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

DATE: TUESDAY, July 4, 1995                   TAG: 9507050058
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

2 DEPUTIES ARE INDICTED IN RAPE, SODOMY CASE

A grand jury has indicted two Roanoke sheriff's deputies accused of raping and sodomizing a woman they met at a city nightclub while off-duty.

David Keith Bell and Larry Dean Neighbors were named in indictments returned Monday in Roanoke Circuit Court. Bell, 24, is charged with sodomy; Neighbors, 25, with rape and sodomy.

At a preliminary hearing last month, a 25-year-old woman testified that the two men sexually abused her the night of May 14 as they drove through the city, after offering her a ride home from a bar.

Both men, who worked as guards in the Roanoke City Jail, have been suspended without pay until the case is resolved. They have maintained their "absolute innocence" through their lawyers, who said at last month's hearing that they will contend the woman is lying.

No trial date has been set for the deputies, who have been free on bond since the charges were filed.

In other grand jury indictments Monday:

Arthur Jermaine Manns, 18, was charged with fatally shooting a woman in the back early in the morning of May 14 at the Lincoln Terrace housing project. Vickie Michelle Nichols, 31, was shot twice in the back after an argument over a racial slur she reportedly made, police have said.

Joel Anthony Craighead, 28, was charged with raping a 38-year-old mentally retarded woman last month at his home on 15th Street Southwest.

by CNB