ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609230061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
Landowner pleads guilty to assault
WARM SPRINGS - A Bath County landowner charged with reckless handling of a firearm for shooting at five fishermen, including a 10-year-old boy, has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
Related charges of trespassing and failure to identify themselves to a landowner were dropped against the fishermen, said their attorney, Ross Newell. The cases were heard Wednesday by General District Judge Greg Mooney.
In exchange for pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault and destruction of private property, landowner William Regan wasn't fined or sentenced to jail, Newell said.
The incident, which occurred June 22 on the Cowpasture River, was related to a debate over British crown grants awarded in Virginia during Colonial times and whether landowners can claim adjacent waterways and keep the public out.
In a ruling earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld crown grant rights.
- Associated Press
Coal miner is 2nd fatality of 1996
BRISTOL - Virginia has recorded its second coal mine fatality this year, according to the state Division of Mines.
Larry Damron, 29, died Wednesday in a roof fall at Kade Coal Co. in Buchanan County. The accident occurred about 10 a.m. at Kade's No.1 mine, said Mike Abbott, a division spokesman.
Damron was operating a roof bolting machine when the roof fell, according to preliminary reports. The Division of Mines ordered the mine closed, Abbott said, and a formal investigation was launched Thursday by the agency and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
- Associated Press
Father, son die in separate wrecks
TAPPAHANNOCK - A father and his only child died in separate car accidents eight hours apart in Essex County.
Irvin S. Davis Jr., 27, died when his pickup truck struck an embankment and overturned on Virginia 645 half a mile from his home near Dunnsville shortly after midnight Thursday.
His father, Irvin S. Davis Sr., 54, was found dead in his car after it left Virginia 611 near Dunnsville about 8 a.m. Friday and plowed into the woods.
Larry Smith, Essex County's chief of emergency services, said the elder Davis may have died of a heart attack.
- Associated Press
Doctor held in Tenn., but Va. trial is 1st
HARRISONBURG - A Virginia doctor charged in Tennessee with the attempted murder of a neurosurgeon will first stand trial in his home state on a charge of illegal possession of a poison.
Dr. Ray Mettetal, a Harrisonburg neurologist, faces up to life in prison if convicted on the poison charge. No trial date has been set.
Mettetal is charged in Nashville, Tenn., with attempting to murder Dr. George Allen, chief of the Vanderbilt University neurosurgery department.
Police say Mettetal, a resident in neurosurgery at Vanderbilt in the mid-1980s, wanted revenge because Allen ruined his chances to become a neurosurgeon.
Mettetal's attorney, Patrick McNally, has said the charges are overblown and that his client did not intend to kill anyone.
Mettetal was indicted in June by a U.S. District Court grand jury in Charlottesville on a charge of possession of Ricin - a deadly poison - for use as a weapon.
- Associated Press
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