ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 18, 1997 TAG: 9703180061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE THE ROANOKE TIMES
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on March 20, 1997.
A spokeman for San Quentin State Prison in California said no guards
were killed during an escape attempt that involved David Bickley in
1962. Bickley, who threatened to set himself on fire in front of the
Poff Federal Building in Roanoke on Monday, said two guards were injured
during the attempt. A story Tuesday contained inaccurate information.
A Max Meadows man who once did time for murder was upset about 10 wrongly felled trees.
A Max Meadows man chained himself to a bench outside the Poff Federal Building on Monday morning in protest, threatening to set himself on fire with a gallon of gasoline and a lighted cigarette.
David Bickley, 57, unchained himself and went inside after speaking with his former probation officer. He was not charged and was later allowed to leave - with his super-unleaded gasoline.
He said that the probation officer, Mike Duncan, gave him options to consider and that he decided not to kill himself then, but that he might still.
"I was ready to fry myself. I wasn't playing games," Bickley said, talking calmly in a telephone interview from his home in Max Meadows on Monday evening. "If it takes me dying to help my family, then that's what it'll take."
Bickley said he was upset about "a whole lot of things," but one in particular was a dispute he is having with Wythe County officials. Contractors mistakenly cut down eight to 10 hardwood trees on his property while running sewer lines recently, even though he had been assured that he'd lose only one sugar maple, he said.
Bickley is a convicted murderer and armed robber from California whose 1960s death sentence was later reversed, he said. He was resentenced to life in prison, but was paroled.
He is familiar with the Poff building after being convicted there in 1983 for possessing firearms as a convicted felon. He was placed on probation.
Testimony at his federal trial revealed that Bickley had been part of an attempted escape from San Quentin's death row in which a guard was killed, said Jim Silvey, resident agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' Roanoke office. Silvey was the agent who arrested Bickley on the gun charges 14 years ago.
Roanoke police were called to the scene Monday morning, but left without placing charges after the protester agreed to go inside.
Bickley said he arrived at 6:30 a.m., but waited till 9 a.m. - "just trying to psyche myself up for it" - before chaining himself to the wooden-and-concrete bench in front of the building. He wrapped a logging chain around his neck and around the bench, locking it with a brass padlock.
"Their security system stinks," he said, noting that he wasn't noticed until after 10 a.m.
Both court security officers from the U.S. Marshals Service and building security guards patrol the outside of the building regularly and there are cameras on the corner of each building. It was a court security officer who saw Bickley and talked with him until police arrived.
When Bickley said he wanted to talk with his former probation officer, Duncan came down.
Bickley said his family - a wife and four children - would be better off without him, although they disagree with that. He draws disability checks, he said, but can't afford to hire a lawyer to fight the county.
Wythe County has offered to replant the trees, but he said it would be impossible to replace the 50- to 75-year-old trees.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB