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

DATE: Tuesday, November 28, 1995             TAG: 9511280297
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: EASTVILLE                          LENGTH: Short :   49 lines

WHEN THE SHOOTING STOPPED AT AN EASTERN SHORE CLUB, A WOMAN WAS DYING AND 8 PATRONS WERE WOUNDED. ONE MAN HAS BEEN ARRESTED, ANOTHER REMAINS AT LARGE.

Herman Edmonds was tending bar in his popular Eastville club when he heard something that sounded like firecrackers popping on the dance floor.

Suddenly people started screaming, running from the room and diving behind tables for cover. Two men were shooting at each other in the crowded room. When they stopped firing, eight bystanders were wounded, and 25-year-old Inger Fitchett of Treherneville lay dying.

``Then the sheriff came and asked me to close, but I had already closed,'' said Edmonds, who has owned Herman's Restaurant since 1958.

He said most of the 200 people who filled his club jumped into their cars and fled after the shootout at 12:15 a.m. Sunday. But some stayed behind to lift Fitchett from the bare concrete floor. They laid her on a row of wooden chairs until the rescue squad arrived.

A bullet, possibly from a 9mm handgun, had pierced an artery in Fitchett's lower abdomen. She died shortly afterward from internal bleeding

Within hours of the shootout, police arrested 19-year-old Bernard Williams of Exmore, charging him with murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime. Warrants have been issued for a Philadelphia man known only as ``Jay,'' suspected of being the second gunman.

``There's no doubt in my mind that we'll get him,'' said Northampton County Sheriff Wayne Bradford. ``He has relatives here.''

Bradford said they caught Williams in bed, in the mobile home of a friend. He apparently had gotten a series of rides from acquaintances, and ended up in Boston, a tiny village near Pungoteague.

Bradford was unwilling to release the names or whereabouts of the wounded because his office is still getting statements from them. None had life-threatening wounds, he said.

The reason for the shootout was still unclear.

``I don't want someone to get to them before we do,'' said Bradford.

By Monday, police were questioning Edmonds and his staff. Scars from a shotgun blast marked the ceiling, but there were no bloodstains on the dance floor. Edmonds hopes to reopen soon, but fears the police may close him down.

``I'll open unless the boss says I can't,'' he said, glancing at Bradford. ILLUSTRATION: Color map

by CNB