ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LAWRENCEVILLE
State police have identified two Brunswick Work Center inmates who were struck by a car and killed as Barbara Mize, 30, of Roanoke and Carol Austin, 41, of Richmond.
Mize was sentenced in April to one year in prison for selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer, according to Roanoke Circuit Court records. The conviction stemmed from a July 1995 investigation that charged 66 people.
Mize had been in and out of prison since 1990 on another cocaine charge and subsequent probation revocations, records show.
The women were on a grass-cutting detail on prison grounds and had just shut off their push mowers when a vehicle came over a hill and hit them Monday, said Tammy VanDame, Virginia State Police spokeswoman.
The vehicle then jumped a ditch and struck an embankment, VanDame said. A third inmate also on work detail escaped injury by jumping into the ditch.
The driver, an Alberta resident, was not injured. His name was not released, and he had not been charged as of Tuesday evening, VanDame said.
The inmates were facing traffic at the time of the accident, which occurred outside the prison fence line but within the prison grounds.
- Staff and wire reports
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB