Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407250075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
The boy is charged with capital murder, three counts of first-degree murder, robbery and four counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, said Lou Thurston, a Virginia Beach police spokesman.
Thurston said police believe the motive for the slayings was drug-related robbery. He declined to say what led police to the suspect, who was arrested shortly before 9 p.m. The boy was not identified.
If tried and convicted as an adult, the teen-ager could be sentenced to die in the state's electric chair.
He likely will be arraigned in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Monday, Thurston said.
The killings were the city's second quadruple slaying this year. They occurred only about three weeks after four people were killed at a Virginia Beach bar.
Killed Friday were Evelyn Ward, 63; Thelma Harper, believed to be in her mid-30s; Clifton Harper, 19; and Robert Ward, 14. Thelma Harper was Clifton Harper's mother and Evelyn Ward's niece. Robert Ward was Evelyn Ward's grandson.
All the victims except Robert Ward lived in the home, police said. However, Thurston said investigators believe that the boy recently had been staying at the house.
Harper was scheduled to stand trial Aug. 9 in Virginia Beach Circuit Court on three charges of distributing cocaine.
A man staying in the Ward home, who was identified only as Mike in a story published Saturday by The Virginian-Pilot, told police he found the bodies after returning from errands.
Thurston declined to further identify Mike because he is a witness in the case.
Mike said he last saw the family alive when he left early Friday morning and discovered their bodies when he returned about 9:30 a.m.
He said he went to a next-door neighbor, Alexander Smith, 21, and told him about the killings. Smith went to the house, where he said he saw Clifton Harper's body on a living-room chair and Thelma Harper's body on a couch. He said Thelma Harper apparently had been shot in the head.
Smith told police he did not hear any gunfire.
Police used a warrant to search Smith's home Friday and arrested him about 5 p.m. on charges of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm while having cocaine. Detectives also confiscated a gun from Smith's residence.
Smith was being held in the Virginia Beach jail pending a bond hearing Monday.
Evelyn Ward lived in the small, one-story house, just across the street from an elementary school, since 1965.
The slayings bring to 28 the number of homicides in the city so far this year. In 1991, police investigated a record 29 slayings.
The record-setting pace was boosted June 30 with the killing of four people at a neighborhood bar in another area of the city.
Michael D. Clagett, 33, a regular at the Witchduck Inn, and Denise R. Holsinger, 29, a former bartender who had been fired from the bar, were arrested the next day and charged in those slayings, which police said were motivated by robbery.
by CNB