ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
Manhunt launched for murderer
RICHMOND - An inmate serving a life term for raping and murdering a woman and a 14-year-old girl escaped Wednesday from a maximum-security prison in a rural area 20 miles west of Richmond.
Geoffrey Alan Ward, 38, was reported missing about 8:45 a.m. by the Powhatan Correctional Center, police said.
About 185 Corrections Department officers, 45 state troopers as well as local and federal officials were searching for Ward, the department said.
Ward is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds. He has brown hair and blue eyes.
It was not immediately known how he fled the huge prison complex.
Powhatan County school officials decided not to bus home children who lived in the area near the prison where Ward was thought to be. ``We're calling parents because we don't want to send children home if parents are not at home,'' said school Superintendent Margaret Meara.
Fears that Ward could be hiding inside a house near the prison when students returned prompted the Powhatan County Sheriff's Office to make the request. Between 450 and 500 children in all grades were affected, and about 150 remained at the schools by 5 p.m.
``They will stay until someone can come for them,'' Meara said.
Ward admitted raping and killing the teen-age girl and the 38-year-old woman in Norfolk in August 1984. Both victims were strangled with a guitar string.
Investigators had no suspects in the cases until Ward walked into a police station 16 months after the crimes occurred and confessed, saying he ``wanted to get right with the Lord.'' - Associated Press X-ray shows police snake is clean
FREDERICKSBURG - A snake taken into custody as part of a robbery investigation is not holding the stolen cash, authorities said.
The 4-foot Burmese python was seized by an Alcoholic Beverage Control agent and the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office after police learned the snake might have the money stashed inside it.
The snake belongs to Richard Briggs, one of three men charged with the Jan. 12 armed robbery of a state liquor store.
Police X-rayed the snake and held it about a week before returning it to Briggs' girlfriend, Donna Lee.
``No money was found in the snake, but our investigation is continuing,'' ABC spokesman Robert Chapman said Wednesday.
An informant told police that Briggs had hidden the money inside the snake and had become upset when Lee sold it after his arrest, according to a search warrant affidavit. - Associated Press Toxic discharge report discontinued
RICHMOND - The Department of Environmental Quality no longer will produce an annual report detailing toxic discharges from Virginia factories.
While similar information is available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Virginians will have to work harder to find out how much toxic pollution is being released into the air and water.
With the EPA publishing an annual report, ``it would be duplicative for the DEQ to devote its resources to doing the same thing,'' said DEQ spokesman William P. Hayden.
The EPA compiles the information in a national report, the Toxics Release Inventory, each year. The report includes a summary of discharges in each state but is less detailed than Virginia's was.
The state's half-inch-thick document detailed discharges by city, county and factory and was free to the public.
Cathy L. Harris, who works in the DEQ's toxic-release program, said individual factories' disclosures will be available in the agency's files. - Associated Press
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