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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992                   TAG: 9201250068
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: TAZEWELL                                LENGTH: Short

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MAN SENTENCED IN BROTHER'S STABBING DEATH

A 43-year-old Richlands man charged in the fatal stabbing of his twin brother on the last day of 1990 has been given a 10-year suspended sentence in Tazewell County Circuit Court.

The murder charge against Ronald Lee Silcox was reduced to voluntary manslaughter in a plea-bargain over the death of Donald Ray Silcox.

Commonwealth's Attorney Michael Dennis suggested a sentence in the one-to-10-year range, but Circuit Judge Donald Mullins decided on the suspended sentence.

Although the defendant pleaded guilty to the reduced charge, he said that he and his brother had been drinking heavily at the mobile home which they shared and that he remembered nothing of what happened.

- Southwest bureau

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