Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506260162
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
State Police Sgt. Bob Stout said the body of Doris Skeeter Stanley was found around 9 a.m. in a tangled brush pile, 300 yards from where her muddy, waterlogged car was retrieved Saturday.
Stanley's family reported her missing Friday, after she failed to return from a trip to visit her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren in Chesterfield County.
Stanley's Chevrolet Lumina was found upside down in the creek about noon Saturday. The search for Stanley continued until dark and resumed around 8 a.m. Sunday.
A team of 95 police, fire and rescue personnel and 12 search dogs combed the muddy site where, three days earlier, the Timberlake dam in Campbell County burst and sent a wall of water rushing into Buffalo Creek. Mud was knee-deep in most places, said Stout, pointing to his soiled slacks.
Stout said it appeared Stanley's car had stalled in the rising flood waters. The car was found with the driver's door open and the window frame bent inward, Stout said.
Stanley appeared to have tried to make her way to dry land about the same time the dam broke but she was swept away, Stout said.
Stanley's body was taken to Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg and was to be transported to Roanoke for an autopsy.
Scott Gouldman, Stanley's son-in-law, said his mother-in-law's visit to his home in Chesterfield County last week was like many others she had made.
"She'd just come up to see the grandkids," he said. "She'd left at 8 o'clock Thursday night and I knew what time she should have gotten home."
When he found out the dam had burst and flooded the creek - and at what time - "I knew what had happened," Gouldman said. "It was too much of a coincidence. That would have put her right in the middle of it."
The family had lingered at the search site all day Saturday. They returned to the site early Sunday when the search resumed.
"I'm relieved that at least they found her - we all are," Gouldman said. "We're doing OK, as well as can be expected."
Word that Stanley's body had been located reached the Chestnut Hill Baptist Church in Lynchburg just before the Sunday morning service. Stanley was a deaconess at the church; her husband, Latham, a deacon. The 800-member congregation was shaken by the news, said Linda Selman, a church member.
Stanley headed an outreach program for the church Sunday school. The program was nearly finished and Stanley had planned an ice cream social Sunday evening. The church held the event anyway.
"It's primarily in her honor and dedicated to her," Selman said. "She wouldn't have wanted it any other way."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB