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

DATE: TUESDAY, May 23, 1995                   TAG: 9505230115
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN VIRGINIA

CHARLOTTESVILLE - A DNA test has cleared a man charged last week with one in a series of early-morning attacks on women in the University of Virginia area.

City police arrested Christopher Noakes, 26, on Friday and charged him with breaking and entering and forcing a woman to commit sodomy May 13, the latest of six attacks.

But after spending the weekend in jail, Noakes was set free Monday.

``I was trying to tell Detective G.W. Mills that I wasn't the one who did it. ... They didn't want to listen to me,'' Noakes said Monday night. ``They wanted me to confess to something I didn't do.''

Lt. J.E. Harding said investigators sent DNA samples from Noakes and semen samples from the May 13 attack and one other incident to the state crime lab in Richmond. Tests conducted over the weekend showed that the two attacks were committed by the same man, but that Noakes was not that man.

- Associated Press

Dropped gun fires; motorcyclist dies

VIRGINIA BEACH - A man trying to kick-start his motorcycle was killed when a handgun fell out of his vest and fired when it hit the pavement, police said.

The bullet struck David K. Fultz, 34, in the left side of the abdomen late Sunday. A police officer and an off-duty Chesapeake firefighter tried to save him. He was pronounced dead at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital's Trauma Center.

- Associated Press