ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990                   TAG: 9004240346
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: CHASE CITY                                LENGTH: Short

MAN KILLS GIRLFRIEND THEN HIMSELF AT FUNERAL

A man who had just quit his job as a prison guard fatally wounded his live-in girlfriend at a funeral for one of her relatives and then committed suicide, authorities say.

"I was lowering the casket when I glanced up and saw him walk over and shoot her," Carnell Smithson said of Saturday's shooting at Meridian Baptist Church.

William Lewis Oliver, 31, walked up to Linda Darcell Wood Davis, 31, grabbed her arm and stuck a .357-caliber gun to her chest, according to Smithson, of the Smithson Bros. Mortuary.

Oliver shot the woman twice, Smithson said. She died about two hours later at a hospital.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Harold Harris said Oliver was tracked by dogs to an abandoned house nearby.

"At 2:49 p.m. we heard four shots from the house, and after shooting tear gas, officers entered and found Oliver dead from a gunshot wound to the head," the sheriff said.

- Associated Press 


 by CNB