THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412030247
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Two masked men who walked into a suburban jewelry store were shot to death Friday in a gunbattle with store employees, police said.
The men were shot about 10:15 a.m. in an exchange that riddled the glass front door and windows of Beverly Hills Jewelry with gunshots and left Christmas garland protruding from the holes.
One store worker suffered a wound to his left hand but there were no other injuries, said Henrico County Police Lt. Steve Powell. He said he did not know how the man was injured.
Henrico County police revealed little about the incident. Neither the dead nor others in the store were identified, and officials would not say whether any customers were in the store during the brief shoot-out.
Powell said the two men were dead when authorities arrived. Police recovered two shotguns from the store, he said.
But authorities refused to discuss how the weapons were used or whether others were involved in the gunfight. It was not clear whether the holes in the glass were made by a shotgun or bullets from other guns.
The store had just opened when the men entered, said a frightened woman who works in a hair salon nearby and refused to give her name. But many witnesses were unaware of the shooting until ambulances arrived.
``It's funny - I just heard someone say to me the other day something like this would happen with that big ad they put in the paper about diamonds,'' said Donna Speaks, who also works in the small brick shopping center where Beverly Hills Jewelry had opened only a few months earlier.
A man with a bandaged left hand whom police identified as the store owner declined to identify himself and said police had told him not to discuss the crime.
Autopsies were expected on the two men during the weekend, Sgt. Jim Fitzgerald said, but their identities were not likely to be known before Monday.
KEYWORDS: SHOOTING MURDER INJURIES by CNB