ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 19, 1996 TAG: 9606190033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
Two teen-agers who burned a 4-foot-tall cross in a black family's yard in March each will serve 60 days in detention facilities in addition to performing community service and undergoing counseling on race relations, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge John Buck announced the sentences Tuesday after reviewing reports detailing the boys' past offenses and other information. The teens' names are not being released because of their ages.
Each boy was found guilty May 21 of felony cross burning and throwing a rock through a window. Buck dismissed two other charges of conspiring to burn a cross and entering private property with intent to cause damage.
Buck said he committed the elder of the two boys - a 17-year-old from Pulaski - to the state Department of Family and Youth Services. The teen will serve 60 days in a state youth detention facility in Richmond before he is returned to Pulaski to serve active probation for as long as three years.
The 17-year-old, who turns 18 in July, also will complete 125 hours of community service and receive 25 hours of counseling on race relations, Buck said.
The other teen, a 15-year-old from Radford, will serve 60 days in the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home in Christiansburg. After his sentence is complete, Buck said, the boy will serve probation for an indefinite period.
The Radford teen also was sentenced to an equal amount of community service and counseling hours as the other boy, Buck said.
Pulaski County sheriff's deputies used the department's bloodhound to track the boys March 23 from the yard of George and Chanie Truehart on Virginia 3. The dog led deputies to another house about a quarter mile away.
Capt. Mike Alderman, who testified at the May hearing, said the boys claimed that they did not know a black family lived at the house where they burned the cross, but that they did know a black family lived in the area.
Alderman said the Trueharts are the only black family living on the street. The Trueharts said they saw flames in their yard and heard the sound of glass breaking when a rock hit their window. Chanie Truehart called the Sheriff's Office while her husband put out the fire.
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