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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 27, 1994                   TAG: 9408290027
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MAN WHO SHOT OFFICER WAS DRUNK

A man who killed himself in his South Roanoke apartment after wounding a Roanoke police officer in May had been drinking, an autopsy showed.

Kevin Scott Darling, 26, had an "intoxicating" level of alcohol in his blood, said Dr. William Massello, assistant deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia.

Darling shot himself in the head, Massello said.

The way police and Darling's employer reconstructed what happened, Darling apparently took money from the safe of the Franklin Road convenience store where he was on night duty and then left the business unstaffed.

When the manager of the Crown American Express store came in around 6 a.m. on May 28, a Saturday, he found the place unlocked and the safe open and worried that something had happened to Darling.

Two police officers went to Darling's Longview Avenue apartment. When they didn't get an answer at his apartment, they knocked on a neighbor's door to ask if she had seen the man.

While they talked to the woman, police heard a noise from Darling's apartment, so they knocked on that door again. Darling then emerged and began firing, wounding Officer J.L. Goad in the right leg.

Darling then stopped shooting and went back into his apartment.

Other residents in the complex were evacuated before police finally forced their way into Darling's home and found him dead and a suicide message on his computer screen.

Crown American recovered "some" of the missing money, said James Sharper, territory manager.

Goad was back at work after nine days, police said.