forced a New Market convenience store clerk to drive him north on Interstate 81, left him on the highway between the New Market and Shenandoah Caverns interchanges, then drove away in the car, New Market Police Chief S.W. Crisman said.

The man told the clerk he needed transportation and had $20,000 worth of cocaine to deliver, Crisman said. The clerk was unharmed, he said.

The fugitive's last minutes started about 10 a.m. Friday when a service station attendent reported that a man drove off without paying for gasoline.

An officer saw the car pull onto the interstate heading east and gave chase after notifying other officers. The fleeing driver crossed the median and turned around to head west.

The fleeing car sped up as it headed west with speeds topping out at 100 to 110 mph. As he approached a roadblock at the U.S. 59 exit at Van Buren, the fleeing driver reversed course again, heading east.

Officers attempted to form a ``rolling roadblock'' with their vehicles in an attempt to box in the car and stop it. But the fleeing car drove onto the highway's shoulder, struck a guardrail, flew into the air and landed on its right side, skidding another 198 feet before it came to rest on its hood.

The driver was conscious but incoherent from the crash, Edmonson said, and resisted attempts to remove him from the car he had been driving.

``Gas was really spewing,'' Edmonson said. ``Then the smoke started boiling, so we didn't have long.''

When the car exploded into flames, Edmonson said, he ran for his fire extinguisher, but a second attempt to get the driver out was foiled by the intense heat and flames.

- Associated Press

Keywords:
FATALITY