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

DATE: THURSDAY, September 7, 1995                   TAG: 9509070057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

RICHMOND POLICE LOOK AGAIN INTO FATAL BEATING

A Richmond police detective whose son was fatally beaten last year outside a fraternity party said she had to fight for more than a year to have her colleagues conduct a more thorough investigation.

Detective Jan McTernan said she was startled by the lack of support from her superiors after her son was severely beaten outside the Kappa Delta Rho house at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Thomas E. McTernan, 20, a lance corporal in the Marines, fell into a coma after the Aug. 28, 1994, beating. He died in a hospital a week later without regaining consciousness.

Jan McTernan and her husband, Richard, received a written promise last week from Richmond Police Chief Jerry A. Oliver to review the case. ``We certainly want to make sure we've done everything we can in this matter, so we plan to take yet another look to see if we can uncover anything at all that might shed some light on this tragedy,'' Oliver wrote the McTernans last week.

Two VCU students - John Jason Shields, then 21, and Arthus Bugarin, then 20 - were charged with malicious wounding in Thomas McTernan's beating. But Richmond General District Judge Ralph B. Robertson dismissed the charges Nov. 1 after witnesses delivered wildly contradictory stories about what happened. The ruling brought cheers from Shields' and Bugarin's fraternity brothers in the courtroom.

The judge said he was sure manslaughter had been committed and that the parties involved had not intended the tragic outcome.

In December, Commonwealth's Attorney David M. Hicks told the McTernans he would not seek homicide-related charges against Shields and Bugarin.

by CNB