Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 15, 1990 TAG: 9006150301
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DANNY GORDON
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Short
"We continue to interview relatives and associates of the victim, and are still waiting on a lot of evidence . . . to be analyzed by the forensics lab," said Carroll Delp, division special agent in charge of investigations for the Virginia State Police.
Delp said it was unclear what type explosive device killed Charles Matney, 63, of Jolo, W.Va.
Matney was killed after he drove from his West Virginia home accompanied by a neighbor, Melvin Rowe, to the mobile home he used as a hunting lodge in the Deer Trail Park of Wythe County.
Rowe told police that Matney walked around to the back of the mobile home, then back to the front and entered by the door. A short time later, Rowe said, a tremendous explosion ripped through the structure. Although a window in the pickup truck he was sitting in was blown out by the blast, Rowe was not injured.
"We have explosive incidents in Southwest Virginia from time to time," Delp said, "But, fortunately, seldom is anyone fatally injured. This is the only one I can recall of this intensity."
State police remain unsure whether the death of Matney, a retired well driller, was a homicide or an accident.
by CNB