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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 10, 1992                   TAG: 9203100202
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: BY PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

IS JAILER ALSO FIRE VICTIM?

The missing man was identified Monday as Wade Jones, who has worked as a dispatcher, jailer and civil process server for the department for 13 years under three sheriffs.

Sheriff R.D. Carrico said Jones was reported missing Saturday by members of his family and by friends.

Carrico said it was not known Monday whether the body found in the fire was Jones'.

He also said cause of death was not known.

The body was taken to the medical examiner's office in Roanoke for an autopsy, which started Monday and was expected to take several days.

The fire occurred in the Cana section of the county Friday night, and the Cana Volunteer Fire Department responded.

Carrico discovered the body. The cause of the fire was also not known, he said.

Jones also had worked under Carrico's two predecessors, W. Hassell Vass and E.O. Semones.

It was the second time in four months that the possibility of foul play was investigated in connection with bodies found in fires.

The bodies of Sheila Marie Ring and her 2-year old daughter, Jasmine Sutphin, were found in the remains of a house fire Dec. 3. Autopsies showed they had been stabbed to death.

Authorities arrested T.J. Midkiff, 27, of Carroll County in connection with their deaths and have held him in the county jail under a $1 million bond.

Midkiff was indicted Monday by a Carroll County grand jury on one charge of capital murder of the two victims, one charge of first-degree murder of Ring, and one charge of arson.

His trial will not be scheduled before the June term of circuit court.