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

DATE: FRIDAY, August 11, 1995                   TAG: 9508110071
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

WOMAN, 42, KILLED IN PYRAMID FALL

When Gerald McDearmon of Roanoke said goodbye to his wife of 12 years as she left for a vacation in Mexico, he couldn't have known he'd never see her alive again.

Thursday, he left for Cancun to identify her body and bring it home.

Candice McDearmon, a Roanoke school speech and hearing pathologist and USAir ticket agent, fell to her death while sightseeing at a pyramid ruin outside Cancun.

"She just loved life and going, going, going," said her mother-in-law, Edith McDearmon, yet something as adventurous as traipsing up the face of an ancient ruin was out of character for her daughter-in-law.

Candice McDearmon, 42, was traveling with a friend when she climbed the pyramid Wednesday to take a picture. On the way down, she lost her footing.

Her friend called home with the news Wednesday evening about 7 p.m., Edith McDearmon said. The news has shaken friends and family alike.

"She never met a stranger, I don't think," Edith McDearmon said.

Her house was beautifully decorated and always in order, Edith McDearmon said. She even burned potpurri to keep it smelling good.

"It looks like Candice and it smells like Candice," she said.

Candice McDearmon never forgot anybody on special occasions.

"The Hallmark stores are certainly going to miss her," Edith McDearmon said. "Somebody said last night that we'll miss all Candice's cards."

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB