Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509170012
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
She died Thursday while traveling with family to Christiansburg from Florida. The family was coming in for a planned memorial service for Terry Griffith, who was killed last Sept. 18 while trying to arrest a shoplifter.
Helen Griffith, 71, died in the car she and her husband were traveling in near Bluefield, W.Va., where they were picking up another family member.
"Mom just sort of went to sleep," Diane Griffith, Terry Griffith's widow, said Friday.
The memorial service to mark the one-year anniversary of the police officer's death has been canceled. The Helen Griffith memorial service will be at 10:30 a.m. at Cambria Baptist Church.
A funeral will be held Tuesday in Branford, Fla. Helen Griffith and her husband, Robert, retired to Florida in 1989 after 20 years in Christiansburg, Diane Griffith said.
Terry Griffith, a 17-year veteran of the police department, died a few hours after being shot once in the head as he tried to apprehend a man suspected of shoplifting cigarettes from Hills Department Store.
His killer was shot dead by Montgomery County deputies after stealing one patrol car and refusing to surrender and drop Griffith's gun after jumping into another patrol car in his getaway attempt.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB