THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180378
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
A man fatally shot his two teenage children Monday and then killed himself in a townhome community bordering a golf course in Greenbrier.
His wife discovered the bodies when she returned home shortly before 6 p.m., police said.
A motive for the shootings wasn't clear, police spokesman Dick Black said.
Detectives who were called to the 1100 block of Shoal Creek Trail in The Fairways section of the city found 13-year-old Amy Smith dead in the downstairs kitchen of the white-sided, modern duplex.
In an upstairs bedroom, investigators found her 15-year-old brother, Eric.
A few feet away in an upstairs hallway, police found the children's father, 40-year-old David Smith.
All were dead of gunshots, Black said. There was no apparent evidence of a struggle, he said.
Black said the shootings happened sometime between noon, when David Smith was last seen, and 6 p.m., when his wife, Kim, returned home.
Neighbors in the modest townhome community who gathered on the sidewalks outside the yellow crime-scene police tape said the family had not lived in the duplex long. No one said they heard gunshots or anything unusual Monday.
This is the second domestic multiple murder that city detectives have investigated in seven months.
On Dec. 23, Deep Creek resident Janice Eastman admitted to killing her 36-year-old husband, 11-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. She was distraught as the holidays approached, those who knew her said.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SUICIDE SHOOTING
by CNB