THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160250
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 33 lines
Seven years after he was sentenced to 12 months in jail for running down and killing two tourists at the Oceanfront, a Henrico County man died in Richmond Wednesday after being shot in what may have been a drug deal gone bad.
John H. Harding III, 31, died at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals early Wednesday, police said. He had been shot in the head Tuesday, and his truck had crashed into a house after the shooting.
There have been no arrests in his slaying. The shooting occurred about 7:45 p.m. Tuesday in the 1000 block of Nelson St. in Richmond.
Harding was convicted in April 1990 in Virginia Beach of the hit-and-run deaths of two tourists: Florence White, 49, and Hattie Collins, 40, sisters from Arlington who had vacationed in Virginia Beach every summer for a decade.
That accident happened July 23, 1989, at Pacific Avenue and 11th Street. The women's bodies were thrown a half-block down Pacific Avenue by the impact. Both died shortly after.
Harding drove off, abandoned his truck on a side street and fled. He turned himself in to police hours later after his father, a Henrico sheriff's deputy, arrived and drove him to the 2nd Precinct station.
Police found a small bag of marijuana and a pipe bearing traces of crack cocaine in Harding's truck, but prosecutors were barred from presenting the drugs as evidence at Harding's trial because they were unable to prove drugs were a factor in the wreck.
Harding had a long record of drug and traffic violations.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC DRUG ARREST SHOOTING FATALITY