DATE: Tuesday, April 22, 1997               TAG: 9704220344

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A12  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
        Larry W. Brown

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   36 lines

2 SLAYINGS RAISE NORFOLK'S TOLL TO 6 IN A SINGLE WEEKIT'S AN UNUSUALLY HIGH NUMBER. POLICE HAVE MADE AN ARREST IN ONE OF THE CASES.

The weekend slayings of Cedric M. Cochran and Antonio A. Shoulders capped a bloody week in which six people were the victims of homicides in Norfolk.

There has been an arrest in only one of the cases, police said.

The violence started April 13 with the rape and murder of 73-year-old Mary D. Franklin, who was found dead in her home in the 9400 block of Hickory St. James E. Davis, 15, was charged with capital murder in the killing.

On April 15, Ronald G. Watson, 38, was shot in the 3300 block of Kimball Terrace near Grandy Park. He died in a hospital and the suspects got away.

Two men were killed in unrelated slayings two days later. Tyrone Pace, 29, of Buffalo, N.Y., was shot in the 5600 block of Brickell Road early Thursday morning. He went to a nearby nightclub for help and later died. No one has been arrested.

About 2:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Arturo Cerdenola, 44, was killed at the Bay Seafood take-out restaurant in the 1300 block of E. Princess Anne Road, where he worked. No one has been arrested.

Shortly before midnight Saturday, Cochran and Shoulders were found dead in a car in the Villa Heights neighborhood.

Six murders in one week is an unusually high number for Norfolk. There were 61 murders in all of 1996.

``Unfortunately, murder is an unpredictable and hard crime to prevent,'' police spokesman Larry Hill said Monday. ``And, as in anything, it can run in streaks.

``Hopefully the citizens will get involved and assist us with solving these horrible crimes.'' KEYWORDS: MURDER NORFOLK

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