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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 30, 1995                   TAG: 9508300040
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK AND TONYA WOODS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE MAN, 18, CHARGED IN ASSAULT IN CEMETERY

Toby Antonio Preston of Westwood Apartments Northwest was charged Monday with the July 21 malicious wounding of the owner of Williams Memorial Park. Police have said the victim, Clarence J. Lynch, 66, was hit in the head with a metal pipe by an intruder who entered his office.

Preston was arrested Monday morning after a motorist saw a young man trying to break into an office building at Williams Memorial Park. The driver called police, who charged Preston with burglary after a foot chase. Further investigation led to the malicious wounding charge.

At the time of Lynch's attack, police were investigating the beating of an elderly man who was visiting a grave at nearby St. Andrews Cemetery, off Salem Turnpike Northwest. Preston has not been charged in connection that that incident.

In Roanoke County, an armed robber who hid in a store until after it closed got away with an undisclosed amount of money Monday night from the Food Lion in Market Square North Shopping Center.

Shortly after the store on Williamson Road closed at 10 p.m., a man wearing a black T-shirt and camouflage pants approached one of the employees, police said. The man pointed a gun at the employee and demanded money, said Chris Ahearn, spokeswoman for Food Lion Inc. in Salisbury, N.C.

The robber was last seen running out the back of the store. No shoppers were in the store, and no one was injured.

In other police reports:

A 63-year-old woman told police an intruder broke into her Brandon Avenue Southwest home about 3:25 Tuesday morning and tried to place a pillow over her face when she awoke to find him in her bedroom. The man fled after a brief struggle without injuring the woman. Police determined that the man had entered through an open kitchen window. Two purses were missing from the home, and a soft drink had been taken from the refrigerator and left unopened.

A 40-year-old woman told police she was raped and beaten Monday by a man she was living with on Melrose Avenue Northwest. The woman secured warrants from a magistrate and was treated at Community Hospital.

Memo: ***CORRECTION***