Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 7, 1992 TAG: 9201070155
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
RETIRED MONTGOMERY INVESTIGATOR DEAD AT 64
Clarence Edward Epperly, 64, a retired Montgomery County sheriff's investigator, died Sunday of cancer.Epperly was remembered Monday by his sheriff, Louis Barber, as a consummate professional, a quiet man with immense knowledge.
"He seemed to have a natural talent for investigation," Barber said of the man who headed Barber's investigation unit for 12 years.
"He was in charge of investigations the entire time he worked for me" and helped bring Buddy Earl Justus back from Buchanan County to stand trial for the murder of a pregnant nurse in Ironto.
"He was always a very neat and very professional man . . . soft-spoken. Could be mean as a striped snake if he had to be," Barber said, but "he always conducted himself as a professional. Clarence, he was kind of Mr. Cool himself."
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore had known Epperly since their school days and said they "worked together for the great sum of $3 week at a feed and fertilizer supply store in Christiansburg." Devore said that despite being "a little fella," Epperly could handly 200-pound sacks of fertilizer with ease.
Bob Colvin, now a commissioner with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Department, was an investigator under Epperly. Epperly "worked probably in the most transitional period of law enforcement," starting in the mid-1960s with barely more than a gun and a badge.
Funeral services will be Wednesday at 1 p.m. from Richardson-Horne Funeral Home Chapel with burial in Sunset Cemetery. The family requests that flowers be omitted and memorials be made to the Christiansburg Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 176, Christiansburg 24073. The family will receive friends 7-9 tonight at Richardson-Horne Funeral Home.