THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Tuesday, July 18, 1995                 TAG: 9507180274
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: SUFFOLK                            LENGTH: Short :   46 lines

SUFFOLK POLICE FIND WOMAN'S BODY IN LAKE AS THEY HUNT FOR ANOTHER

The body of a woman was found in Lake Cohoon on Monday afternoon as police searched the lake for a missing person, believed to be a man involved in a hit-and-run accident nearby early Sunday.

The victim had not been identified Monday night. She was described as black, between 25 and 35 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches, about 150 pounds, with short hair tinted blondish-red.

She was wearing only part of a small top, said Mike Simpkins, police spokesman. The death is being investigated as a homicide.

Police estimate that the body had been in the water for two to three days, Simpkins said.

The body was found by a teenage boy about 4:30 p.m. in bushes at the water's edge near Kings Fork Road and Lake Meade Drive.

The search had centered on Christopher Dozier, 25, of the 1200 block of Miscott Drive, Hampton. Police suspected that Dozier - also known by a Muslim name, Ra Ashann - had wrecked his 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix about 1:10 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of Kings Fork Road and Lake Meade Drive. The car was found in a ditch with the windshield broken out and blood inside, Simpkins said.

Investigators began searching the lake Sunday after a boat, missing from a nearby home, was spotted on the lake with blood inside. Police believed the driver of the car, who probably had a head injury, could have gotten out of the car and into the boat, then fallen into the lake and drowned, Simpkins said.

Police do not know whether the theft of a pickup truck from the 3100 block of Kings Fork Road is connected. The truck reportedly had been recovered Monday in Greenville, N.C., and Greenville police investigators are expected to be in Suffolk today, Simpkins said.

He could not confirm whether the stolen truck had any connection with a string of attacks and vehicle thefts Monday in Greenville and in neighboring Johnson County.

KEYWORDS: MURDER HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT TRAFFIC DROWNING

AUTOMOBILE THEFT by CNB