DATE: Tuesday, November 11, 1997            TAG: 9711110274

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT AND REBECCA MYERS CUTCHINS, STAFF WRITERS 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:  107 lines

FAMILY LOSES SECOND SON TO CRIMEMICHAEL BOGGS WAS SHOT TO DEATH BY POLICE AFTER A CHASE FRIDAY. RICHARD BOGGS WAS EXECUTED IN 1990 FOR A 1984 MURDER.

When Michael W. Boggs was shot to death by police after a high-speed chase Friday, the shooting was the latest in a series of traumatic events for the close-knit Cradock neighborhood where Boggs lived.

Boggs was shot Friday after he stopped, got out of a van and pointed a gun at officers, according to police spokeswoman Amber Whittaker.

He died Saturday, seven years after his younger brother was put to death in Virginia's electric chair for the murder of an elderly neighbor.

Richard T. Boggs was 21 in 1984 when he bludgeoned 87-year-old Treeby Shaw to death after she served him tea. Richard Boggs was arrested after police found the Shaws' family silver in the trunk of his car when arresting him for killing a man in a hit-and-run accident.

Shaw's slaying was doubly painful for the middle-class community.

Neighbors mourned their elderly neighbor, and they mourned for Billy L. and Sybil Boggs, the couple who would lose their son for the 1984 murder.

Mary Wilson remembers that one of Shaw's friends, also an elderly neighbor, sent food to the Boggs home.

``She said, `They've had a death, too.' ''

The same woman sent money to Richard Boggs for ``his incidentals'' while he was in the penitentiary, she said.

He wrote the woman to thank her and to ask for her prayers.

A woman who answered the door at the Boggs home Monday said the family did not wish to be interviewed.

Some neighbors said they admired Richard Boggs' parents for staying in the home they owned just two doors from where Shaw was killed.

``I give them a lot of credit,'' said Helen Wood, an 86-year-old who lives nearby. ``They could have picked up and moved and gone. But they stayed there and faced the battle.''

Now, almost 14 years after Shaw was slain, the parents once again must deal with the death of a son.

Police received numerous reports of shots fired in Cradock, including a report that a man was firing from a white van.

Whittaker said the investigation is continuing and that it has not been determined if Boggs was the person firing the shots.

But when police tried to stop Boggs, who was driving a white van, he refused. He led police on a chase through several parts of the city before stopping in Port Norfolk.

Whittaker would not say how many times Boggs was shot, only that he died of a head wound.

``My heart goes out to the family,'' said Wood, who said she would watch Michael Boggs and his father take walks together.

Wood said Billy and Sybil Boggs do more for her than any other neighbor she has.

``They come and check on me to see if I need anything,'' Wood said. ``(Mrs. Boggs) brings my garbage cans in and takes them out. I wouldn't want any better neighbors.

``As far as Michael is concerned, I don't know anything bad about him.''

One former neighbor broke down in tears when it was confirmed that it was the same family she had once known so well.

``It's so sad,'' she said. ``I thought, `Oh, God, is Sybil going to be able to live through this?' ''

The woman, who asked not to be identified, recalled that the murder of Shaw changed her mother's last years living in the neighborhood.

``I don't think she ever got over being scared.''

But she, too, admired the Boggs family for staying.

Michael and Richard Boggs' grandmother had lived in the neighborhood. So did an uncle.

``I certainly have a place in my heart for the Boggses,'' she said.

Former schoolmates of Michael Boggs described him as a calm, level-headed, low-key student.

``He and (his sister) were always straight-laced kids who minded,'' Val Justice said. ``Then Ricky turned out to be a total surprise.''

She remembered Michael Boggs as an almost ``computer-nerd kind of a guy. He was a loner. He was a very low-key guy, and he never bothered anybody.''

Tim Duke did remember one incident late in Boggs' teen-age years when he reportedly cashed one of his parents' checks and disappeared.

Newspaper clippings from 1978 describe Michael Boggs' disappearance and the recovery of his abandoned car in Michigan, but nothing about his return to Portsmouth.

Tommy Moring, who had known Michael since elementary school, described him as a ``good guy'' whom he never thought of as aggressive.

``That's just weird that he would be out there toting a gun around . . . because he never seemed to be an angry-type person.''

William Reed, who said he was a close friend of Boggs' at one time, also thought of him as a ``good guy.''

But recently, he said, he had distanced himself from Boggs.

``Whenever he got drunk, he got really unstable,'' Reed said.

Boggs had been troubled lately and drinking a lot, Reed added. He lost one job, then got a new one and lost that, Reed said.

``Things had been going downhill for him.''

Reed said he stopped letting Boggs come into his house. Boggs became irate about it and had threatened him and his girlfriend, Reed said.

``I think it was just all the pressure, and he was high-strung and maybe he just couldn't take it anymore,'' Reed said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

Photos

MICHAEL BOGGS

Pictured in 1978, Michael Boggs died Saturday, seven years after his

younger brother was put to death for the murder of an elderly

neighbor.

RICHARD BOGGS

Richard T. Boggs was 21 in 1984 when he bludgeoned 87-year-old

Treeby Shaw to death after she served him tea. KEYWORDS: SHOOTING PORTSMOUTH POLICE DEPARTMENT

FATALITY

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