THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701260063
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 52 lines
A 17-year-old high school student was killed Saturday night in a drive-by shooting that has stunned residents of the Landstown neighborhood.
Police said Timothy M. Wheaton, a well-known junior at Kellam High School, was shot just after 7 p.m. in the 3000 block of Barberry Lane at Bloomfield Drive, off Holland Road.
He was pronounced dead shortly after police and paramedics arrived.
In an unusual scene under a bright moon, a priest was escorted past police lines at the request of Wheaton's family. As an investigator held a flashlight to illuminate the area where the youth's body lay, the priest administered last rites.
Later, as a van left with the body, it stopped so the victim's parents could see their son. Wheaton's family lives in the 3000 block of Winterberry Lane, only a short distance from where the shooting occurred.
The body was taken to the State Medical Examiner's office in Norfolk.
Several witnesses told investigators that the youth was shot by a man in a small black vehicle, possibly a Dodge Neon. It was driven by a white man with long blond hair.
There were three other males in the car, all described only as white. It was uncertain if the people in the car also were teen-agers.
Witnesses said the car had pulled up to Wheaton and that a man leaned out and opened fire with what is believed to have been a small-caliber handgun. The teen-ager ran about 20 yards from the scene and then collapsed as the car sped off.
It was unclear whether Wheaton had been waiting for the car or knew his attackers. His bicycle was left on the ground nearby.
Police mounted several intense searches, with police cars on the streets and a helicopter in the air, for the vehicle after receiving reports of its whereabouts. But no arrests had been made as of 11 p.m.
Wheaton was the backup goalkeeper on the Kellam Knights soccer team, specializing in defense against penalty kicks.
His team won the Eastern Region boys soccer title last year, in part because of his defense of the net during an intense, sudden-death penalty-kicks shootout with Kempsville.
As news of the shooting spread, neighbors gathered in the area, coming up to yellow police tape barricades to see what had happened in the normally quiet neighborhood. Among the curious were teen-agers, some of whom broke down in tears when they learned Wheaton had been killed. MEMO: Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call Crime
Solvers at 427-0000.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING