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

DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993                   TAG: 9308290170
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PETERSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

FUGITIVES' CAPTURE ENDS TOWN'S TERROR

Two fugitive cousins arrested on murder charges after a downtown gun battle with police are lucky to be alive, say residents of this quiet mountain community who kept their doors bolted and their guns close at hand while the pair was on the loose.

"Everybody in this town had loaded guns in their vehicles," said Jamie Ketterman, 21. "If they had seen them, they would have shot them and never thought twice about it."

Residents unaccustomed to big-city crime say they lived in fear for five days before police Friday captured Billy Joe Hottle, 20, and Craig Swick, 23, following a brief shootout at a car dealership.

"When they had them in the building, they should have shot them both," Ketterman said. "The boys have been nothing but trouble ever since they'd been here."

Life was upended here Monday when news quickly spread that a couple had been found shot to death in their home in nearby Cabins, while a convenience store clerk had also been killed in Keyser, about 35 miles north.

Swick and Hottle were charged Friday with three counts of first-degree murder each.

After spending several days in Fayette County 200 miles to the south, where police say they were hidden by Hottle's girlfriend, Bev Layton, the fugitives from prison surfaced in downtown Petersburg on Friday afternoon, police said.

Swick and Hottle were trying to get keys to a car in the garage of Petersburg Motor Co. when police surrounded the dealership.

Hottle tried to flee in a company pickup truck while holding mechanic Don Phares hostage, police said. Hottle was shot in the face and leg in a shootout with police and was in fair condition Saturday at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, authorities said.

Phares was wounded in the leg, but police said it was not clear if he was shot by Hottle or police. He was treated and released.

Swick, who surrendered after Hottle was shot, was held without bond Saturday in the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, said Cpl. J. Leisure.

Lt. David Plantz, head of the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigations, said Swick has said little since his arrest.

"I think he knows that he's a very fortunate young man that he didn't have his head blown off," Plantz told The Charleston Gazette.

by CNB