THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501210156
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
A 20-year-old man arrested this week in Ohio waived extradition Friday and will be returned to Virginia to face murder and rape charges in the slaying of a 75-year-old Newport News woman this month after she offered him food and shelter, authorities said.
James M. Sample made a full confession Thursday to the Jan. 9 slaying of Madeline Barker of the 700 block of Balthrope Road, according to James Whitaker, a municipal court prosecutor in Lebanon, Ohio. Sample apparently confessed to a Newport News Police Department detective who traveled to Ohio to interview him.
Patricia L. Mahaffy, spokeswoman for the Newport News Police Department, said Friday that Sample will be formally charged when he is brought back from Ohio. She did not say when that would be.
Mahaffy said that Sample was last known to have been living in a tent in a wooded area near Jefferson Avenue and Buchanan Drive in the Denbigh area of Newport News. On Jan. 9, he went to Barker's residence and said he needed food.
``As Barker prepared food for Sample, he strangled her, raped her and fled the scene in her 1989 Chrysler New Yorker,'' said Mahaffy. ``Sample abandoned the car in Newport News Park that evening, then returned to the residence the next day, Tuesday, Jan. 10, and stole Barker's television.''
The next day, Mahaffy said, authorities found Barker's body, but later that day Sample returned to the house undetected, broke into the house and stole some silver coins.
On Friday, Jan. 13, Sample stole a car at Patrick Henry Mall and drove to Nashville, Tenn., police said.
``There he stole another vehicle and was apprehended in Warren County, Ohio, on Jan. 17, 1995,'' Mahaffy said.
He was charged there with receiving stolen property, carrying a concealed weapon, violating seat-belt laws and operating a vehicle without a license.
Police in Newport News were able to track Sample after neighbors reported that a man had been living in a tent in a wooded area near Barker's house. An alert for Sample was then put out by Newport News police.
Ohio police forwarded Sample's fingerprints to Virginia where Newport News authorities matched them with those found at Barker's residence, authorities said.
KEYWORDS: MURDER RAPE ROBBERY by CNB