ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 25, 1996 TAG: 9612260056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
A Roanoke man was in critical condition Tuesday after he was shot in the chest while sitting on a bed in his Staunton Avenue Northwest home.
As 35-year-old Richard Owsley was undergoing surgery at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, police charged Sidney Robertson, 38, with malicious wounding.
The Christmas Eve shooting happened about 12:30 p.m., when a man came to visit Owsley at his home in the 1800 block of Staunton Avenue, police said. An argument - the details of which authorities would not release - broke out between the two men.
A witness who was in the home at the time told police that he left the room where Owsley was seated, then returned a short time later and saw him being shot in the chest. The assailant then placed his gun in his jacket pocket and walked out of the house, the witness told police.
After hearing a radio description of the suspect's car, an officer who was patrolling Interstate 581 noticed a car fitting that description a few minutes later. The car was stopped on the Elm Avenue exit ramp in downtown Roanoke, and Robertson was taken into custody.
Robertson, of Cherry Avenue Northwest, was being held without bond in the Roanoke City Jail on Tuesday afternoon on charges of malicious wounding and use of a firearm.
Hospital officials said Tuesday night that Owsley's family had asked that his condition not be released. But police said he was in critical condition.
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