ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, May 7, 1996                   TAG: 9605070116
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: MARION

TUGGLE EXECUTION SET FOR JUNE 6

Smyth County Circuit Judge Charles H. Smith Jr. on Monday set a June 6 execution date for Lem Tuggle, the last surviving member of a six-inmate gang that pulled off the largest death-row escape in U.S. history.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Tuggle's death sentence April 3.

Tuggle was convicted of capital murder for the 1983 rape and killing of Jessie Geneva Havens in Smyth County. Havens, 52, and Tuggle had met at a dance. She was shot in the chest and thrown down an embankment.

The crime occurred four months after Tuggle was paroled from a sentence he was serving for the 1971 murder of a 17-year-old girl.

Tuggle and five other death-row inmates escaped from the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in 1984 after posing as guards. All six were recaptured within a month, and the five others have been executed.

- Associated Press

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