THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 16, 1996 TAG: 9608160572
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: 35 lines
(AP) - A sheriff's deputy, distraught over the failure of his marriage, shot and killed his estranged wife and wounded her brother-in-law as he tried to intervene.
Then, Gregory A. Lovell spent 30 minutes pacing up and down the block screaming ``Shoot me'' before he raised his revolver and shot himself Wednesday night as officers who had tried to calm him opened fire.
E.J. Herzog said he heard shots and screams and looked out his window to see Linda Lovell's body crumpled in the front yard of the house across the street and her husband, a Newport News deputy sheriff, holding a gun.
``He leaned over her, and shot her again,'' Herzog said.
Police tried to calm Gregory Lovell, said police spokeswoman Patty Schlosser, but when he abruptly raised his gun, the officers opened fire, and Lovell shot himself in the chest. None of the officers were injured.
A preliminary autopsy showed that Lovell died of his own gunshot wound, Schlosser said. The revolver he used was not a service weapon. Linda Lovell was shot four times.
The Lovells, both 26, had separated four months ago. They had a 4-year-old daughter. Authorities said Linda Lovell had been staying with her sister.
James Ayers, Linda Lovell's bother-in-law, was shot in the leg as he tried to help her. He was in stable condition at Riverside Hospital, Schlosser said.
Lovell had been despondent over the failure of his marriage, but nothing indicated that he might become violent, Sheriff Clay Hester said.
`` He'd been a good deputy. This took all of us by surprise,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: SHOOTING MURDER SUICIDE DOMESTIC DISPUTE by CNB