ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996               TAG: 9607310034
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STAFF 

ON THE TRAIL OF A SUSPECT

1970. While on the track team at Jefferson High School, Blaine Hodges meets Earl Conrad Bramblett, a volunteer assistant track coach. They become friends.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Bramblett runs a successful print shop in Southwest Roanoke. He maintains a friendship with Hodges and his family.

Aug. 29, 1994. Before dawn, passing motorists discover a house on fire at 232 East Virginia Avenue in Vinton. Inside are the bodies of Blaine and Teresa Hodges and their daughters, Winter and Anah. Teresa Hodges had been strangled; the other three had been shot.

Aug. 31. Police question Bramblett at a motel in Roanoke County.

Sept. 1. Based on statements Bramblett made to investigators, police get a warrant to search his motel room. Among other items, they find a detective magazine and a .22-caliber revolver - not the weapon used in the killings.

Sept. 8. Police search a trash container at Brewco SIgn Corp. in Roanoke, where Bramblett free-lanced before the murders. They found cassette tapes and notes by Bramblett referring to the Hodges, and a drawing of four stick figures, three with lines ponting to their heads.

Sept. 9. Police get a warrant to search a storage shed Bramblett had rented in Vinton. They find cassette tapes, a .22-caliber Magnum cartridge and a typewriter case containing photographs.

Oct. 12. In a letter to The Roanoke Times, Bramblett maintains his innocence. He accuses police of lying about their interviews with him, and says, "I was advised by several attorneys that the best I could do was get out of Va. and stay away from the Vinton police as long as possible."

August 1995. A year after the murders, Vinton Police Chief Rick Foutz says, "This case has been actively investigated every day since it happened."

Tuesday. A grand jury in Roanoke County indicts Bramblett, 54, on one count of capital murder, three counts of first-degree murder, arson and using a firearm. He is arrested in Spartanburg, S.C.

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