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

DATE: Saturday, December 3, 1994             TAG: 9412030266
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: FAIRFAX                            LENGTH: Short :   49 lines

EX-SPA WORKER SAYS DEFENDANT SOUGHT HIS HELP IN 1993 KILLING

A former co-worker of the man accused of killing a Northern Virginia businessman for cash told jurors Friday that he turned down an offer to help in the assassination.

James Sabol testified that Ralph Shambaugh Jr. twice offered him a cut of the $25,000 Shambaugh would receive to carry out the killing.

Shambaugh is charged with capital murder in the June 10, 1993, fatal shooting of John Kowalczyk.

``He stated somebody wanted him to take care of somebody,'' Sabol testified.

Shambaugh first asked Sabol to drive the getaway car, Sabol said. ``He offered me $5,000 to drive a car for him,'' Sabol said.

Sabol said he refused. But Shambaugh came back with another offer a few days later, Sabol said.

``He said if you don't want to be involved or you don't want to do it, can you get me a silencer or a night scope, and I'll still pay you $2,000,'' Sabol said.

Shambaugh later paid cash for a night scope at a gun shop.

Sabol said Shambaugh never told him the name of the man he intended to kill.

Shambaugh, 34, allegedly plotted with Kowalczyk's former father-in-law to kill Kowalczyk.

Stanley Hyman, a 72-year-old millionaire, despised Kowalczyk for the hardship and pain caused by a long and bitter divorce and custody fight with Hyman's daughter, Katherine, prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said.

Shambaugh was at home in West Virginia when the killing took place, his lawyer, Peter D. Greenspun, said.

Kowalczyk, 38, was killed as he sat in his pickup in a suburban parking lot.

Shambaugh was a groundskeeper at the Coolfont resort in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., when he met Sabol, a maintenance man at the resort.

Another resort employee, James Alting, was the eventual getaway driver, Horn said. Alting disappeared a few days after the killing and was later found dead in a well on Shambaugh's property. A separate homicide probe is under way. by CNB