ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605200055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN SNIDER STAFF WRITER
When police found a man lying face down and bleeding in the foyer of his Southwest Roanoke apartment house Thursday night, another tenant told them he had fallen on a nail.
Police asked the woman to produce the nail. When she didn't, they turned the man over and saw that he had been stabbed in the chest.
The victim, 40-year-old Thomas Earl Spivey, died at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital about 2 a.m. Friday.
The woman, Joyce Ann Mohadess, 41, faces a murder charge, upgraded from malicious wounding after Spivey's death, police said.
After her initial statement to police, Mohadess admitted stabbing Spivey once in the chest, apparently after a dispute over money he owed her, police said.
Mohadess and Spivey lived in the same apartment house in the 1900 block of Patterson Avenue, but police said it was unclear whether they shared an apartment or had a relationship.
Spivey's death follows the shooting death Sunday of 20-year-old Marvin T. Williams - resulting in the first murder charges filed this year in Roanoke. Eric Tyrone Waller, 25, has been charged in that case. Williams was the boyfriend of Waller's sister.
LENGTH: Short : 34 lines KEYWORDS: ROMURby CNB