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

DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994                   TAG: 9408170010
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                 LENGTH: Medium

4 BODIES FOUND; CITY'S 2ND MULTIPLE MURDER

One of the victims was awaiting trial on drug charges, a Norfolk television station reported.

The victims, who police said had been shot to death, were discovered about 9:30 a.m. by a man who arrived at the house and looked through a window when no one came to the door. He saw at least one of the bodies and then went to a neighbor's house to call police, said Mike Carey, a police spokesman.

The number of victims matches the city's worst multiple-slaying case on record. Those killings occurred just three weeks ago, shortly before midnight on June 30 at a neighborhood bar in another area of the city.

In that case, the owner of the Witchduck Inn, two of his employees and a patron were shot to death. A customer who came to the bar and found the front door locked discovered the bodies when he went to a back door. Police found the bar owner's 4-year-old son sleeping unharmed in a rear office.

Michael Claggett, 33, a regular at the bar, and Denise R. Holsinger, 29, a former bartender who had been fired from the Witchduck Inn, were arrested the next day and charged in those slayings, which police said was motivated by robbery.

In the latest deaths, police said they did not know of any motive. They would not disclose the locations of the bodies in the house. The bodies were taken to a medical examiner for autopsies.

``It's going to be a long, tedious investigation,'' said Lewis Thurston, another police spokesman.

WTKR-TV of Norfolk reported Friday evening that one of the victims, Clifton Harper, 19, was slated to stand trial in two weeks in a cocaine case.

Keywords:
FATALITY