ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702100079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JON CAWLEY STAFF WRITER
THE NIGHT SHE WAS SLAIN, a 26-year-old Roanoke County mother of two had gone to her old boyfriend's house only to retrieve some belongings, said a man who witnessed the killing.
Lisa Sizemore pulled up to the house at 5745 Malvern Ave. about 10 p.m. Saturday with her boyfriend Doug Lakes and another friend. Lakes said they were there to retrieve furniture and clothes Sizemore had left in the Northwest Roanoke County house after she broke up with her previous boyfriend, Ronald Brooks Jr., in December.
Brooks, who had called earlier in the day, showed up at Lakes' home, where Sizemore was living, about 7 p.m. to tell Sizemore he was putting her belongings in the street and she should come pick them up.
When Sizemore got out of the truck alone and walked up to the single-story house, a man whom Lakes identified as Brooks was waiting for her. According to Lakes, Brooks said something to Sizemore, then shot her with a 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun.
Lakes said he and his friend ``tore off out of the driveway'' and called police from a convenience store. Lakes said he had feared he would be shot next because Brooks knew about the couple's relationship.
After shooting Sizemore, Roanoke County police say, Brooks turned a gun on himself.
Sizemore, 26, an employee of Diabetes Self Care at Celebration Station, died at the house. Brooks, 32 and unemployed, was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. Hospital personnel would not comment Sunday night on his condition.
Detective S.C. Sturgill said Brooks is expected to survive and that ``charges will be placed as soon as possible.'' Sturgill did not discuss the charges expected.
Police described the shooting as ``an ongoing domestic situation,'' but Sturgill would not say whether police had answered calls at the house before.
Several neighbors said police were often seen at the house but no one could remember seeing Brooks and Sizemore fighting.
A next-door neighbor who did not want to be identified said he has known Brooks since he was a child. ``They had a different lifestyle, so we didn't have much to do with them,'' he said of Brooks and Sizemore. ``Police were over there several times. They liked to party on the weekends. It would be quiet all week and then loud on the weekends.''
Lakes, who has known Brooks and Sizemore since high school, said Brooks could become abusive when he was drinking. ``I've seen him pull a gun on her [Sizemore] a few months ago,'' Lakes said. He said he didn't think Brooks was serious that time, though.
Lakes said Brooks had physically abused Sizemore, a mother of two boys, for some time. ``I knew Lisa for a long time and told her if she needed a place to stay to give me a holler. She contacted me in January and said she wanted me to help her get out.''
Sizemore had been living with Lakes since then in a relationship that had grown serious, he said.
``I feel the worst for her two sons,'' Lakes said.
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