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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 24, 1995                   TAG: 9505240069
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

SHANKS GIVEN 31 YEARS IN ROBBERY

Gary Shanks, the paroled murderer sentenced last month to three life terms in prison for the beating and robbery of a Pulaski County man, was sentenced Monday to serve another 31 years.

Shanks, 31, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Circuit Court in January to robbing an A&J Quick Shop clerk of $90 in June 1993. He also pleaded guilty to wearing a mask to conceal his face during the Blacksburg robbery, using a firearm while committing robbery and possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony.

Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith said Shanks was given 25 years on the robbery charge, one year on the mask charge and one year on the possessing a firearm charge. Shanks received four years on the charge of using a firearm to commit a felony because it was a second firearms offense, Keith said.

Shanks was convicted in 1980 of murder and use of a firearm in the 1979 shooting death of Edward Charles Disney, a teen-ager he met as he left a Blacksburg street festival. He was paroled in April 1993 after serving 13 years of a 41-year sentence.

Shanks' appearances in the courtroom aren't over. He was one of two men charged in March with sodomizing a fellow inmate in the Montgomery County Jail. A June 13 preliminary hearing has been set on that charge. Deputies say the incident happened Jan. 5.

Memo: ***CORRECTION***

by CNB