Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993 TAG: 9308280346
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN/Staff Writer and The Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The men were taken into custody after a shootout with law enforcement officers at an auto dealership. One of the fugitives was struck by gunfire and a man taken hostage was injured.
Billy Joe Hottle, armed with a .22 caliber pistol believed to have been used in the three killings, "took a hostage and attempted to flee the area," according to a statement issued by the sheriff's department. "When confronted by officers, shots were exchanged. Hottle received several wounds. The hostage also received a wound."
Hottle, 20, was flown to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., where he was listed in fair condition with gunshot wounds to the chin and thigh, according to a report by the Cumberland (Md.) Times-News.
Don Phares of Petersburg, a Petersburg Motor Co. employee, was treated for a wound to the leg inflicted by an unidentified sharp object and released, the newspaper reported.
Craig Swick, 23, was in the Grant County, W.Va., Jail without bond on two first-degree murder charges, said a sheriff's dispatcher.
Swick, who apparently was unarmed, was arrested inside the dealership, the dispatcher said.
Authorities said several employees and customers were inside the dealership at the time of the shootings, but none was injured.
West Virginia authorities had been searching for cousins Hottle and Swick, both of Grant County, since they escaped earlier this month.
The manhunt heated up Monday after a couple and a convenience store clerk were killed in West Virginia. Hottle and Swick have been charged in the killings.
The arrests came a day after the fugitives forced a Fayette County family to drive them 200 miles to Petersburg, an Eastern Panhandle town of 2,360 residents, police said.
Fears that the escapees had come to Virginia were raised early Thursday after New River Valley law enforcement officers spotted two men who matched their descriptions. One was seen near the Prices Fork Research Center; the other was seen using a pay phone at Hethwood Square.
Both men had run away when approached by officers.
Law enforcement authorities were patroling that area after a newspaper carrier who did not know about the escapees reported seeing two suspicious men along her route, authorities said Friday.
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Virginia Tech workers and Virginia and West Virginia state police searched for the two men all day Thursday and into Friday morning.
The search sent residents scurrying for the security of their homes, some keeping their weapons nearby. Worried residents inundated dispatchers with reports of suspicious cars and people matching the escapees' descriptions.
Dispatchers and secretaries at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office received about 500 calls within 4 1/2 hours Thursday afternoon and evening.
It was hard to distinguish between legitimate calls of possible spottings and crank calls. One person dialled 911 from an Interstate 81 rest stop area just after the 11 p.m. television news to report the escapees were on Hibiscus Lane in McCoy.
Another woman reported seeing two sets of eyes staring back at her from a bush on Bobcat Lane.
Another person said his goats were acting nervously and that was a sure sign somebody suspicious was nearby.
One person called the sheriff's office to get some information, saying she'd heard there were three murderers on the loose.
"No, just two," Dawn Griffith said she told the lady before giving her some safety tips.
Virginia Tech locked its dormitories Thursday night an hour earlier than usual, at 11 p.m. It also brought in extra security, gave dormitory resident assistants descriptions of the suspects and sent electronic voice mail messages to all phones on campus.
"I don't think they were ever here," Sheriff Ken Phipps said Friday morning. "I couldn't figure out why two of these people would be out here in the country, separated. But we had to go on the assumption there was some possibility."
While police and residents were keeping a watchful eye in the New River Valley, West Virginia authorities believe the fugitives spent much of the week hiding in Fayette County. Then they forced the Rev. Billy Cornell, his wife and 13-year-old granddaughter to drive them from Ansted to Petersburg, said Sgt. Dale Payne of the West Virginia State Police.
Payne said the men approached the Methodist minister in his church about 3:15 p.m. Thursday with a gun "and he was told to cooperate."
Cornell was led behind the church to his home, where his wife and granddaughter were. All were ordered into a car, with Cornell driving, his wife in the passenger seat and the two men in the back seat with the girl, Payne said.
The family was unharmed and released about 8:30 p.m., but they did not report the incident until they ran out of gas in Rainelle about 1 a.m. Friday, Payne said.
"I don't know why they waited so long, but it sure didn't help matters as far as the investigation," he said. "It's strange and hard to understand."
Payne said Cornell's home was just outside an area where authorities established roadblocks Tuesday after a man searching for ginseng identified the escapees in woods near Ansted.
The escapees told Cornell they had spent Wednesday night in his church.
"They did exactly what we figured they would do," Payne said. "This was the only way they could get out of the area without being apprehended. . . . We were just fortunate it ended the way it did."
For Grant County residents, it was a nightmare revisited. Earlier in the week, a convenience store clerk and a couple were found slain, and police began seeking Hottle and Swick.
Swick and Hottle have been charged with killing Leon Miller, 25, and Donna Ours, 27, of Cabins, W.Va., on Monday.
They are also suspects in the fatal shooting Monday of Karen Jeffrey, 33, a 7-Eleven store clerk in Mineral County, W.Va. On Friday, Mineral County authorities charged the two men with first-degree murder in the Jeffrey case.
Swick walked away from the Charleston Work Release Center on Aug. 15, 10 days after Hottle escaped a Huttonsville Correctional Center work camp. Hottle was imprisoned for parole violations and grand larceny, while Swick was serving time for burglary and grand larceny.
by CNB