
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 11, 1994                    TAG: 9406110310 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: D3    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: 940611                                 LENGTH: CHESAPEAKE

MAN CHARGED IN RAPE, MURDER OF SOUTH NORFOLK GIRL

{LEAD} Since December, the smiling face of 14-year-old Chernise N. Simmons has peered from a poster taped to a bookcase in the Police Department's public affairs office. Bold, black letters offered a reward for information about the South Norfolk teenager's unsolved rape and murder.

On Friday, two hand-scrawled words were added to the black-and-white flier. In red capital letters smeared with a yellow highlight pen was the proclamation: ARREST MADE.

{REST} Late Thursday, police charged a 34-year-old Virginia Beach man with killing Chernise, whose badly beaten and partially clothed body was found Dec. 11 in a wooded area off Elbow Road in Chesapeake.

Samuel L. Moyler, who frequented the South Norfolk neighborhood where Simmons was last seen alive, is being held in jail without bail, said police spokesman Tony Torres.

Torres said ``new evidence'' led to Thursday's arrest, but he declined to be more specific. However, detectives have been waiting several months for the results of lab tests on a suspect's bodily fluids, which were gathered at the crime scene.

A detailed analysis of such fluids can be used to help determine who committed a crime.

Chernise, of the 1700 block of Parrish St., was last seen at a party Dec. 10 in Chesapeake.

The next day, her body was found. She had been badly beaten, raped and strangled.

Police said early in the investigation they had focused on one suspect, but declined Friday to say whether Moyler was that person.

Torres said Moyler has family in Chesapeake, not far from where Chernise was last seen. Moyler was arrested outside a Chesapeake residence about 10:15 p.m. Thursday without incident, Torres said.

Moyler, of the 1300 block of Sagamore Court in Virginia Beach, has been charged with capital murder. If convicted, he could be sentenced to die in the state's electric chair.

{KEYWORDS} CAPITAL MURDER ARREST RAPE

by CNB