ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602210052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
HIS EX-WIFE was found dead last week in Botetourt County, and James Short was himself found dead in his bed Tuesday.
James Short took this week off from work to face his anguish over the death of his ex-wife.
"He loved that girl desperately," his grandmother, Elizabeth Campbell, said. "He was suicidal after they found her."
Rebecca Jean Short - who had been missing for 11 weeks - was found dead Thursday alongside the James River near Buchanan. Authorities believe she may have been murdered.
James Short left his two daughters, ages 4 and 14, with his grandmother for a few days. By Monday, though, "he was calm and in pretty good shape," Campbell said. "He said he wanted his girls back."
But Tuesday his daughters and the rest of his family were hit with their second terrible shock in five days: James Short is dead.
His teen-age daughter found him in his bed and called the rescue squad at 6:45 a.m. He was pronounced dead at his home on 19th Street in Northeast Roanoke.
Police say it may have been carbon monoxide poisoning from a kerosene heater. Or he could have died from natural causes; friends say Short had a history of seizures. Police also are investigating the possibility of suicide, but at this point they don't see any connection between his death and his wife's apparent homicide.
The cause of his death will not be known until lab tests are completed.
But Elizabeth Campbell thinks she may know what killed him. "I think it was grief as much as anything that killed him."
The two parents' deaths have left the people who know them reeling and worrying about their two daughters, Samantha, 4, and Cindy, 14.
"My heart aches for those little girls," Campbell said. "The two children just adored Jimmy. That baby crawled all over him - climbed him like he was a ladder. She'd run up to him and just jump on him."
James and Jean Short divorced several years ago. But they continued to live together off and on. "To him, she was his wife and the mother of his children," Campbell said. "When she was home, they lived together as man and wife. ... She loved him as much as she did any man, I guess. And she did love her girls."
Botetourt County Sheriff Reed Kelly said Jean Short often stayed in the home with her ex-husband and their daughters during the week, then would leave on the weekends.
James Short told investigators that he last saw her Dec. 1. She was last seen with some people along Williamson Road in Roanoke before dawn Dec. 2, Kelly said.
Thursday night, two men looking for aluminum cans found her body in some brush near the James. Kelly said she probably had been dead for weeks, and it appeared she had been hit in the head several times.
Police began talking with people who knew her. In such causes, it's standard procedure to focus on ex-husbands and others close to the victim. In addition, Kelly said, there were reports of previous violence in the relationship.
Short was interviewed and took a polygraph test, but "at this point he was not considered a suspect," Kelly said.
James Short, 37, had worked the past 15 years at The Roanoke Times, as a janitor and, more recently, as a paper handler and lift operator in the newspaper's pressroom. Off the job, he liked to camp and fish.
He'd been through a lot of tough times. In 1979 he slipped on some rocks at Twin Falls in Floyd County and plunged 300 feet. The fall blinded him in one eye and left him prone to seizures.
"Jimmy's never been the same since his fall," his grandmother said. "He broke just about every bone in his body."
"I'd rather not talk about it," he said in a 1984 interview for the newspaper's company newsletter. "I have reminders every day."
He said he'd never thought much about getting married until the accident. Afterward, he married Rebecca Jean Wright. "It all worked out, I reckon - I got a lovely kid out of the deal," Short said in 1984, when his oldest daughter was 2.
"He loved his kids and did everything he could for them," said Richard Goad, a friend and co-worker. "He called them every day from work, lunchtime or whenever."
Another co-worker, Ken Via, talked to Short on the phone Monday night. Short was fixing dinner for his daughters. He seemed OK, Via said, but he still was depressed about his ex-wife's death.
Elizabeth Campbell got a call early Tuesday to come and get her great-granddaughters because her grandson was dead.
Rescue workers smelled kerosene through the house and tested for carbon monoxide in Short's bedroom. The level was higher than normal, but not enough to be fatal. However, the door had been opened and the room ventilated by the time the test was made.
Short's daughters are staying with their mother's sister. "They have enough family on our side and their side - we'll take care of them," Campbell said. "Everybody will."
As for herself, Campbell said, "I don't want to start crying again. I thought I'd cried it out, but I don't think you ever do."
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Short in 1984. KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB