ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9605010075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
MEMO: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition<.
A 52-year-old man who tried to carjack a woman in broad daylight in downtown Roanoke was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison.
Robert D. Matthews received the sentence from Circuit Judge Robert P. Doherty.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips said earlier in court that the incident happened about 3 p.m. Nov. 22, when Andrea Lambert left a restaurant on the Roanoke City Market and walked to her car in a parking lot on Salem Avenue.
Matthews grabbed the woman as she was getting into her car and tried to drag her out, cursing at her, Phillips said. An unidentified man foiled the attack but left as Matthews fled.
Lambert got back in her car and drove to the police station, where she gave a description of her attacker. Matthews was arrested a short time later in Southeast Roanoke.
Matthews, a horse trainer from Texas, had arrived in Roanoke on business shortly before the incident. When someone failed to pick him up at the bus station, he began to drink heavily at a downtown bar.
"I was intoxicated at the time," he told Doherty in March, after pleading no contest to attempted carjacking. "I had no intention to try to take this lady's car."
LENGTH: Short : 34 linesby CNB