DATE: Thursday, November 20, 1997           TAG: 9711200469

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   55 lines

SECOND SUSPECT CAUGHT IN DEEP CREEK SLAYING THE VICTIM WAS KIDNAPPED FROM HIS HOME AND SHOT SOON AFTER.

The second suspect sought for the Nov. 5 kidnapping and slaying of a 25-year-old Deep Creek man has been caught, police said Wednesday.

Gregory Locke, 21, from Fayetteville, N.C., was picked up by North Carolina authorities Wednesday for failing to appear in court on a drug charge, said Chesapeake police spokesman Dave Hughes. A computer bulletin flagged Locke as a suspect in the robbery of mobile home owner Dwight Steinruck Jr.

Hughes said Locke helped Willie Augusta Ricks Jr., 26, also of Fayetteville, break into the mobile home at Deep Creek Mobile Home Park on South Military Highway. Steinruck and his mother were watching television at about 8 p.m.

Steinruck was forced from the home and ordered to drive to an automated teller machine, police said. When Steinruck tried to escape from the car, he was fatally shot. Steinruck's mother, who pleaded with the attackers to spare her son, wasn't hurt.

Ricks, who is in the Chesapeake City Jail, has been charged with 10 felonies, including murder.

Chesapeake police have warrants charging Locke with eight felonies, including robbery, burglary, abduction and gun crimes. North Carolina authorities notified Chesapeake detectives when Locke was arrested, Hughes said.

Hughes said lead Detective Ronnie Young will travel to Fayetteville today or Friday. Police are waiting to hear from North Carolina authorities whether Locke can be extradited to Chesapeake.

Hughes said Locke is not facing murder charges now because investigators do not believe he was in the car when Steinruck was shot. However, a murder charge against him is still possible because police said Locke participated in a crime that ended in a slaying. Hughes said the Chesapeake commonwealth's attorney's office is reviewing the case.

Hughes said detectives still are not certain if the victim was targeted, or if the home invasion was a random crime.

Hughes said that Ricks, the first suspect caught by police, once knew residents in the area where the victim lived, but there is no known connection past that.

Hughes on Wednesday would not say what led them from the Deep Creek slaying to the arrests of the North Carolina men. Hughes would only say the investigation showed that the two men came to the area together on that night. However, sources familiar with the investigation said a fingerprint found at the crime scene led police to the men, who are friends.

A fingerprint identification like that is called a ``cold hit'' in police jargon, meaning it alone identified an unknown suspect. The ``hit'' happens when a fingerprint lifted from a crime scene is compared by a computer with thousands of other fingerprints on file. When the computer matches the crime-scene fingerprint to a file fingerprint, police have a match, and a solid suspect. KEYWORDS: MURDER ARREST COLD HIT

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