ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 11, 1997 TAG: 9704110060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK THE ROANOKE TIMES
But police may never know the reason two men were shot to death in a Day Avenue apartment last Christmas.
Two men found shot to death in an Old Southwest apartment over the Christmas holiday were victims of a murder-suicide, Roanoke police said Thursday.
The finding - which confirms what police had suspected since they discovered the decomposed bodies locked in an apartment Dec. 27 - was made after forensic testing detected gunshot residue on the hands of Spencer J. Dickason.
Dickason, 54, was lying on the floor with a gun next to his hand, leading police to conclude that he had shot 44-year-old Odell Hairston and then himself after inviting Hairston into his upstairs apartment at 429 Day Ave.
Although some neighbors recalled hearing gunshots the night of Dec. 19, no one called police. It was only after residents of the apartment house complained more than a week later about a foul odor that a maintenance man unlocked the door and found both men. Each had been shot once in the head.
With no witnesses, no suicide note and no sign of a struggle in the apartment, a motive for the killings may never be known.
"We have no idea what happened there," said Maj. J.L. Viar of the Roanoke Police Department.
Because there were no signs of forced entry to the locked apartment, police had suspected from the beginning that the men died in a murder-suicide. But they waited until tests from the State Crime Lab in Richmond found gunshot residue on Dickason's hands - indicating that he had fired a gun shortly before his death - before they officially closed the investigation.
Dickason, a veteran who had lived alone in the apartment for about a year, was described by neighbors as a man who kept to himself, often sitting on the front porch and reading a book. But he also had friends over for late-night gatherings that sometimes became rowdy, the neighbors said.
Police and members of Hairston's family say they have no idea why he was in Dickason's apartment.
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines KEYWORDS: ROMURby CNB