ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996 TAG: 9605140015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: By LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
Evans Street residents prayed for healing in their neighborhood. They sang about love. They talked about hope.
About 15 neighbors gathered Friday night on the front porch of the house where a mother was shot in March. Her death was one in a series that left residents seeking relief:
Feb. 3, 1995 - Jan Bingham Shiflett, 35, was killed when she pulled her car into the path of a town police car racing to break up a domestic fight. Shiflett was a half block away from her Evans Street home when she died.
March 20 - Angie Knowles, 43, was shot in the chest and died during surgery. Her estranged husband, Michael Knowles, was charged with murder. Angie Knowles moved into her new home on Evans Street just a month before her death.
Those two incidents, plus the recent death by natural causes of an older resident, left Evans Street reeling.
Diane Gabriel points to houses as she describes their occupants. Two dwellings house people in their 90s. Another house, Gabriel said, has a younger woman living there.
"She's young, she's only in her 70s," she said.
There are families, too, represented by the children riding bikes up and down the street and playing with flashlights as sunlight fades.
Residents held a candlelight vigil to honor Knowles and heal some of the people left behind.
Cheryl Spencer remembers the day Knowles was shot.
"I can still hear the gunshots in my head ... they woke me up," she said.Spencer said she listened to the scene as it played out on the police scanner, knowing there was nothing she could do to help her friend.
"I just stood here and cried," she said.
Gabriel said her house was her haven before the shooting, but now she can't stop thinking about the tragedy.
She asked her pastor, Mark Christian of Park United Methodist Church, to lead the vigil.
On Friday, "Amazing Grace" filled the warm night air as candle glow painted the singing faces.
In the midst of the vigil Vanessa Knowles, 18-year-old daughter of Angie Knowles, softly walked up the steps of 109 Evans St., her fingers knitted between her boyfriend's hand.
Vanessa grabbed the barrel of the shotgun an attempt to save her mother's life. The same hand wounded that day, shielded a fragile candle flame Friday from wind.
Gabriel said Mother's Day weekend was an appropriate time to remember Angie Knowles.Angie Knowles left behind a legacy of great mothering, she said.
Knowles' daughter nodded her head at the compliment. Another woman talked about Knowles' dedication to her children and her humor.
Vanessa thanked the group for its support and talked about her mother.
"I know [my mother] knows how much she meant to us," she said. "I hope that it will make people keep her spirit alive so she'll never be dead."When the vigil ended neighborhood children skipped up to Vanessa Knowles to deliver hugs. They told her they remembered her mother as their baby sitter.
When the porch cleared of people, Knowles cupped her hands around her eyes and peeked inside the house.
"It's actually not as hard to come here as Peppers Street (the house she lived with both her parents)," Vanessa Knowles said. "Things were a lot happier here."
On June 9 Knowles will walk across the Christiansburg High School stage to accept her high school diploma. This fall she will begin her college career at Virginia Tech.
By Monday, Gabriel said possibilities on Evans Street seemed brighter.
"I look at that house and I just think of the sharing that went on there" Friday, Gabriel said. "I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders."
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: LORA GORDON With her mother's arm around her, Staceyby CNBWills tearfully sang along with the rest of her neighbors Friday
evening on the porch of the former home of Angie Knowles on Evans
Street. Residents in the neighborhood held a candlelight vigil in
memory of Knowles and two other neighbors who have died in recent
months. Stacey and her mother, Joanne Jenkins, live near Evans
Street. color.