DATE: Sunday, August 10, 1997               TAG: 9708100074

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: ROANOKE                           LENGTH:   31 lines

MAN HELD IN GRUESOME KILLING FACES CAPITAL MURDER CHARGE OFFICIALS CHECKING HATE-CRIME POSSIBILITY.

Charges against a Grayson County man accused of the burning and decapitation of a black man have been upgraded to capital murder, police said.

The gruesome murder of ex-Marine Garnett Johnson, 40, in late July has prompted local and federal authorities and the Virginia NAACP to investigate whether the case is a hate crime.

Charges against Louis Ceparano, 42, were upgraded Friday from first-degree murder to capital murder, a crime that carries a possible death penalty. He was also charged Friday with robbery, said Grayson County Sheriff Jerry Wilson.

Emmitt Cressell Jr., 37, also was charged with first-degree murder. Saturday, prosecutors added the robbery charge.

Both men are being held in county jails without bond. Wilson would not comment on the robbery charges.

Authorities said Johnson had been at a party with the two men and others at Ceparano's home in Elk Creek near the North Carolina border the night of July 24. Early the next morning, two unidentified people reported someone had been murdered at Ceparano's home. Police discovered Johnson's body in the yard.

``As of yet, we have no reason to believe (it was a hate crime), but when you've got two white individuals and one black victim . . . obviously it's something we have to look at,'' Wilson said.

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