Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Paul Westley Ragland Sr., 42 at the time of the crime, entered guilty pleas to second-degree murder and use of a firearm in a murder as part of an agreement with the commonwealth's attorney, according to Buckingham County Circuit Court Clerk Malcolm Booker.
Ragland, a former tool room clerk at a Roanoke car dealership, originally was charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 15, 1994, death of Marcia Summers, 40, of Fairfax.
According to testimony at a preliminary hearing last October, Summers was shot several times in her trailer while her 9-year-old daughter slept just a few feet away.
Summers' body was found the morning of the last Sunday of the church's annual family week at the camp. Summers, a homemaker who sold encyclopedias for extra cash, had a 6-year-old son, who had stayed at the Summers' Northern Virginia home with his father, Charles.
Summers' father, Millard Garvin, said last year he remembered his daughter and Ragland playing together at the camp as children 35 years ago.
At the hearing last October, one witness said Ragland had parked his camper near Summers' and was spending so much time with her that he thought they were married.
That witness also testified that he heard what he thought were firecrackers going off about 2:45 a.m. on Aug. 15, and that he saw a dark, late-model Ford Mustang leaving the campground minutes later. That's the same kind of car Ragland's brother, David, testified that Ragland was driving when he arrived at camp that week.
Paul Ragland was arrested without incident by state police the following day at the home of another brother in Portsmouth.
Ragland is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 28. He could receive five to 40 years in prison.
by CNB